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.

Note: I was going to just post excerpts but felt Mr. Gibson deserved the courtesy of his entire letter, so I have highlighted the parts I want to emphasis.

Abbotsford’s residents are living in a city that is trying to be something it’s not.This is not a small town that’s experiencing growing pains. It’s a city. Period. And as a city it needs to have progressive thinkers in charge that can handle city problems and growth.There is no reason why issues time and time again get put on the back burner to be dealt with in the future. The future is now here in Abbotsford, and I believe this city is long overdue for some of the amenities that come with a population base the size of which is here now, and growing rapidly.

We should have an arena the size of which can handle a WHL team, not a BCHL team. Why should Chilliwack be supporting a larger market team in a much smaller market? Other uses for the arena would attract people and money here, not the other way around. A casino? Why not have one here instead of seeing our dollars head elsewhere? The dangers that come with gambling do not simply disappear if an Abby resident gambles in another city. It’s past time for this city to build some sort of entertainment district, clustered close together south of the No.1 highway. This would keep policing costs down, keep young people in town and realistically accessible to taxis as transportation.

This city is a ghost town at night, and it should be a hub to draw people from the smaller cities that surround us. Residents of Chilliwack, Mission and Aldergrove should be feeding our economy, not the other way around. And our 1 o’clock closing times are a joke that gets laughed at by visitors to our city. The people who really want this are long in bed at this hour. Keep our streets safe? Does anyone see the streets as safer since these changes were implemented?

You need big thinkers in a big city, and more tax dollars earned at night would help fund the issues that really are hurting Abbotsford – addiction and homelessness. City in the country? It’s starting to look like East Hastings in the country.

Rodney Gibson Abbotsford Becoming Hastings in the country

I had to laugh at the letter in the March 23, 2006 Abbotsford News as last Sunday I was talking to people while waiting for the church group to arrive with lunch. Apparently several members of our luncheon group had recently been hassled by the local police. For the homeless being hassled by the police in neither funny nor is it something new, but in this case I had to laugh. They were being hassled because citizens in some residential areas have begun to suffer from a petty crime wave. Anyone who has been reading the articles on these pages is aware that I believed that such a crime wave would be a result of the City’s policies of driving the homeless out of the downtown area and away from their food sources. This also applies to the attempts to prevent church groups from being able to feed the homeless in the evenings.

The point is that people are not going to sit there quietly and starve. They are going to steal food or they will steal goods they can turn into food. That is human nature. Anyone who thought about ……. OK, I concede perhaps it was naïve of me to think that a) the City might give some thought to how to approach the homeless problem rather than just rely on the labels given to the homeless and knee-jerk reactions, and b) to expect someone in the City administration to be capable of and willing to think. Any normally intelligent human being able to put together two coherent thoughts had to be able to predict that chasing the homeless out of the downtown area into the residential was going to cause a new set of problems. Still, I for one have no expectation that the City will re-think its current actions and approach the homeless problems rationally.

I say problems because the reality is that there is not one homeless problem, there are linked groups of people and problems that get lumped into one big pile and labeled as one homeless problem. Then they try to solve ‘the problem’ and wonder why it does not work. There is no one, neat, easy solution. What is needed is a series of initiatives aimed at the specific groups of people and problems that make up ‘the problem’. This approach does not promise fast miracle cures – but it will begin to address and solve parts of the problem. We may not be able to totally solve homelessness, but we can address many of the issues and problems that have put so many homeless on our streets and help many of these people to get back on their feet. Or governments can continue their current thoughtless, wasteful course of action, accomplishing nothing but to add to the problem.

The police were hassling the homeless downtown, in part I suppose because that is where they are use to hassling them. But those homeless downtown have food and their territory and no reason to go wandering into the neighbourhoods that are suffering an increase in theft. Rather the police needed to be looking for those their harassment had caused to relocate to the residential areas of the city. But that is what happens when you use labels and stereotypes in setting your policies. You end up solving nothing and with an additional set of new problems.

As for those homeowners who are currently suffering, yes the homeless are part of the cause. But if you want to know who is responsible speak to your City politicians and administration for it was their actions that led to you current situation. And above all be sure to insist that in addressing the problems that arise from homelessness that they use common sense and thought. Or nothing will be accomplished but more wasted City resources and the creation of a whole new set of problems.