Municipal

A New Light

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The Summer Abbotsford Parks and Recreation Program Guide is out containing historical highs and precedent setting changes. Fees have increased out of proportion with historical fee increases and setting a new precedent the fee increases take effect July 1 instead of September 1 as they have done in the past. Hopefully this precedent setting break with historic fee increase patterns does not usher in a new history of larger bi-yearly or even quarterly cash grabs… ahem, fee increases.

On the other hand these changes certainly do put a whole new spin; shine a whole new light on the signs posted throughout the change rooms and facilities warning patrons that “Thieves Work Here” – do they not?

Addiction, Municipal

Commentary on Abbotsford BC’s Recovery House Policy – part 1

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I was speaking to someone I know about Abbotsford’s new recovery house policy. She told me that the intention was not to close the bad houses but to cause them to become recovery houses in fact, not just in name.

This statement contains some fundamentally mistaken beliefs.

What I consider the major failing in addressing the question of recovery houses is that the policy assumes that all those who are currently living in a recovery house in Abbotsford are there seeking recovery from their addiction (the economics of the recovery house industry and the effect of market forces will be addressed in part II). Reality is that many of those who are in a “bad” recovery house are only there so as to have a roof over their heads. These people have no real interest in getting clean, staying clean and getting on with recovery.

They have not yet reached a point where they are ready to move into sobriety and recovery. So, while you can force the houses to become bona-fide recovery houses, you cannot force the substance abusers into recovery.

The net effect will be the same whether you close the houses or force them to be legitimate places of recovery – more, a LOT more homeless on the streets of Abbotsford.

Understand that I fully support the need to clean up the recovery houses in Abbotsford so that those coming out of treatment and/or looking for a clean environment free of mind altering substances can be sure that in our city a Recovery house is a substance abuse free environment. We as citizens of Abbotsford owe a duty of care to those seeking help in overcoming substance abuse problems that require ensuring a safe environment for them.

Reality, what a concept, is that in ensuring this safe environment the city’s actions are going to displace 100 – 200 substance abusers out of their current housing and onto the streets. I say onto the streets because there are no viable housing alternatives for those abusing whatever substance they prefer.

Why do you think there are so many so-called recovery homes in Abbotsford? It is simple supply and demand, supplying demanded housing at affordable cost.

The Reality is that even with the best of intentions the net result of the city’s recovery house policy will put those 100 – 200 substance abusers on the street. The Question is why the city has ignored reality and proceeded as though there will not be any consequences of implementing their recovery house policy?

Common sense and leadership would seem to me to have demanded acknowledging the reality that the recovery house policy will have a significant effect on increasing the number of homeless on the streets of Abbotsford and taking action to address this reality before flooding the streets with more homeless bodies.

Clearbrook residents are currently screaming at City Hall about problems in their neighbourhood. The new city approach will likely close many of the recovery houses that residents are complaining about – and drive many of those in the recovery houses onto the streets in the Clearbrook area.

What then? Round ‘em up, move them out to fresh pastures in a new neighbourhood, much the same way a rancher would his herd of cattle? When the new neighbourhood starts to scream and complain loud enough, will the city perform another round-up of the homeless and drive them to new pastures in another neighbourhood and so on and so on ad infinitum?

It is time we stopped futilely dealing with social problems on a piecemeal basis that experience has shown not only fails to accomplish anything, but allows problems to worsen. We need to take a much more holistic approach, dealing with the entirety of a situation, issue or problem.

The new recovery house policy is not a solution. A solution does not merely trade one set of problems for a different set of problems, but address all the underlying facets of the problem. It does no good to take an action that will cause many of the current residents of recovery houses to leave the recovery houses …

… Unless you have also put in place policies to provide affordable housing for the newly “released to homelessness” in a manner and form that will encourage and facilitate their moving into treatment and recovery. Where are these policies and alternative housing?

We simply cannot afford the insanity of repeating past behaviours over and over hoping the outcome will be different this time and solutions magically appear.

Hmmm

Infected with the old Abbotsford spirit

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Recently a favourite literary character came fondly to mind, Dickens’s Scrooge from A Christmas Carol. Understand I am not referring to the Scrooge before that bit of toothpick set off the ghostly hallucinations that warped that admirable focused, hard-driving, successful businessman Scrooge into that wussy, goody two shoes.

Scrooge and his transformation came into my mind this week when I received a picture of a boy kneeling beside his bed praying with his dog beside him with his paws together appearing to pray as well. This picture was kind of “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. What kind twisted sicko of an individual have I become that people now send me pictures of newborns, cute babies, kids in dance recital costumes, kids and dogs praying?

What kind of warped monster have I become that people send me these types of pictures? When did I slip over the line from a focused, self centered business person into Scrooge’s delusional world of Marley’s ghost “Mankind is My Business!”

I need to get my focus off the ideals behind the parable of the Good Samaritan or the golden rule and get the spotlight back where it should be – ME. What have I got? What do I want? Obviously I need to join one of our large, profitable, money machine local churches and concentrate on what is important – the almighty dollar.

None of this: “thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor and to the needy in thy land” or “Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right” or “What shall it profit a man if he shall own the whole world and lose his own soul”? Next thing you know it will be: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another”.

Live the golden rule of treating others as you want to be treated?

BAH! HUMBUG!

In Abbotsford it is all about ME! ME! ME! – after all “He who has the gold rules”.

Municipal

The Abbotsford Blight is Bloating!

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I see from the front page of the July 3, 2007 Abbotsford Times that the NO-FUN pestilence infecting Abbotsford BC has spread to another Fraser Valley community – Chilliwack. Like a plague, Abbotsford’s NO-FUN pestilence is lowering the level of fun in our neighbour Chilliwack.

Before you know it Chilliwack will be as devoid of fun as Abbotsford. One can only speculate what kinds of panic the City Councils in other neighbouring communities are experiencing with this proof that the Abbotsford NO-FUN pestilence is contagious and spreading.

Langley, Mission and smaller communities such as Yarrow must now worry that the misery of this NO-FUN malady will infest and curse their communities with NO-FUN – turning them into lifeless, funless Abbotsford clones.

Langley perhaps can hope that being in the GRVD will result in the fun and nightlife of Vancouver inoculating them against the plague of NO-FUN invasion from Abbotsford.

Mission has no such hope for inoculation against the plague of NO-FUN spreading outwards from Abbotsford City Hall, leaving Mission’s council and citizens to desperately search for ways to remain uncontaminated by the epidemic of NO-FUN from Abbotsford.

Mission does have the Fraser River Bridge going for it in the battle against contamination, a choke point to make a stand against contracting the NO-FUN plague from Abbotsford. Strict decontamination procedures before being allowed across the Fraser River will hopefully prove effective in preventing Abbotsford’s NO-FUN pestilence poisoning Missions entertainment, nightlife and anything else resembling fun.

If this decontamination proves ineffective we face the depressing possibility of quarantine as communities scramble to protect their fun and joy in living. Finding ourselves condemned to a bleak and joyless gloomy future of NO-FUN confined to the Abbotsford Blight, a deadly dead zone of NO-FUN.

Abbotsford City Hall will discover it has spent $100,000,000.00+ on Plan A to no avail in attempting to bring back life and fun into the city. It matters not how much they spend while the city is infected with the NO-FUN virus. The only cure is to fumigate Abbotsford City Hall, cleansing it of the parasites infecting our City with the NO-FUN pathogen.

Homeless

Canada Day Musings

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I like to celebrate Canada Day by volunteering at Abbotsford’s Canada Day celebration. It is the spirit of volunteerism, sharing and caring that sets Canada so strongly, so clearly apart from our neighbour to the south. This volunteer spirit, in its mix of manifestations, I see as a key to addressing the major social issues and problems facing us as a community, province, country – as a people, a race.

And if you are going to open your mouth and comment on the behaviour of your community one had better be willing to practice what you preach. Fortunately for me, in this instance volunteering is easy, rewarding enough to bring me back year after year.

I like to get my volunteer registration in ASAP so I will get to work? play? in the zone of my choosing. There is something therapeutic in watching kids enjoying the day, playing games, listening to stories and doing crafts.

Some kids think carefully and only then take action while others are a frenzy of crafting activity. Watching them, helping them recharges one’s positive attitude battery even as the day in the sun outside leaves you physically tired.

Finished and packed up at the Canada Day celebration I had just enough time to grab a bite to eat, a shower and open the shelter for the night. Quite a thought provoking contrast between these two very different groups of people I spent my Canada Day with.

The kids full of energy and bright promise, the decisions that will affect the course of their lives ahead of them. For the clients of the shelter some of those life altering decisions have been made – poorly made, with to some extent, appalling outcomes and consequences. But like the kids out celebrating Canada Day every client’s future still holds more life affecting decisions ahead of them, holding out the promise of making wiser choices.

One of the harsh truths of our world is that some of those happy children out exploring and enjoying Canada Day are going to make bad choices and end up struggling with addiction, mental illness, misfortune, homelessness or some combination thereof. There can be no doubt that on past Canada Days some of our clients too had spent the day exploring and enjoying the day as happy children, their life altering bad decisions and poor choices in the future.

Looking across the sea of young people on Canada Day it is impossible to know which young people will make good decisions and wise choices and which ones will make bad decisions and unwise choices. All you can know is that some will end up clients in need of help.

The point of this train of thought, this musing, is that at some point in their lives shelter clients were young children full of life and promise. They were, and are, somebody’s children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers, sisters and friends.

There is no way to tell which children, whose children will suffer the fate and fallout of bad decisions and poor choices. All you can do is make sure that the housing, programs and support for those in need of the help to start making better decisions and wiser choices, to begin the road to recovery, are in place.

Ensuring that when those unfortunate, unlucky kids from Canada Day July 1, 2007 make their bad decisions and choices their road to recovery will not run into the barrier of indifference. And all the barriers and obstacles that indifference throws into the path to recovery; those barriers and obstacles that deny prior generations of children who made bad choices – recovery.

Ending homelessness, supporting those in recovery from mental illness and addictions are a matter of choice. We can choose and commit ourselves to accomplishing these goals. We merely need the will to DO IT, the willingness to change from sticking Band-Aids on these wounded fellow citizens to actually dealing with the issues and needs.

We need only commit ourselves to these goals and demand that our elected representatives do what we elect them to, but they loath risking, providing leadership on addressing difficult issues and problems. We have to exercise the patience of “one day at a time” and “progress not perfection” ever remembering we are dealing with people problems, guaranteeing a certain messiness.

If we as Canadians so choose, Canada Day 2008 can hold the promise of a brighter, healthier future for our children and all Canadians and our country – Canada, whose day we celebrate.