Homeless in Abbotsford, BC

I DO NOT, HAVE NOT, WOULD NOT ever suggest throwing money at a problem. I am a REALIST, believing in examining a problem to understand what the situation IS. I am not an Ideologue who, wearing the blinders of ideology, looks at a situation and sees what they want to see, not what really is. There is NO perfect solution. A system dealing with people demands flexibility and denies neat, easy answers. Rigidly applying Ideology guarantees failure. How I came to homelessness: click Backstory below.

0 comments Published Thursday, March 29, 2007 by James W Breckenridge.

A Letter to Premier Gordon Campbell:

Consider the words of that famous businessman Jacob Marley “Mankind was my business”. In choosing to pursue the premiership of British Columbia you made the health and welfare of these citizens “your business” and your “business” is failing badly due to your neglect, fear and unwillingness to provide needed leadership. These issues may not be pleasant, easy to address, popular or without great challenge.

True leadership is about making the tough choices. The story below from www.homelessinabbotsford.com calls for true leadership. It is time for you to Decide.

“Why is it so god-damned hard? Why is it so unfair?” I could hear the pain and fatigue in her voice as she asked the question, her eyes revealing her soul deep weariness of spirit.

She was not speaking of life but of detoxification from drugs. For the first time in the years I have known her, she desperately wants to get clean. If there were a detox bed available she would now be started on the path to a life free from drugs and off the streets.

But there are no beds, no room for someone seeking help. It will take up to three weeks of phoning every day, struggling to keep clean and free of drugs, trying not to use drugs to ease the pain of the wait. Homeless – but having to find a phone to call every day; Homeless – but having to try to keep from surrendering to hopelessness; Homeless – crying for help, those cries falling on deaf ears.

We know that the best chance for her those who find themselves seeking to reclaim their lives is to get a bed immediately. We have witnessed how many we lose of those who face the wait for a detox bed back to drugs and the street.

If a person is lucky in their timing there is a bed available to them immediately. The unlucky majority rolls snake-eyes and face detoxing on the street surrounded by the drugs that will relieve their pain. Many people get a little headache and they quickly take the drug aspirin for pain relief. Do you honestly think that YOU, facing the pain of detoxing alone and on the streets, would not seek the “pain relief drugs” you needed?

Maple Ridge, Chilliwack. Cordova and Vancouver – four detoxification centers for the entire lower mainland. There is a drug use epidemic on our streets and we have only these four inadequate facilities for those trying to find help. If this was not enough of a barrier bureaucracy steps forward to add another in the form of “health” regions. With two centers in the Coastal region and two in the Fraser region you cannot be on all four waiting lists in order to get the first bed but are restricted to your health region. Which raises the question of whether the reason we are not now opening another detox is that the two regions are to busy fighting over which region gets funding for such a facility to remember they are suppose to about Health?

I do know that a serious commitment to getting clean should not depend on, nor so often be defeated by, so literally a roll of the dice.

So the next time you see someone suffering the scourge of addiction instead of looking down your nose or assuming a “holier than thou” attitude it would be a more truthful reflection of reality if you apologized for the lack of detoxification, rehabilitation and the community based support programs we know will reclaim lives from addiction.

0 comments Published Thursday, March 22, 2007 by James W Breckenridge.

Abbotsford's New Homeless Strategy: zip, nada, zilch

It has been close to a year since Compassion Park with several city councillors recently quoted in the newspapers ballyhooing the strides made on the homeless front since the closing of Compassion Park.

Looking at Compassion Park in the spring of 2007 what changes in city behaviour do we find? Well, the notices posted to vacate the park now bear the date March 15, 2007 and …… that’s it. It is truly amazing what progress can be made on homelessness and other growing/pressing social issues with leadership, imagination and intelligent behaviour. Unfortunately for the citizens of our City, Abbotsford City Hall is lacking all three.

A year to plan and prepare and we are unprepared and apparently lacking in any plan but pointlessly chasing of the homeless from spot to spot around the city. What Progress!

It may be of interest to readers that the park is pretty much the last choice on the local realty listings for camping spots. For those who have not visited this area it is basically a steep wooded hillside with little level ground for comfortable tenting. But with all the best camping spots around the city taken and the demand for camps rising with the homeless population, you’ve got to take what is available. Especially since so many of the doorways, overhangs and stairwells are already homesteaded by other homeless.

And so it appears we face another spring and summer of senseless chasing of the homeless from point to point around the city until they arrive back at the starting point to begin yet another fruitless merry-go-round chase, and another, and another, and another. More homeless, more wasted time, more waste of taxpayer dollars to achieve – NOTHING. Apparently Abbotsford City Hall’s action plan for dealing with homelessness and other social ills lies in creating a plan in their own image – a perpetual motion money wasting machine.

Maybe it is just me, but personally I would have decided to try at least one different, preferably several different approaches to these problems. What do you think? Would not you also want to have been prepared with new and different approaches, instead of the same old wasteful behaviours?

0 comments Published Monday, March 19, 2007 by James W Breckenridge.

Recycling schools to meet community Needs.

I read in a local newspaper that the provincial government actually has a program that will give a grant to study whether cooperation between a school (Yale) and local recreation (ARC) would prove beneficial to local recreation programming. Then the program will pay for capital improvements to need to advance the cooperation.

Does this concept seem as inane to others as it does to me? How could access to Yale school fail to be of benefit to recreation programming? Gymnasiums, change rooms, classrooms etc, open up a wide array of possibilities for programming. The fact is that in the town/small city I grew up in schools were used for a wide range of community activities after school hours thus saving the taxpayers the expense of building facilities when school buildings, with a little creative thought, could serve the community for many purposes. Save the taxpayers putting up two buildings where one could be made to serve double duty. Georgetown, Saskatoon, Toronto, Edmonton; in all these cities I participated in programs making use of school gymnasiums and classrooms at substantial savings to taxpayers wallets.

Unfortunately Abbotsford has the Parks & Recreation Empire and the School Board Empire and we all know that empires are about building up your empire and power by increasing the buildings and workers you control then protecting your empire against any invaders.

Now I do like the concept of the provincial government funding of capital changes that would enhance usage of school buildings for community purposes. I like the idea of funds available to draw up the plans for what changes would permit maximum usage of existing school buildings for community use. I do think that we need to look beyond merely Recreation to include seniors, clubs etc.

I suppose what disturbs me about this matter is the implication that our school buildings are not part of the community outside of providing schooling. Recent articles on the proposed school closures reinforced this apparent division between community and school district. The implication in the words of the school district is that the schools are the property of the school district, not the community. If the school district can use them fine, but if they are of no use to the school district they will be sold to benefit the school district. As if it was not the community that paid for the facilities and that the community does not have a right to use closed facilities if there is a need, especially a pressing need.

We do have a pressing need for one of the empty school buildings, preferably Abbotsford Elementary, because of a total lack of leadership at Abbotsford City Hall, which has chosen to procrastinate rather than take action on homelessness and its associated social issues. Dragging their feet on this matter has allowed these problems to worsen to the point they are on the verge of exploding out of control.
They frittered away time that should have been spent planning and preparing to address the overwhelming need for shelter in this city to the point we are on the point of finding ourselves in a position of having to act NOW to provide some form of shelter and services for the homeless, or of living with them spread throughout the neighbourhoods of the city.

Abbotsford Elementary and other school buildings exist, better yet are designed to withstand the depredations of children. Abbotsford Elementary located where it is offers the best location for providing the homeless with shelter while maintaining their access to the services they need and has the potential for the least disruption on the neighbourhood adjacent to the school. Hopefully we can engage the community spirit shown on the question of closing Philip Sheffield to work with the neighbourhood to minimize disruptions, deal with problems and maximize our ability to begin to address these social problems.

It is going to take community, from local neighbourhoods to the entire city to put in place the programs and facilities needed to start reducing homelessness rather than letting it grow. Granted using Abbotsford Elementary is not ideal, but ideally we would have had leadership on these issues and be in a much better position to deal with the burgeoning crisis of homelessness. Until we can get some leadership and intelligence into Abbotsford City Hall we are just going to have to make do with leadership from the citizens and make use of facilities such as Abbotsford Elementary.

0 comments Published Thursday, March 15, 2007 by James W Breckenridge.

Thoughts on Thinking

I was addressing a group of geographers the other day on Abbotsford’s social problems of homelessness, poverty, mental illness, addiction and affordable housing.

I decided to use their theme of inclusion and diversity to refer to George Carlin and his bit on mutually exclusive words with inclusion and diversity seeming to hover on the verge of being mutually exclusive, joining such examples as politicians & truth.

The point was to cite this as the root of not only our social problems but of almost all other challenges facing our societies, indeed facing the entire human race.

Not politicians and their propensity for lying or acting on what their ideology says should be the situation instead of what the actual reality of the situation IS. Rather it was my postulation that for the vast majority of the human race, especially politicians, thinking is an incredibly painful task, to be avoided at all costs.

What else would explain the length people will go to in order to avoid thinking about things or outright refusal to think period?

Politicians lie is an accepted truism, born out by the evidence of their words, actions and the outcomes of their behaviours. The solution to politician’s lies and so many other conundrums is the application of tools such as Occam’s razor or the science of logic. But this would require the application of thought, in some instances deep thought, causing pain, even agony throughout the population.

So it is that people go for what sounds good rather than apply critical thinking. They cling to what they want to believe or want to see rather than what the reality is. They avoid any thought or consideration of their core beliefs or world view because that would require deep thinking. Anything to avoid the pain of thought, the agony of deep thoughts

After all, who would refuse to think about problems and solve them, rather than wasting resources accomplishing nothing and allowing the problems to worsen and multiply, unless the very process of thinking was incredibly painful and must be avoided?

ipso facto: thought = painful experience for most people

I asked them to give a little thought to the effect that thinking being painful and thus to be avoided has had on social issues in Abbotsford and Canada. I asked anyone finding themselves experiencing pain, to work their way up to thinking by merely considering these ideas, kind of thought lite.

The point of this postulation was originally to engage their interest and drawing attention to the need to get people actually thinking about the problems, what needs to be done and on solutions. It served very well to engage their attention on major social problems and the hard realities we need to really think about and face in order to make intelligent, rational, sometimes unpleasant decisions on so many pressing issues.

The reason for sharing this here is because, frighteningly, when this idea continued to roll about my mind making me think further on the postulation about thought hurting so much, evidence in support of the proposition continued to grow. So think about (or at least consider the possibility) the proposition that thinking = pain.

Asking yourself: Who would refuse to think about problems and solve them, rather than allowing the problems to worsen and multiply, unless the very process of thinking was incredibly painful and must be avoided at any cost?

Frightening thought isn’t it?

0 comments Published Wednesday, March 07, 2007 by James W Breckenridge.

7PM Executioner

I have developed a severe dislike for 7PM: zero hour at the shelter, the point in time where those waiting on the seven o’clock rule for whom there is a bed available get in and you tell those for whom there is no room that they must leave and you close the gates. At which point you get to tell anyone who comes that there is no room and that there is nowhere else in Abbotsford, not even a barn, to find shelter in.

In a job that is by its nature stressful, counting down that first hour to zero has taken the stress to a whole new level. The bell tolls 7 and you become Ming the Merciless, at this time of the year often sending the surfeit off into the rain. On those very rare nights where the shelter does not fill up until after 7PM the lifting of the burden of sending people away at 7 results in a feeling of profound relief, of almost being on holiday.

With the flood of new homeless inundating the shelter these days those rare occasions of relief are to be treasured, for they are scarce and threatened with extinction. It is no longer unusual to turn away a dozen people because there is no room at this “inn”. In fact in the last couple of weeks we have twice narrowly missed (by one) turning away more people than we can accommodate when full.

I wish my words could convey what it feels like night after night to say no, in effect saying: get your hungry ass back out into the rain and the night. To see and record the numbers as the situation worsens. They are far from saints, many of them there as a consequence of bad choices and/or stupidity, but just as many are there because of mental illness, the personal challenges they face and a growing segment who is there as a result of the poverty entrenched in society by our current social and economic policies.

I could, have and will again in future list solid, materialistic, self-centered, it is all about me reasons that people should be demanding those they have chosen to represent them address these growing social issues. But not here and now as this is about feelings.

NO, this is not about “those type of people” except indirectly. It is about us and what our inaction, our complacency on these issues says about US. Those who claim “I am not responsible…” are either lying to themselves (something we all do to varying degrees), lacking in spirit or lacking in substance – that is to say: shallow. We are all responsible for the outcomes of our actions or inactions.

The current society we decry so loudly as uncaring and cold did not just spring into existence. This society is the one we have built using the building blocks of our deeds, our refusals to act and our evasions of engagement. One of those building blocks is that there are so many people I have to turn away at 7PM. We are capable of addressing this and similar issues, of building the society we claim to want – If we choose.

It is about our choices, about the fact that a significant portion of what I feel at 7PM is despair with and disgust for our so-called Society.

0 comments Published Thursday, March 01, 2007 by James W Breckenridge.

Dim, Dim future for journalism.

As one would expect, people being people, several of them went out of their way to bring the less than complimentary article in the February 22 2007 UCFV Cascade about the Salvation Army to my attention. They seemed very disappointed by my reaction “The future of journalism is sooooooo dim!!”

Ironically the February 26th edition of the somethingcoolnews.ca would contain an article by me on the terrible reporting I saw on Global’s Noon Hour News. This was not the first piece/letter to the editor I have written on this topic and given the flood of just plain BAD journalism these days it will be far from the last – as evidenced by this piece.

Those who have witnessed my reaction know that I find the fact we are being inundated with shoddy, deficient reporting at a time and on topics were full, accurate public knowledge is needed in order to make intelligent decisions extremely aggravating and very, very frustrating. A public constantly misinformed by the media presents an educational challenge that must be overcome before we can begin to address our society’s problems. Another layer, another barrier added to beginning to solve complex pressing social problems such as homelessness, addiction and poverty. This deluge of outright terrible journalism is adding to the problem at a time we desperately need accurate, thoughtful and insightful journalism to give people facts and a true picture of the state of affairs.

So I write to the reporters and editors to express my thoughts not so much because I expect them to change (although one can always hope) but to relieve my frustration and because if we, the victims of this inferior journalism, do not protest we surrender all hope for decent reporting. I really have no expectations of reply or that they will publish these critiques, but then with the internet there are venues to share it with the public and faithful readers. I must acknowledge that the Abbotsford – Mission Post did publish my letter to them – unedited and in its long entirety. Based on reading it weekly the post seems to be trying to live up to its rather lofty stated Editorial Policies.

Unfortunately for readers and those who pay for the publication the UCFV Cascade seems to have no such lofty editorial standards or policies. From Ms Bois article it would appear their requirements are a) it fill the blank space on the page; b) it permit the abuse of one of the target’s print ads to fill an even bigger blank space on the page and c) it permit the placing of a flashy, eye-catching “expose” insert on the front page in a desperate bid to “move the paper off the strand’. Just as an aside vis-à-vis the “expose” it would appear that either the Cascade lacks a dictionary or perhaps just anyone capable of using a dictionary.

Personally, if I had been editor the space would have remained empty with the caption: “Our apologies, the article scheduled for this space was unfit to print”.

For obvious reasons of common sense there is a policy of no dogs on the property, especially necessary in light of a cliental under the influence of behaviour changing substances. Ms Bois may choose to argue that the dog is “a nice gentle animal”. This is the type of quote that hacks in commercial, “if it bleeds it leads” journalism always hunt someone down to say after a child has been savaged by said “nice doggy”. With the state of journalism these days if you cannot attack your target for causing a vicious dog attack, you can always criticize their anti-dog policy.

Unfair but then fairness was notably absent from this article. Fairness would have required that she make it clear that the whiner was not refused food as implied, but was given hearty soup, bread, dessert and pretty much a bottomless cup of coffee. Several times a week there is a meal provided for a $1, giving those on very limited budgets a chance to purchase a change from soup. In fairness to everyone, if you choose to spend your money on other things than the meal you get soup.

When personally lacking the dollar, through my own choices, I never felt/feel slighted, it was and is fair. Fairness also causes me to sympathize with the volunteers if, after 20 people have spent several minutes each arguing they are so special the rules apply to everyone but them and then cursing them as terrible human beings when they enforce the rules, if a volunteer gets a little snippy. In fact I often find myself apologizing for the oaf’s behaviour and thanking them for volunteering since I appreciate that without the volunteers the meals, the café and many other services could not function. They voluntarily give their time and far too often I am left wondering just how crazy they are to continue to volunteer given how often they are verbally abused by clients.

They are human beings and so yes politeness, asking instead of demanding, please, thank you and just plain good manners can result in them preferring to help, even go out of their way to help, a person demonstrating basic civility over a person screaming obscenities in their face while demanding T-bone steak for dinner, that their every demand be immediately met and asserting that they are the point around which the Universe must revolve. Karma: good behaviour is rewarded, bad behaviour has a cost. Excuse me if I do not find this Balance upsetting.

Although, considering Ms Bois contacted her target just before the Cascade’s deadline expecting them to drop everything and meet her needs NOW, she may not even find “the universe revolves around me” attitude anything but normal behaviour. No, blithely tossing off “Unfortunately my attempts to arrange … did not succeed” is not acceptable journalism when it a) involves a deadline that is for the writers convenience and is unrealistically short and b) there is no reason to rush the story into print.

But then this attack was not about being balanced. If it was Ms Bois would not be demanding special treatment for some (exemption from the dog ban, accepting 75 cents for $1 meal) while taking away the rights of others (the right not to be bitten by a dog or even having to worry about that; that everyone pays the $1 you did for your meal) and then a few paragraphs latter accusing the target of giving special treatment to some. Either argue for or against special treatment but be consistent and include an explanation for why the special treatment. I for one would be interested to know upon what basis Ms Bois thinks it equitable or ethical treatment to charge those who spend their money on things other than the meal less than those who save up to treat themselves to the meal as opposed to the plainer soup that everyone can have.

I do concede that Ms Bois was very consistent in whom she spoke with, searching out those who have a bone(s) to pick or conflict with the target organization of the article and avoiding anyone with positive experiences or things to say. This kind of unbalanced, negative research is what spreads misinformation and establishes stereotypes such as all homeless are lazy drug using bums. The lack of balance and its focus on the negative also leads to the kinds of gross factual errors the article contained.

Perhaps it was simply laziness that prevented a simple google search or a search of local newspaper articles would have turned up: a) reports on the extreme weather plan, resulting in the shelter stuffed to overflowing b) articles and letters about how full the shelter is and the large number of people turned away because the shelter was already not only full but overfull.

Even simpler would have been a little footwork. It is not as though the target organization is clandestine or hard to find. Giving the writer access to the best evidence of all, personal observation. Drop in and observe, better yet volunteer to see just what they face day-in and day-out. Of course this course of action would have entailed the high risk of meeting those who have good things to say or seeing some of the truths staff and volunteers see, face and deal with daily.

Perhaps it would seem that basing a judgement on the future of journalism on this one article is against common sense, unfair and unbalanced – but entirely in keeping with Ms Bois reporting. Sigh. The future of journalism is so dismal. I should have expected something along these lines after all, to adapt from the Tao of James, “When you think you have reached rock bottom journalistically with articles that were unfit to see the light of day, someone will write an article to prove you wrong.”

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