“There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you’re going to be part of the problem.”      Eldridge Cleaver

If there is only one choice that is effective in addressing an issue – how hard can it be to begin to resolve the issue?

In Abbotsford the degree of difficulty offered by having only one approach, one choice, that is effective apparently presents an insurmountable barrier to dealing effectively with homelessness.

Yes, homelessness is a complex problem, a complexity compounded by the fact that it is a Human problem.

That does not change the reality there is one approach that works effectively in dealing with homelessness and that is Housing First.

You can get lost in the complexity, lost in the search for a fast easy answer, lost in the search for an answer that is more palatable to your sensibilities…… you can sit around with one’s Cranium Rectally Inserted …..

……. or you can acknowledge reality and begin the long task of addressing and reducing homelessness.

Abbotsford is a city where citizens and city hall are wont to pridefully beat their breasts proclaiming their spiritual and ethical superiority. A city that is very long on laying claim to ethics and very short on acting on those claimed ethics.

A city and citizens that like to talk the talk while ignoring the need to walk the talk if the talk is to be more than empty words. So much of the pious breast beating and so many of the words are meaningless because claiming ethics or spirituality is easy, having your actions and behaviours live up to your words is hard work and often comes with costs few will pay.

To say this is the ethical way to behave is one thing. To be willing to sit there staring the reality that taking the ethical path will result in the unethical action being corrected and a positive outcome for the person wronged but the ethical path will also result in a negative consequence for you, a negative consequence that has a good probability of rendering you homeless, is something else entirely.

Sitting there with the enter button before you as you wrestle with the dilemma of acting or of protecting your posterior [it’s not my responsibility] …….

Ethics in the abstract, in words only, is easy. Ethics in practice, the actions and behaviours required on a daily basis together with the painful price acting in accord with your ethics may demand makes ethics in practise an arduous path to walk.

Hitting the enter button, committing to behave in line with your ethics is an act of will requiring a profound commitment to ethical behaviour. This is why ethics are often proclaimed, but seldom cleaved to.

“Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.”   Jane Addams

If your goal is to reclaim lives – the process necessary in order to reduce homelessness – the only course of action open to you is Housing First. Housing First  is the only method to have demonstrated its effectiveness while studies have shown our traditional approaches do not work.

To address homelessness you create a Housing First Plan, you turn it into a Housing First Action Plan by setting out timelines and due by dates and you execute your action plan.

Executing a Housing First Action Plan is the one course of action that will reduce homelessness.

Anyone who is not aware of this reality, who has not made the minimal research effort necessary to come to understand that the only effective option is Housing First should not have been on Abbotsford’s Social Development Advisory Committee, Homeless Task Force or Homeless Advisory Committee [or City Council].

For the members of Abbotsford’s Social Development Advisory Committee, Homeless Task Force or Homeless Advisory Committee to engage in any action other than creating and implementing a Housing First Action Plan is to be engaged in being a part of the problem because any other actions prevent the creation and implementation of the solution – a Housing First Action Plan.

To claim that ‘all their advice disappeared into the ether of City Hall’ is merely avoiding responsibility for the consequences of ones action in not resigning from the committee for its failure to pursue a Housing First Action Plan.

And so our streets overflow with growing numbers of homeless while the members of Abbotsford’s Homeless Advisory Committee, together with Abbotsford’s City Council, fiddle around.

Ignoring or denying the reality that they are part of the problem of homelessness in Abbotsford and ignoring or denying the lack of ethics, the ethical challenges, inherent in their choice to be a barrier to addressing homelessness in Abbotsford is sophistry.

What we tell ourselves does not change reality and the reality is that being a member of any of those three groups has helped prevent effectively addressing homelessness in Abbotsford and made those groups and their members part of the problem.

In choosing to be part of the problem, one chooses to act in an unethical manner.

Assuming one is of the persuasion that ethical behaviour requires being part of the solution and that acting in a manner that makes you part of the problem is to act in an unethical way.

It is situations such as this that are why it is far easier to talk about ethics than to live those ethics. I understand the stark reality of ethics, of the cost of living your ethics.  If living our ethics was easy we would have created a much healthier, wealthier and ethically behaved society.

If you are a member of Abbotsford’s current Homeless Advisory and your purpose for being a member of the Homeless Advisory is to effectively address homelessness in Abbotsford [unfortunately there are a number of reasons for being on the Advisory other than reducing homelessness] then you have the choice of being part of the solution – resigning citing the failure of the Advisory and City Hall to implement Housing First – or sitting there dissimulating with other obstructionists as part of the problem.

“Ethics is not about platitudes, let alone tautologies, logic or mathematics, but about difficult choices – dilemmas.”    Martin Cohen, 101 Ethical Dilemmas

“In any ethical situation, the thing you want least to do is probably the right action.”              Jerry Pournelle