Category Archives: Consider

Consider, Municipal

Statistic – meaningful or empty of meaning?

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One of our city councilors sent an email asking the source of the statement that Abbotsford has the highest per capital median income. The coucilor cited a chart: Median total income, by family type, by census metropolitan area (All census families) showing Abbotsford ranking well below number one. I asked if going with a family chart when the donations were on an individual basis was proper.

I also acknowledged that due to my current homelessness I do not have access to my computer and the files on it, further my written files and notes are in storage with the computer. All I have is a workbook full of interesting data points. I do know that the data I was working with originally was in a much more “raw” or detailed format/state, but lacking access to my files I cannot quantify matters at this time.

Recognize that the experience of being homeless is one of the reasons I have serious questions about the generousity in this City. It is also why actions, not words or wasting time in self congratulations, is a priority from my point of view

Checking later I found the councilor had sent an email with a chart of individual median incomes. In reviewing the data in the chart sent to me by the councilor I was struck by all the qualifiers and quantifiers applied to arrive at the data in the form it was presented in the chart. In thinking about this list and its qualifiers and quantifiers I decide my pool ponderings had a large degree of truth to them.

I had gone to the pool after the original exchange of emails. The way my mind works it was unable not to ponder the questions raised by the councilor and the concepts of donations, median, individual income etc (and don’t you wish our politicians and leaders also could not avoid spending time thinking about questions raised and related questions/ideas?). For instance median means middle. You stack all the donations up and the one that is in the middle is the median. Many people confuse average with median. Which had me asking why are they using median instead of average? I spent all 2000 meters, showering and dressing contemplating the question of the meaning of the median donation and what it signified.

What does the median imcome of a population have to do with the median donations? The median donation is decided only using the donations themselves. Does it not follow that in determining a median income level we should only be considering the median incomes of those who gave donations? What about the question of how many donors were included in determing the median donation? There are very different implications if median of one is composed of 5 donors and the other of 5,000 donors. Can you compare Abbotsford with a 2006 census population of 123, 864 to Toronto with a 2006 census population of 2,503,281?

So at 1:30 AM as I mull over all these and the other thoughts/questions I am left wondering about what if anything this idea of median donations tells us or if it has any meaning at all. I can think of many other measures I would want to know in determining the most generous city in Canada. I am left with the conclusion that median donation is pretty much a null value point, meaningless other than giving the city of Abbotsford bragging rights and city politicians another excuse to hide behind in regards to taking no action on social issues such as poverty, homelessness and affordable housing.

What a statistic really means, or if it really has any meaning at all needs careful thought. It is why I recommend “How to Lie with Statistics”, Darrell Huff’s perennially best-selling introduction to statistics for the general reader.

I wiah to underscore my original assertion that this median donation number does not reflect the reality on the streets of Abbotsford where more families, children and seniors depend on charitable organizations and people for food, clothing and other necessities, where the streets become home to increasing numbers of homeless daily and adults, children and seniors go to sleep each night hungry.

If in fact Abbotsford is the most generous city in the country where do all the dollars go? Because being homeless and looking around Abbotsford it is clear the dollars are not going to help neighbours in need of help and other worthy causes.

Consider, Homeless, Poverty

Convenient concern for the homeless and poor.

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“Where was your concern for our low-income families then”?

This comment from a recent newspaper column took me back to a very similar thought I had while reading the editorial pages of all the local papers and finding letter after letter denouncing slots because “they are hard on/bad for the poor”. I was left sadly shaking my head at such blatantly self-serving morally objectionable behaviour.

I do mean to christen as immoral those who are concerned for those in need only when it is convenient or serves their self-interest and ignore those in need when it could inconveniently required effort or even (shudder) some small sacrifice or there is no self-interest to be served by being concerned for the well-being of the poor.

Immorality: something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction: the social evils of poverty and injustice (American Heritage Dictionary).

Week in and week out papers were filled with letters about how bad for the poor slots would be, a vast outpouring of concern for the poor to the papers and to council. Before or after the slots debate?

Precisely.

Consider, Homeless

No showers for you!

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In its continuing quest to attract a better class of clientele, the right sort of people to bestow charity on, the pancake breakfast discontinued showers and had very little in the way of men’s clothing Saturday October 13 while continuing the policy of no longer sending the bus around to give a ride to those in need of a big hot breakfast.

I suppose I could cite scripture and verse about how Christ would feel about this judgment of who is worthy of charity and about denying charity to those in need, but what is the point? It is clear from their actions that the institution that has put on this pancake breakfast for the needy over the past years has become an institution about religion and not about spirituality.

Be clear I have no quarrel with them wanting to reach out to another group of people in need. But my spirituality cries out that this should have been done by adding another pancake breakfast, not denying an established relationship with another group of people, undeniably in need of showers, haircuts, clean presentable clothing and a hearty pancake breakfast.

Anyone in need is “the right sort” to deliver charity to.

Consider

Love is a selfless emotion.

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As I walked past the television an advertisement for the Alanon/Alateen Family Groups came on. This organization is about helping the families and children of alcoholism and addiction get healthy.

In recovering my own mental health I have come to an appreciation how much how we think affects our behaviour. I know that even if there had been a magic pill to cure my mental illness, taking it would have changed nothing. Having lived with the illness so long my thinking, my thought patterns, had become warped. “Curing” the illness would have accomplished nothing because I would have continued to think and act in the warped ways I had learned.

I am an adult child of alcoholism; I grew up in a household with an alcoholic parent. Children learn from their parents, are directly influenced by the environment they grow up in. I learned lots of bad ways of thinking, acquired a multitude of “-isms” that influenced and ruled my life and behaviours. The interaction between the “stinking thinking” I learned in my home life and my mental illness proved devastating, eventually consuming my life, myself and resulting in homelessness.

Recovery has been an interesting journey of learning, self discovery, growth and change. A significant part of my recovery has been to learn about and deal with the effects that being raised in a household with alcoholism had on my ways of thinking and perceiving the world around me. This knowledge has given me a keen appreciation of just how important it is to acknowledge and deal with the effects alcoholic or addiction have on children raised in that environment.

With the path my life has taken over the past several years I have a keen awareness of the extent that alcoholism and addiction exist in our society. Couple that with the experience and knowledge of the effects alcoholism and addiction have on children and I am left wondering why the local Alateen meeting is not overflowing with the children that simple mathematics tells us there are in need of help in dealing with and recovery from the effects alcoholism and addiction have had on their young lives and minds.

When I posed this question to an Alateen group I got some interesting and thought provoking answers. There is of course a thread of denial, of various forms and degrees, running through the “reasons” for parents not insisting their children seek out Alateen.

The “I am alright now and therefore everyone else will be or is” syndrome, ignoring the reality that you getting help to recover in no way helps those affected by your behaviour to recover from the effects of that behaviour. We are speaking of real life, not a fairy tale land of make believe and live happily ever after.

There is guilt, embarrassment and shame. Perfectly understandable human reactions, but not acceptable as excuses for not taking the actions you should.

You only compound the guilt when you let it prevent you form acting as you should. Those affected by your behaviour should be at the top of your amends list; especially children for your behaviours will have life long consequences for them – if you do not act to help them recovery healthy behaviours. You cannot change the past, you need to let it go or you will find yourself anchored to the past and to bad behaviours from your past. As uncomfortable as it maybe or may make you feel the amends you need to make is to help people recover from the effect your behaviour has had on them – including mentally and spiritually.

You need to deal with shame and embarrassment in the same manner as quilt, and as with guilt a major part of truly healing yourself is to help those your behaviour wounded to heal themselves. Shame and embarrassment – secrets, and we know you are as sick as your secrets. Secrets can be so very poisonous and the only true way to deal with them is to accept you behaviours and the results of those behaviours, acknowledging them, making amends as needed and cutting them free behind you so they do not poison the future.

Fear of what the kids will say and share about themselves, family and YOU. They will share what they need to share to get well – live with it. Groups such as AA, Alanon and Alateen only really work when one is able to share the truth and in a metaphysical and indefinable way – what you need to share or someone else needs to hear. Afraid they will speak of your insane behaviour? Get over it – and yourself.

Alateen is not about the parents, it is about letting the kids get healthy both mentally and spirituality. Non-sane behaviour is one of the consequences of alcoholism and addiction. Parenting is about doing the best you can in raising your children. Your past behaviour is just that – past and nothing you do will change that past nor make it cease to exist.

You can change the future. If you have any doubt about how important that is for your children, just ask any Adult Child of Alcoholism how important they know it is. There are good reasons that mental health professionals study the effect being raised in a home with alcoholism or addiction has and continues to have on children into their adult lives – and the lives of their children. There are many books and studies on how crippling and devastating be raised in alcohol, addiction or other unhealthy circumstances are on children and their lives.

If you love your children or grandchildren freely and without reservation and they have been affected by alcohol or addiction – get them to Abbotsford’s Alateen meeting. As an after word let me say that if a group or meeting would like to hear this message from the horse’s mouth – I know an Alateen or two who would be willing to speak – just be sure you really want to hear what they have to say.

Consider, Homeless

A Reply – to a comment.

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This is a reply to a discussion I had with someone commenting on one of my articles.

The complete denial of reality contained in your words “no freaking way am I gonna give a handout or support a handout for these slackers” serves to highlight why we continue be plagued by the problems of homelessness and addiction, not to mention so many other issues.

You are already spending tens of thousands of dollars on the homeless and those suffering the scourge of addiction- in the area of $50,000 per person on the streets. Once you begin to arrest and incarcerate people the cost per person doubles, then triples. If you doubt that I refer you to the government of BC website where you can find all the relevant costing data.

Perhaps your anger is such that you are completely happy to continue spending $$$ hundreds of thousands, $$$ millions per person and continuing this behaviour year in and year out. I would refer you to AA where in their hard earned wisdom they know that doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is insane. If you and others of like mind feel that the homeless should be left on the street, you are the ones who should be paying the $$$millions of extra dollars that following that course of action costs.

Even when my mental illness was at its most debilitating point I personally still retained enough common sense and connection to reality to know it is far more intelligent a reaction to acknowledge reality, not what one wishes to see, and deal with it by designing a system that supports and in most cases rehabilitates the homeless and the addict.

For many the unpalatable truth/reality of the matter is that it is far cheaper to put those who are incapable of working in some form of housing than it is to have them wandering the streets. That’s real life – DEAL WITH IT.

“what bothers me even more is people with ABLE BODIES AND SOUND MINDS ( even half with it ) are homeless”. All I can say is I do not know what addicts you hang with but the clients I deal with at the shelter are far from “ABLE BODIES AND SOUND MINDS”.

Addiction is a stone cold bitch and until you help them deal with their addiction they are not in any way, shape or form of able bodies and sound minds. Which brings to mind your words “who got themselves into their predicament because of their addiction”. The implication being that they chose to be addicts. No one, no matter how insane, chooses addiction. It is frighteningly easy to start out onto that slippery slope and slide down into addiction. And it is not a fate I would wish on my worst enemy.

“SOUND MINDS” A harsh truth, an indictment of our society, is the appalling number of homeless who are not of sound mind. There are several clients here tonight at the shelter who are incapable of looking after themselves. Who are condemned to the streets by those who see only what they want to see when they look at the homeless. There is no place, no agency of our “civilized” society that is charge with ensure those who cannot help themselves get the help they need. It is no wonder life is so hard when people are so harsh as to abandon the helpless to homelessness on the streets. Perhaps you would care to suggest that we reach into our barbaric past to once again take the elderly, the handicapped and mentally ill into the wilds and abandon to their death at the hands of the elements?

“what bothers me even more is people”; I will tell you what bothers me is people and a system so focused on denying the few, and as a percentage of the total we are speaking of a few, a tiny percentage who are not truly in need. They are so busy focusing on ensuring they deny help to those they deem unworthy, that they deny and inflict harm on those truly in need.

What bothers me is people who want to believe that the world is flat they refuse to see that in fact is (more or less) round; people who allow their anger (get a program) to drive them to unreasonable decisions and positions. That is to say they refuse to see just how much more it costs to deal with the homeless on the streets and in the legal system than it would cost to house them. Reclaiming those lives we can. And living with the economic realities of our society – it is far cheaper to enable lazy bums to be lazy bums than it is to pay through the nose just so we can be in denial about the reality of the world around us.

Case in point: Seattle recently opened a housing project aimed at housing the city’s worst drunks. Worse was defined as those who were costing the most to have on the streets (mostly medical, it is the USA, and police costs). We are speaking of a per person cost of $100,000 to as much as $1,000,000. It is now basically costing Seattle $19,000 per person per year. As I wrote to the radio host who was upset that the city was putting them up and allowing them to drink, if he and his listeners feel that strongly then they should approach the city and provide the money to cover the costs over the $19,000 the city currently spends. Why should the rational people of any city, province or country be required to pay for the irrational actions demanded by those who are angry or refuse to acknowledge what is, as opposed to what they want it to be.

What bothers me is the suffering and waste that refusing to act inflicts.

Let me close before this turns into a novel with a comment about your words “I work hard to provide for my family”. Are you aware that the number one reason for homelessness in Canada is now poverty? I have witnessed the growing number of clients at the shelter who are employed but lacking the cash to cover an unexpected expense found themselves on the streets. The current commercial with the can opener “ to pay her rent, she cannot afford to eat, to eat she cannot afford to….around the circle and back to … she cannot afford her rent, to pay her rent. The Post recently had an article about the Abbotsford Food Bank and how its clients have increased over only a few years from 980 per month to over 4,000 per month. I know and have spoken to the person in charge of the food bank. What frightens us both is how many of these people and families depend on the food bank for their food and who would face the choice between homelessness or starvation were it not for the Food Bank. The ugly truth is that as the cost of housing rises, not only in Abbotsford and the lower mainland but across the country, more and more of the working (40+ hours a week) poor are being forced into homelessness.

More worrisome is the growing number of people and families who will be forced onto the streets by any economic misfortune: lost job, unexpected bills (ie car repair) even to much sick time.

It is past time that we as a society get our heads out of…… and begin to deal with the real world, as it exists, around us in a mature, thoughtful, rational and creative way.

If not for reasons of personal honour, human decency and spirituality; then for the crass reason of enlightened self interest – it is simply to costly not to deal with these issues realistically.