Category Archives: Municipal

Consider, Municipal

Hamdicapped Access – a lot to think about.

Leave a comment

The Access Abbotsford community forum left me considering whether awareness is a necessary and important part of the foundation on which you build a community. Leaving me mulling over the idea that part of being a good citizen is becoming aware, truly aware – not just thinking one is aware.

I used to see a curb cut at an intersection and assume that makes it accessible to wheelchairs etc. It turns out that is not necessarily true. Is the cut wide enough, positioned in the right place, flush with the street?

It was pointed out that that it does not matter how accessible the city is if you cannot get out of your home. The gentleman making this point lives on a bus route but unfortunately it is a bus route that not all the buses used for that route are wheelchair usable.

Thinking about this it occurs to me that partial accessibility is not really a viable or acceptable concept in making a community accessible to the disabled. The business or location destination being accessible and living on a bus route with wheelchair access does no good if it is not possible to get from the bus stop to you destination.

The City of Abbotsford needs to make accessibility a priority, in fact the priority in any situation that affects accessibility.

An example or three: Any development or redevelopment should be evaluated with respect to accessibility and be approved only when accessibility is maximized. Work such as that currently along South Fraser Way between Bourquin and Gladwin (a major area) needs to be evaluated and designed so that improving accessibility is part of the work to be performed. With something as simple as road repaving, what standards do we need to set for the work to ensure accessibility is maintained and enhanced?

A small difference between the new road surface and the concrete curb cut-out is a small step for me but a major barrier to a wheelchair. I heard today that John Van Dongen found out that these types of little discrepancies can dump you out of a wheelchair.

The City of Abbotsford needs to make accessibility and inclusion a priority not just in words but in deeds.

I believe that a major part of this requires consulting the disabled, seeking their advice and judgment, and then acting on that input. It is clear our focus and evaluation cannot be based upon what the standards or current practices are but upon what actually works. It was made obvious to me today that to achieve accessibility we cannot use standards set by people who do not have the expertise you only get by living with and experiencing the challenges the disabled face every day.

As citizens we need to increase our awareness (www.accessabbotsford.ca) and to instruct our Council and City Staff that accessibility takes precedence in their planning and decisions on any matter that will have, or if properly thought out can have, an effect on accessibility. That their actions must increase accessibility.

Federal, Municipal, Provincial

The number of hungry Increasing.

Leave a comment

Driving back from Mission on Saturday I caught the $13 dollar BMW radio ad. For kids $13 is babysitting or allowance, for an adult – pocket money … or for $13 per day you can drive a BMW.

They missed an important $13 fact. For many people $13 is their weekly food budget; for some $13 is their entire monthly food budget.

These thoughts arose Saturday because I had swung by a dinner served for the homeless and hungry in Mission. The woman who is the driving force behind the dinner was surprised and a little distressed because all the food was gone so quickly and so early.

This was the biggest turnout she has ever had at one of her dinners. There are more and more people coming to eat who have housing but with the increases in housing and other components of the cost of living they have no money to feed themselves hamburger or even hotdogs, much less fresh vegetables or fresh fruit.

All the food for these meals is by donation (Tara 604-855-5839) and the preparation, cooking, serving and cleanup is by volunteers.

I swung by to talk because I wanted to ask if they were seeing the same increase in numbers and demand for food to feed the hungry as we are experiencing in Abbotsford. As I said – they are.

Increasing numbers of people are well past recommended guidelines for what percentage of your income should go to cover housing costs, with more and more spending 90% and over to pay for a place to live.

Our streets overflow with homeless and increasing numbers of people are just hanging on to housing. All these people are hungry and in need of food.

Please keep this in mind and contribute when you can to our local food banks and/or those people and groups who prepare and serve meals for the hungry. Take time to ask politicians at all levels of government why in a great country like Canada so many are going to bed hungry.

Municipal

Hedonistic Sloth.

Leave a comment

Leq’á:mel warns off drug dealers; Close down junkie condo, says writer; Addict spoil park for experience; from the Times of July 11.

We have become spoiled children demanding instant gratification and seeking to do things the easy way. The addicts and dealers must go NOW and if the park is the problem – pave it over and make it a parking lot, problem solved.

We are building our society, our social structures out of twigs and straw because that way is Fast and Easy. It is not surprising then that these structures collapse and are blown away by the winds of challenge or difficulty or the big bad wolf.

To survive and deal with the storm winds of social ills and social problems we must build our social structures, our social support programs out of bricks and mortar.

This course will be neither fast nor easy, but it will provide a solid base to build a healthy, thriving society upon; a Society that seeks to deal with its problems in a wise manner.

There is a reason so many of our fables and tales stress spending the time and effort needed to do it right.

Federal, Municipal, Provincial

Flummoxed.

Leave a comment

There is a property in Abbotsford that has two underground oil tanks buried on it, probably left from the time in the 1940 – 50s when it was a gas station. The property is so contaminated that not only do you smell the oil, you taste in your throat.

It sits on the corner of Sumas Way and 4th Avenue just north of the Canada/USA Huntington border crossing. To improve traffic flow across the border major road construction was done involving 4th Avenue.

As a result of this work, every time it rains, this corner property is flooded 5 – 15 cm deep in rain water runoff. The rainwater is contaminated when it runs onto the property, leaving an oily sheen on everything it touches.

Unfortunately for the environment and the neighbours most of these contaminated flood waters do not remain on the property in question but runoff onto the neighbouring properties and into the ditches spreading contaminated water over a wide area.

Governments at the municipal, provincial and federal levels have all been informed of this problem. The result? Nothing. Nada. Zip. No government or government agency at any level seems interested in taking action to remedy this spreading environmental pollution.

Since governments had failed to respond, much less act, a number of well known environmental non-profits were contacted, informed of what was occurring and asked for help/advice. The result? Nothing.

I was not totally shocked when governments at all levels tried to avoid the cost of dealing with this contamination, leaving it to some other level of government to take appropriate action – and get stuck with the bill. But these from organizations that are about protection the environment?

I suppose there is just not enough potential for publicity and/or fundraising in this small environmental contamination. But still one would think …

The property sits there ignored while every time it rains the surrounding environment becomes more contaminated and the contamination spreads further and further.

I am fresh out of ideas on how to get this contamination dealt with; it just leaves me totally flummoxed.

Homeless, Municipal

An Anonymous letter writer shares:

Leave a comment

Below is a letter sent to me via www.homelessinabbotsford.com by Anonymous.
What the letter has to say is important as more and more citizens are finding themselves in Anonymous’s circumstances. It is also important because it paints a very different picture of who the homeless or those teetering on the edge of homelessness are, a very different picture than that most people carry in their minds.

I have included my comments in brackets in hopes the Anonymous writer visits and has an opportunity to read them and know she is not alone, there are far to many of us in similar circumstances who understand and who are suffering the same indifferent fate at the hands of the government and fellow citizens.

Since the letter was Anonymous and I could not ask permission to share it I have edited out any references I felt may contain clues to the writer. Otherwise it is included as written. I have highlighted the letter in blue to make it clear which is the letter contents and which are my comments.

Many people are a month or so away from homelessness and nothing will save them but a ‘miracle’. I can testify personally to this after over a year of 24/7 job hunting in Abbotsford which yielded zero results. (I’m highly qualified and experienced in corporate communications and office administration and ran my own successful business for almost 8 years; too qualified, was the excuse trotted out if they bothered to respond at all, but not qualified enough for other things.

(I too have been told I am “over qualified”, an incredibly frustrating experience – especially when my having dealt with mental health issues makes them very nervous about hiring me for those positions I am qualified for.)

I, too, am staring homelessness in the face. I am trying to move to Vancouver (where I know no one) but where there are more job opportunities and I think possibly more support. Abbotsford, a closed society, is no place for the desperate. To say it’s scary is an understatement.

I, for one, haven’t a clue how to manage being homeless, in Abbotsford or elsewhere. I have a small income, enough to feed me and buy necessary toiletries, etc., but not enough for rent, hydro, phone, internet — the necessities of life which allow you to look for work intelligently and to actually report for work, once hired, looking and acting like a professional. And you won’t be allowed in a supermarket if you’re dirty and stinking because you couldn’t do laundry or bathe, so where do you turn …

(I have repeatedly posed those types of questions to the Ministry (and minister) of Employment and Income Assistance and gotten no intelligent answers. Perhaps a more accurate name for the Ministry would be – Employment Barriers and Inadequate Income Assistance)

I certainly cannot be only one in THAT predicament, so I think words of wisdom on how to be ‘successfully’ homeless would be well received by many.

(You definitely are not alone in your situation as I have met many people suffering the same government indifference and lack of help.)

The ranks of the homeless are going to swell exponentially. It is unfortunate that so many are mental patients and/or addicted to drugs or alcohol, because they have little to no hope and make the whole situation even more terrifying for those of us who are not.

(While they may make the possibility of homelessness more terrifying for you, they are also victims of lack of care by their country and government – and from their fellow citizens for not demanding that the government intelligently and with will and intent address homelessness, mental health and addiction. It has been demonstrated in other very similar jurisdictions (Portland and Seattle) that all that is required to help the addicted and mentally ill is realistic and intelligent decisions. It is the waste of human lives and the current immense waste of government funds, funds that could build the system of care needed to deal with these social ills, that has me advocating for these people (many of who are friends).

NOTE: any system that has the capacity to help those most in need will have the capacity to help people in less dire circumstances.

The rest, those of us who would like to work and live decently, need somehow to band together and cooperate with each other, watching each other’s backs, so to speak, and forming a mini-community somehow, each bringing something to the table others lack, and perhaps somehow getting people in the group working and living in decent housing. Just a thought and probably an impossibility.

(Nothing is impossible has to be ones mantra if you are going to bring about positive change. This is a free country, by definition we can bring about change. We just need more sane behaviour from people. If you are complaining about government all the time why keep voting for the same old parties? Repeating the same action over and over hoping for a different outcome is the AA definition of insanity. People can choose who ever they want to represent them. Maybe it is time that rather than stick with the same old choices citizens banded together to get other independent people to run for office and /or to exercise their right to “write in” whoever they want to represent them.)

(If you feel such a group of people looking for work is needed to cover each others backs and help each other – create it. Co-operative ventures have a long and distinguished history in Canada.)

There would be only opposition from the powers that be in Abbotsford however, so better to find out what’s available in more progressive cities like Vancouver or Kamloops.

(While I agree that Abbotsford is hide bound and continues to behave as though it were a small country town, remember that the provincial government is miserably failing to meet its Duty of Care to those citizens finding themselves in your circumstances and in need of Assistance – not more and higher Barriers. Remember that in November you, all the citizens of Abbotsford will have your chance to send the current council home (taking away their part-time salaries that are higher than many citizens earn full time) and replacing them with competent people with caring and vision for all citizens and Abbotsford’s future)

(Whatever you do, don’t give up and let them win – remember the best revenge is a life well lived.)