Homeless, Issues, Municipal

Homeless Left Wondering

Leave a comment

Considering that City Council’s answer to the questions “If not Now, When? If not Here, Where?” posed to Council at the public hearing on the ACS 20 bed Housing First proposal was, stripped to its bare bones, “Never, unless forced! Then – ADBA! [Any District But Abbotsford] it is no surprise the homeless find themselves wondering:

 

Having 1) ensured there is nowhere for the homeless to go, other than somewhere else on the streets of Abbotsford; 2) ensured their prey cannot escape them by transitioning off the streets using the proven housing first approach; 3) confirmed their willingness to act with total irrationality with respect to the homeless and the issue of homelessness……..

……..how long can it be before City Council returns to chasing the homeless around Abbotsford, ignoring the fact that more than a decade of experience demonstrates that this approach accomplishes nothing other than allowing the problem to worsen…….

……. and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around…….

…….Abbotsford. Ad nauseam.

Pool betting is that the City will welcome the return of the Wild Hunt before March 1, 2014.

Pool betting also favours the gentleman who relocated his camp in order to secure first in line status in case Council decided to pursue services and housing based on best practices that have been demonstrated to be effective and financially prudent being the first victim of a renewed Hunt.

Hmm? You don’t suppose that those squandering spendthrifts who voted NO did so because they were unable to vote for a course of action that was ‘financially prudent’?

Be that as it may, pool betting is that this individual is at the top of council’s new hit list since the location of his camp is a pointed reminder of yet another ‘Folly’ by Abbotsford civic misgovernment.

Are the homeless correct? Is the course indicated by the betting in the Pool correct? Will Abbotsford’s Mayor and City Council add to Abbotsford national and international reputation for pointless, reprobate, simpleminded behaviour by resuming the City’s Crusade against the homeless?

 

 

 

Of course the question may well become moot, should Pivot seek and secure an injunction against the City starting a new Crusade against the homeless until the court rules on the question as to whether the 2009 ruling by the BC Court of Appeals, that the homeless have a right to camp in a City’s parks if the City is not  making sufficient effort to provide affordable housing the homeless can access, applies to the current state of affairs – vis-à-vis the homeless – in Abbotsford.

Given City Council’s demonstration at the February 17, 2014 council meeting that, not only is the City not acting to provide affordable, accessible housing but, the city is actively preventing such housing from being built…….

…….none should be surprised if the court issues an injunction preventing the city putting the health and lives of the homeless at risk by chasing them around Abbotsford. Nor should anyone be surprised if the court, in light of council’s behaviour, upholds the right of the homeless to camp in any of Abbotsford’s parks and not be harassed by the City or its APD.

So that, while there may be no homeless housed in their Backyards, there may well be homeless housed in camps in City Parks.

A situation that potentially will motivate mayor and council to abandon their irrational behaviour.

Media, Politics, The Economy

Border Services Death – Part Two

Leave a comment

What if, as discussed in Part One, the broadcast Media does not want to re-label as “Pseudo News” or attach a content warning label to what is currently labelled ‘News’; changes needed to provide warning to those watching the broadcast that the material being broadcast does not meet even the most minimal of standards required to inform, reveal or contribute to the understanding of issues?

Then there should be consequences for misleading the public as to the nature of the material being broadcast.

Take, for example, Global Vancouver’s support of those calling for an inquiry into the in custody death of a woman being held for deportation by Canadian Border Services.

The report aired on Global Vancouver suggested [certainly appeared to suggest] that Canadian Border Services is covering something up because they have made only limited information on what happened available.

Canadian Border Services has stated that they will be releasing more details as soon as the Coroner completes his investigation and that – as is usual with matters under investigation – Border Services cannot comment until the Coroner is finished investigating.

I think it would be very beneficial to any decision on what course of action to follow, to know if the Coroner rules the death suicide.

I am not suggesting that the death be ignored should the woman have died as a result of attempting, ultimately succeeding, suicide. We need to understand what happened and what, if anything, we can REASONABLY do to prevent such a death from happening in the future.

We seemed to have gone inquiry mad as a society, demanding an Inquiry for anything that upsets someone or where someone [or somones] don’t like the answer[s] they are given.

Let us remember that inquiries are not free, that there is no such budget item as ‘Inquiry’, which means the cost of inquiries comes from an item included in the provincial budget – such as healthcare. The more inquiries you have, the less healthcare the government can purchase for citizens.

If a group of people want an inquiry, let them pay for it; if the actions of the media force and inquiry, let those in media whose actions forced/led to the inquiry pay for it. Should something important, something that would have been found only through an inquiry, be found whoever paid for the inquiry can be reimbursed.

Should the inquiry find nothing that would not have been found, or nothing  significant and important, then the group of people or the media bear the cost – not the taxpayers.

If media chooses to act irresponsibly by calling reports broadcast ‘News’ when those reports fail to meet even minimal standards required to inform, reveal or contribute to the understanding of issues, when in fact the reports broadcast misinform, obscure or prevent the understanding of issues, there must be consequences. The same way the Supreme Court has said there are consequences of standing up and shouting “FIRE!’” in a crowded theater when there is no fire.

‘News’ has become a profit center for the corporate media conglomerates.

Given the focus on profits, the demonstrated lack of ability to manage operations efficiently, effectively and for the long term health and viability of the business, the abandonment of being good corporate citizens, the lack of understanding of the reality and complexity of the economy and the effect the financial health of the entire society has on the viability of a corporation in a timeframe of 1+ years [a state of affairs that applies to politicians, experts and pundits as well as corporate executives]………

……corporations increase profits by cutting costs. Worse, in market conditions such as exist today, with no easy, almost automatic increases in revenue, a market where there is a need to add value in order to increase revenue, corporations and their current inadequate for the task executives the corporations simply cut more costs.

The broadcast hours filled with content created by the station [or network] are the hours where corporate media conglomerates can maximize their profit, making the ‘News’ department a major contributor to the bottom line.

A change in mission, from informing to maximizing profit, that has had a profound effect on the ability to inform, reveal and contribute to understanding as well as the quality of the material generated by ‘News’ departments, as Media conglomerates fill the hours where the station creates the content as cheaply as possible.

Corporations and their executives have a right to choose to race for the bottom and ignore the long term viability of the corporation if that behavior is acceptable to stockholders.

They do not have the right to mislead the public, to fail to inform the public that ‘News’ is no longer what it once was and that the public needs to search out information from multiple sources in order to be able to make informed decisions about how the government manages the health and viability of the economy; about the costs, outcomes and consequences of decisions on social, societal issues.

As stated, where media will not re-label programming, or attach viewer advisors, where the change in standards and practices will mislead the public as to the public’s ability to make informed decisions and choices based on the programming provided by the Media – financial penalties [incentives] must be used to provide incentive for media to either invest the money to provide ‘News’ that meets at least the minimum standards require for reporting to qualify as ‘News’ OR for media to label or use viewer advisories to ensure people understand the purpose [maximize profit] of the broadcasting they are viewing.

Broadcast media today has demonstrated that as a corporation their profit drive is the same as the corporations that dump toxic waste down storm drains or into creeks to reduce the costs of disposal and maximize profit.

In the same manner that it is necessary to impose punitive fines to encourage those who need to dispose of toxic waste to dispose of it in a manner that does not penalize society, financial incentives need to be imposed on  media to encourage media to be responsible, providing either accurate labeling, viewer advisories or programming that meets the standards set out for ‘News’ for programming media labels as ‘News’.

Next: Part 3 – The Conclusion

I’m not going to listen; don’t want to hear it.

The James Commentary

The James Commentary February 10, 2014

Leave a comment

Smoother Pour? I call Bullshit!

Have you seen the ads for the ‘new’ vented beer cans, the ads that tout the vented cans as having a smoother pour?

That the addition of the vent is to give a smoother pour is BS, an evasion because the broadcast media would not be able to carry advertising based on the true purpose of the vent.

Smoothness is a side effect and acceptable as the excuse to advertise the speed……ahem, smoothness…..with which the can empties of beer.

You want a smooth pour you just adjust the angle of the pour to allow air to enter the can as the beer exits the can. Of course this course of action adds to the time it takes to empty the can of beer.

Time is not a major consideration, if it is a consideration at all, in pouring beer from a can into a glass.

But time is a major consideration, a major factor to consider, when pouring a can [or cans] of beer down your throat in a Chug.

With the vent, it is no longer necessary to interrupt the flow of beer out of the can, to permit the entry of air into the can. The vent allows you to smoothly, quickly pour a can of beer down your gullet, without any need for the beer to touch lips, mouth or throat before hitting the stomach.

The need to resort to venting the can in order to promote, testifies to a creative bankruptcy.

Resorting to venting the beer can in order to increase sales and profit is cynical and corporate irresponsible behaviour.

Unfortunately it is likely to increase sales, as well as increase irresponsible drinking, unless…..

…..people drive home that this kind of irresponsible corporate behaviour is not acceptable by not buying any brand of beer that uses a vented can and notifying the brewer that you are not drinking their beer because of their irresponsible behaviour in encouraging irresponsible drinking, simply to fatten the already obscene  paycheques of corporate executives.

Homeless, Issues, Municipal, Politics

Abbotsford’s Ethical, Spiritual D-day

Leave a comment

Understanding, Choosing, Wisdom.

Our lives, our society, are the sum result of all the choices we make, both consciously and unconsciously. In control of the process of choosing, lies control of all aspects of our lives.

Positive control of the process of choosing requires choosing wisely; choosing wisely requires understanding. Without understand and wisdom, chance is left in control of our future.

On Monday February 3, 2014 Abbotsford City Council will decide whether Abbotsford Community Services can build the First Stage Housing they have proposed to use to help the homeless, those faced with mental health and/or substance use challenges, to begin the process of recovery.

Housing that would start to answer the question council’s decades old  policy of chasing the homeless  endlessly around Abbotsford has ignored – “Where else can they go?”.

Housing First is a model of recovery recognized by psychiatric professionals as an alternative approach to the traditional approaches to treatment; an approach pioneered in the 1990’s by Sam Tsemberis [a faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry of the New York University School of Medicine] and the Pathways to Housing organization in New York City.

The results achieved using Housing First have resulted in it being recognized as a ‘best practice’ for governments and service-agencies in their fight to end chronic homelessness; have resulted in the use of Housing First by governments and organizations in countries around the world, including Canadian cities such as Calgary, where Housing First is part of Calgary’s plan to address and end homelessness.

The mistake often made about Housing First as a result of its first priority being to provide housing, is that Housing First is not about abstinence. However, in understanding the Housing First approach one understands Housing First is about dealing with a person’s substance use and/or mental health challenges – after housing them. It is an approach that has proven to get people into treatment faster than the traditional approaches do.

An outcome that reminds us that, when addressing homelessness, mental illness and substance use, we need to remember that People are at the center of the process and when People are central to anything, it is a given that outcomes will have a large iffy [full of unresolved points or questions] factor.

But these are just facts, and while facts are important to choosing wisely, a wise choice also requires understanding and awareness of what other, less obvious or hidden decisions will be included in the choice(s) made.

Whether the City of Abbotsford and the APD step out of the 19th century and into the 21st century; whether a start is made on addressing chronic homelessness, mental illness and substance use on Abbotsford’s streets, are not the only decisions that will be made by Abbotsford City Council in their Yea or Nay on the ACS housing proposal..

Council’s Yea or Nay on the ACS proposal will decide – and declare to the world – something far more fundamental and important: What type of community Abbotsford chooses to be.

Not the type of City Abbotsford proclaims itself to be.

But the type of City revealed in the actions and behaviours of Abbotsford; for it is actions and behaviours, not words, that true colours are shown.

Will City Council choose for Abbotsford to set out to become, in the reality of deeds, the City that Abbotsford unfoundedly claims to be?

Or will City Council choose to continue to be the City its behaviour, such as the use of chicken manure as a poor man’s biological weapon against its mentally ill and homeless citizens, declared Abbotsford to be to fellow Canadians and the World.

“You can speak with spiritual eloquence, pray in public, and maintain a holy appearance… but it is your behaviour that will reveal your true character.” 

Steve Maraboli, Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

Federal, Finances, Provincial

The Government Acting Stupid……

Leave a comment

…..is neither an excuse nor permission for citizens to act Stupid.

A fortunate happenstance for Canada and BC, given the levels of Stupid the Federal and Provincial governments have achieved.

In point of fact – governments, politicians, corporations, bankers, people etcetera committing a Stupid never provides an excuse or permission for responding with the commission of a Stupid.

“I/we had to after he/she/it/they did X.” No you didn’t, you could have chosen to act like an adult rather than a sulky two year old.

“I/we had to after he/she/it/they did X.” So, if there was a line of people jumping off the Lions Gate Bridge you would join the line and jump off the bridge because X, Y and Z jumped off the bridge?

What had me thinking about the assertion, “I had to commit a Stupid because Mr. X or Ms. Y committed a Stupid”, was listening to someone asserting that because the government was committing Stupid that negatively affected him, it gave him the right to go out and commit a Stupid and that creating a Stupid was the way to resolve the matter.

Take a look at the world around you. If raising the level of Stupid solved or resolved anything we should be living in paradise given the mind boggling levels of Stupid we have set loose in the world today..

I am not saying that he did not have a right to be P’d at the government’s behaviour; I am not saying he should not act to resolve the problem; I am saying that adding more Stupid to the world is……..well, Stupid.

So our victim, let us call him ‘Larry’………….hmmm – do we need to give him a last name as well?…….Yes? No? Maybe?………argh!……’Nedelkoff’………so Mr. ‘Nedelkoff’, ‘Larry’, had found himself in arrears with child support early in the previous decade. Now ‘Larry’ wasn’t denying or trying to avoid paying what he owed and once he had determined the amount owed he paid it in 2005.

Over the intervening years, even though ‘Larry’ had paid the amount owed in 2005, this matter continued to pop up and cause problems for ‘Larry’. It wasn’t until last year – 2013 – that someone was able to help ‘Larry’ find a telephone number for an employee of the federal government who could determine why this ghost continued to haunt ‘Larry’.

It turned out that after ‘Larry’ had been told that he owed X dollars and had paid the X dollars the government told him he owed, some bureaucrat decided there should have been an interest charge and, without ever communicating the assessment of this interest charge to ‘Larry, added a $9.xx charge to ‘Larry’s’ account..

When ‘Larry’ finally was able to determine what the problem was, and was fortunate enough to be speaking with someone helpful, as opposed to someone playing “abuse the taxpayer”, the $9.xx had been written off so as to resolve the matter in a straightforward manner and time..

Leaving ‘Larry’ believing the matter was finally resolved.

Unfortunately, ‘Larry’ was dealing the federal Conservative government.

So of course ‘Larry’s’ pension is being garnisheed, leaving him scrambling to manage to pay rent every month and avoid homelessness.

Let us leave aside for the moment the question of just how tremendously ethically challenged a government, a country and its citizens are when pensions that are the only source of revenue a pensioner has are garnisheed, causing the pensioner to join the growing ranks of the homeless population.

‘Larry’ has the documentation to support his statements that he paid the amount he owed in 2005; that it was not until 2013 that ‘Larry’ was able to determine that the cause of his continuing problems was a $9.xx charge some bureaucrat imposed without ever notifying ‘Larry and that the $9.xx was written off to close the matter.

Meaning the federal government is garnisheeing his pension, making him un-housed – homeless – without justification, that is to say: illegally.

Adding insult to injury there is no information as to where the funds garnisheed from ‘Larry’ are disappearing to. Well, no information that the federal government is willing to share with ‘Larry’. Apparently as far as the government is concerned all ‘Larry’ needs to know is that he isn’t getting the funds not why or where the funds are going.

Worse, it seems that ‘Larry’ is not unique. Or so ‘Larry’ was informed by the Abbotsford News when he took his plight to the News thinking this was a story they would be interested in. Only to be informed that – Yawn – it was no big deal, it happened all the time and so was not newsworthy to anyone – except one supposes: those who it is happening to.

The recent acquisition and killing off of the Times leaves no need for the News to publish items of interest or relevance to the citizens of Abbotsford.

Aa well, given the Abbotsford News’s rabid pro Abbotsford Council editorial policy, the News would not want to be publishing any story that might suggest that the homeless on the streets of Abbotsford are not all people who have chosen to be homeless but include those who are homeless because of events beyond their control such as being Victimized by their government.

You would think that with a government where people regularly end up in financial distress as a result of government actions such as the garnishee of pensions for a nonexistent reason or pensions cancelled because the person is declared dead by the government even though clearly they are still among the living, that the government would have built in a……failsafe where people in these situations could easily find and contact someone capable of resolving the matter before the victims end up homeless or dead at the hands of a government that is suppose to protect, not victimize, them.

Failing that you would think that having a member of the federal Conservative government as your MP would be beneficial in getting this matter resolved before one found oneself driven into homelessness – in winter.

However when ‘Larry’ went to seek the help of Conservative MP Ed Fast, ‘Larry’s’ situation resulting from an action of the federal government, ‘Larry’s’ situation was either beyond Mr. Fast’s ability to deal with or to unimportant for Mr. Fast to deal with and ‘Larry’ was directed to his provincial MLA.

Pointlessly directed since, in order to protect itself from the federal government downloading financial responsibility for ‘Larry’ from a federal pension to provincial welfare the income assistance system in BC considers ‘Larry’s’ income to be the full amount due him from the federal government. Meaning ‘Larry’ has sufficient income that he does not qualify for income assistance.

Aside:

‘Larry’ is not unique in being caught in the ‘avoid financial responsibility’ war being waged between the federal and provincial governments. A growing number of individuals, who have the misfortune to be dependent on government to survive, have been caught up in and become victims of this war.

The two levels of government are so focused on their financial conflict they either don’t see or don’t care about those who become casualties in their conflict, casualties who sometimes end up homeless senior citizens.

Given the fervour with which both levels of government are pursuing this war, the fervour with which the federal government is pursuing a course of action that seems more about bringing the citizen into a state – dead – that matches the governments records, rather than correcting the governments error and return the person to life…………

…..one cannot help but wonder whether these misappropriated funds are being used to fund the gold, diamond encrusted pensions and unconscionably exorbitant salaries of federal MPs and provincial MLAs or the extravagant salaries and pensions of government employees.

Now there is a concept: government that acts with competence and in the best interests of all citizens, not just the privileged few.

Another addition to the list of excellent reasons for citizens to stop accepting the ‘lesser of evils’ choices the politicians and political parties offer and to replace them with individual citizens with demonstrated trustworthiness, interest and thought about the issues – and who are willing to lose re-election if that is what is required to do a good job.

Because if the replacements are not willing to risk not being re-elected they are not going to be telling the public unpalatable truths or pushing public discussions and decisions – uncomfortable decisions – that are necessary but that citizens want to remain in wilful denial of.

*********

Back to our tale:

When we left ‘Larry’ he was up the proverbial s**t creek without a paddle, short of the $$$ needed to pay his rent in full.

With no idea of how to get the federal government to acknowledge their error and stop garnisheeing his pension, it is understandable that ‘Larry’ is worried and incredibly frustrated with the government’s insisting on keeping their Stupid in place.

Which is, as noted at the outset, neither an excuse nor a justification for ‘Larry’ responding with  a Stupid of his own. Such as breaking a window at the Service Canada building and when the police show up, insisting that the police provide him shelter inside.

When I commented that this seemed a rather pyrrhic approach and that just because the government was increasing their level of Stupid, was not an excuse or permission for ‘Larry’ to add his own Stupid to the ambient level of Stupid,……‘Larry’, unsurprisingly given his mood, pointed out he had not asked for my opinion on his plan to add to the amount of Stupid involved in this matter..

“Larry’ was correct, he hadn’t asked for my opinion, but this it is a mater of concern to ‘Larry’s’ fellow Canadians because:

a)    If we let the government do this to ‘Larry’, how long before they are doing some such thing to the rest of us?

b)    Vandalism comes out of taxpayers pockets.

c)    Police are a municipal expense, letting the federal government be successful in downloading the cost of housing ‘Larry’ to a lower level of government.

Instead of vandalism, ‘Larry’ needs to gather bedding, clothing, toiletries and entertainment/work materials together and arrive at MP Ed Fast’s office just before closing. After he has notified the broadcast media of his need to take up residence in Abbotsford’s MP’s constituency office as a consequence of the federal government choosing to make ‘Larry’ homeless by refusing to correct the government’s error [Adjusting his move in time to accommodate the media’s deadlines should that be necessary].

If the federal Conservative government is responsible for ‘Larry’ becoming homeless, the federal Conservative government should be providing ‘Larry’ with housing.

Hopefully this will motivate our federal government representative, Conservative MP Ed Fast, to have the wrongful garnishee of ‘Larry’s’ pension corrected.

If not there is Plan B – pitching a tent on Mr. Fast’s front lawn.

Sadly:  politicians, political parties and governments have made it clear that citizens need to find ways, often creatively maladjusted ways, to force them to do their job – looking out for the best interests of citizens.

If Canadians want a government that is concerned about the welfare of all Canadians, not just Corporations, the Well To Do and politicians, then Canada needs a Revolution.

A Revolution not of guns and bullets but of Thought; a Revolution where voters no longer meekly accept the ‘lesser of evil’ choices offered by the political parties and instead take action and assert their Right to chose and elect someone interested in their welfare and their future.