It is good to see that the Mayor chose to meet with those camping in the woods across the road from the News. He and council have decided that the policy of forcing them to move, when they have no place to move to, does not make sense. So they are talking to the homeless who are camped there, to city staff, each other and members of the community to come up with a better solution. In the meantime they plan to leave people camped there in peace. My understanding is that the City will be evaluating what would be the best location to designate for the homeless to set up shelter on. Should the current location be judged to be unacceptable and the people camped there asked to move that is fine, as long as a location has been chosen for them to move to.

The good thing is that, as a place to start addressing the social problems of homelessness and poverty, this is a relatively neat and tidy issue to resolve. It always builds confidence when you can start off with a ‘doable’ situation. My hopes and goals are to take advantage of the current dialogue to get the City to see, think about and address some of the pressing other needs the homeless and poor have. As strange as it may sound at this time of the year to be thinking of this, winter is coming and we need to start planning and preparing now for the coming wet and cold. While the City is seeking to give the homeless who are camping a place so they can get some stability into their lives, it is also the time to think about what we need to put in place to help them transition out a camp and into society. These same facilities and services will help in addressing the needs of all the other homeless (do not forget that those at the camp are only a small part of the homeless population of Abbotsford). If thought out, planned and implemented properly these services and the facilities that deliver them should hopefully also be able to address some of the needs of the working poor and those living in poverty in our community.

As I said it is good they started with a relatively easy task because these pressing needs are more complex and addressing them is going to be tricky. Not impossible, but tricky. Requiring flexibility, a willingness to experiment, a willingness to fail, superb people skills, mediation among all the varied interests and parties involved … and many others as well. But I feel the three biggest things needed to successfully begin to tackle this situation is stubbornness, Ideas and lots of help and support form the community. This is not a nice easy situation to address, with nice easy solutions. It is going to be complex and messy. At times it is only by putting your head down and plodding on, by bulling your way through the obstacles that you can continue to move forward. Complex, messy, no easy solutions – these types of problems and situations demand interesting and new ideas, if people actually knew what to do … but we don’t and need Ideas. This need for new approaches and ideas is one of the things needed from the community. We need the community to get behind and support the work to be done to begin to reduce homelessness in Our Community.

I see signs that now is the time for taking action. The Mayor and Council are starting to look at addressing the homeless camp issue. As they learn more about the situation and what it means to be homeless, they will become aware of all the other needs that require attention to help not just those at the camp but all the homeless. Through the council we can reach out to the community, the churches, the businesses and community organizations and groups. The most heartening sign that now is a time for DOING not talking is the reaction of the citizens of Abbotsford to the picture in the Saturday April 8, 2006 Abby News of the Bylaw (law unto themselves) officers taking down the signs. I have heard many reports of people stopping by to drop of food, clothing and bedding. It seems that the community awareness of the homeless as people in need of their help is growing. With the overwhelming need of the community’s help and support in working on reducing the homeless on the streets of Abbotsford, this generosity is a sign of the community willing to come on board. For we need the community to provide political pressure on the politicians (municipal, provincial and federal) to act. We need new and innovative ideas from the community about how we tackle the many and varied needs. We need the people to get their churches, organizations, clubs, friends, family, family pets and companies behind this push. Yes, we will need financial support. But just as or even more important is the community involvement through volunteering their time, ideas, food, clothing, bedding even a location to work out of. As I said this is a complex problem with many ways for the members of the community to contribute to address, bit by bit and piece by piece, the problem labelled homelessness – and hopefully have a positive effect on some of the needs of the working poor and l those living in poverty.

So let us come together and start. Besides I badly need to do some laundry and am quite willing to drag people, kicking and screaming, into getting a facility that would provide me the ability to do laundry. But what that facility should also include is for another (the next) time.

“Are we serious about social planning or is this lip service?” asked Coun. Lynne Harris. “I would like to see some real action taken”

Only one person out of all the members of council and the city administration seems able to see the Real World and what is taking place on the streets and in the social structure of our City. In the same article about the social planners report the reporter writes: “but there will be no quick fix to cure some of the problems highlighted.” Evidence, based on the experience that the city uses lip service not action to address social problems, suggests that no real actions will be taken in spite of councillor Harris’s expressed desire to actually act on these social problems.

Since last year the refrain from the City has been ‘we will act as soon as the Social Planner reports on what we need to do.’ I do not know about you but to me this says the Social Planner was suppose to actually do some planning, not write a report with a long list of social ills and conclude this pressing issue needs more procrastinating than the years of no action, ‘DOH, what problem?’ the city has already wasted in permitting the situation to grow and fester into a mountain. One can only wonder how many more ‘Planning Reports’, how many years of ‘study’, how much more lip service and what other excuses the ‘recommended’ Social Sustainability Advisory Committee will come up with over the coming years and decades for taking no action.

Social planner Jodi-Lyn Newnham did get one thing correct when she wrote “What will differentiate Abbotsford from other communities is how we choose to respond.” As was clear from the statistics cited on the CBC Canada Now report of April 5, 2005 about the website www.homelessinabbotsford.com and the social situation in Abbotsford, all other cities are achieving some successes in addressing their social ills. Of course they are actually facing their responsibilities and needs and taking action on them. Abbotsford has definitely differentiated itself from other communities in choosing to respond by sitting around paying lip service to the problem instead of acting and improving the social situation as other communities have done. Something for the City council and administration, together with the citizens they represent, to be proud of?

I was sent a copy of the ‘pamphlet’ that Mr. Teichroeb claimed was given to the homeless as they were being forced to relocate in order that the city could ‘clean up’ the site they were occupying. Mr. Jim Wright forwarded it to me after he had received it from the City Manager of Bylaws.

1. This is a revised letter. In the original I failed to note the May 2005 revision date. I also could not find the Park Inn Hotel when I searched for Hotels and Motels in Abbotsford. I mistakenly thought that perhaps it was one of the hotels the city had earlier torn down, but being uncomfortable with making an assumption I widened my search (experience is that assumptions can cause problems, so I went back to widen the search in hopes of having fact not assumption) Further research turned up at 2509 Pauline Street: Park Inn Cold Beer & Wine Store; Park Inn Hotel – listed as a Bed & Breakfast; Station Pub & Restaurant. I am not sure what use this is to the homeless not of the wisdom/reason of including a wine and beer store and a pub on a list that is suppose to be of assistance in overcoming homelessness.

2. “General Housing Services”. I would never have considered a Motel to be “general housing services”. Calling a Motel “general housing services” is meaningless gibberish of the first order. Besides at $66.00 a night, if you can afford Super 8, you can afford housing in Abbotsford.

3. Should any readers of this letter have the misfortune to need to seek shelter and the much greater misfortune to be depending on the city for help and/or information in finding shelter (or help) do not waste time seeking the “William Booth Emergency Shelter” on Morey Street. Not there. And of course the Salvation Army Share & Care Centre has relocated.

4. Since this came from Gordon Ferguson it would appear that Mr. Teichroeb is not alone as a member of the city administration who lacks the ability to apply intelligent thought to the homeless situation. Why else would one be handing out an out-dated John Howard Society pamphlet (for newly released prisoners) to the homeless (note: I have not been able to locate a relocated homeless person who actually was handed this pamphlet). One would reasonable expect that city officials should be aware of major changes (front page reports in the local papers) in the city, such as the move of the Salvation Army.

Re: City’s social needs identified, documented

Your headline concerning the travesty of a report from the Social Planner is misleading in that it suggests that there is more than fluff and filler in the report. The report contains nothing of a definitive nature. It does contain the claim of extensive study and consultation from which no ideas or recommendations apparently emerged. This total lack of any substance also means that the articles closing line: “More details will be published in Thursday’s edition of the Abbotsford News” is pointless since there are no details to report. (Details: to report or relate minutely or in particulars; to name or state explicitly.) For months the city refrain has been: ‘we cannot act until the Social Planner reports what it is that we should be doing’. What were the brilliant plans and ideas brought forth from the Social Planner?

That the following recommendations proposed in “Abbotsford Cares: Agenda for Social Planning in the City of Abbotsford”, be approved:

1) organize a Social Sustainability Advisory Committee;
2) develop a Social Development Master Plan;
3) develop an Affordable and Accessible Housing Strategy; and
4) respond to opportunities for city involvement in social development

It appears that the best plan they could come up with is that the City administration continue to sit around doing nothing except claim they are doing something and trying to appear to be taking action to fool the public. The final line “respond to opportunities for city involvement in social development,” seems to suggest that the only hope for addressing any of the City’s pressing social needs and problems lies outside the City administration. Outwardly it appears the City’s plan is to sit around until citizens or groups begin to take action on their own, giving the City a chance to “respond to opportunities.” Unfortunately, experience suggests that any response from the City is more than likely going to be negative and add to the problem(s) being addressed.

Looking at it, this entire episode resembles nothing so much as a Farce (A ludicrous, empty show; a mockery), which would be humourous if the consequences were not so disastrous for those who so desperately need help. Seeking Leadership and Action from City leaders and administration, the citizens madly treading water in an effort to merely survive, were instead tossed an anchor. Moving this travesty from Farce to Tragedy.