Homeless in Abbotsford, BC

A child of five would understand this.
Send someone to fetch a child of five.
Grouch Marx

A friend took me to Mission the other afternoon to visit the Union Gospel Drop-in Centre and speak to the people there as I had never been to the Drop-in. We found the leaders of the Union Gospel Mission’s mission in Mission out walking the streets and serving ice tea on a hot day as a way to reach out and stay in touch with their clients and those in need on the city streets.

While speaking to them about the homeless situations in both Mission and Abbotsford the subject of opening a Drop-in Centre in Abbotsford arose and I issued an invitation and urged them to pursue a place in Abbotsford since Abbotsford is sorely in need of an afternoon/evening drop-in/supper meal centre.

We also spoke of the benefits of adopting the wellness recovery action plan that Fraser (mental) Health puts on in communities in the FVRD and how a wellness plan would have significant benefits for those seeking recovery from addiction or those simply seeking to get their lives back on track form whatever had disrupted their lives.

Afterwards I sat down to have a coffee with some of the clients and chanced upon a copy of the new September/October issue of The Inner City Pulse, the Union Gospel Mission’s newsletter for the lower mainland. On page seven of this issue I found three stories about some rather interesting children.

A five year old who donated her birthday presents to benefit many other children who were in need. An eight year old, who seeing people living on the streets of Vancouver’s downtown eastside, collected blankets for these homeless people. An eleven year old who founded K.A.R.E. (Kids Actions Really Energize) to encourage people and local businesses to donate clothing and non-perishable food items for those in need.

I was contemplating these children as we crossed the Mission Bridge on our way back to Abbotsford, a community sadly in need of the lesson about generosity of the spirit which these children embody.

The children could also teach our self-styled leaders something about tackling seemingly overwhelming problems in society. They did not talk the situation to death; nor seek to study it to death; nor spend their energies saying all the right things but doing nothing. They did not pursue grandiose plans; nor seek a comprehensive solution where none exists; nor lose sight of the reality that at some point of dealing with a problem action is required.

These children took action to meet a need they saw.

The observer affect tells us that the act of observing will make changes on the situation/problem being observed. The uncertainty principle tells us that when we try to quantify the qualities of ending homelessness, these quantities can only be determined with some characteristic ‘uncertainties’ that cannot become arbitrarily small simultaneously.

You study a problem, you change the problem. The uncertainty principle defies attempts to measure or quantify the problem with exactness. Any action taken to put a plan in motion will change the nature of the problem and render the original plan moot.

Homelessness involves people and uncertainty: we are dealing with a chaotic system with its implications of little agreement about what should be done and even less agreement on how whatever should be done can be done.

Without starting you will never finish. We need to pick a point, any point, as the start point. With a place to begin we simply begin at the beginning and continue to the end.

The biggest hurdle to ending homeless and addressing other social ills is an apparent inability to start. A concept so simple a child can understand it and in understanding it set examples such as those above in how you end homeless – you start.

Abbotsford city manager "Retires"

I will not be shedding any tears at the departure of city manager Mr. Guthrie since I have felt for years that the city suffered from substandard management as well as pedestrian leadership. By the same token I will not permit council to avoid responsibility for Plan A by attempting to blame it all on Mr. Guthrie with that old children’s excuse: “he made me do it”.

While I find the idea of the salary attached to the position of city manager tempting and my education and professional background provide the skills needed to apply for the position I am not sure I would want the headaches that come with it. In fact any management professional taking a realistic look at the future of this city, especially in terms of finance, is not likely to consider the salary worth the headaches and mess they would have to deal with.

Council, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Teichroeb have, with Plan A, saddled the city with unmanageable financial barriers and problems. The first thing any fiscally rational manager is going to want to do is not build the arena in order to provide financial liquidity and flexibility to address more pressing infrastructure needs.

Despite the claim by some that at this point we have to build the arena because we have already spend money on it, the economic reality is that we have to put the arena on hold and eat any costs incurred to date. While this may not be pleasant it is a fact of life the City needs financial liquidity and flexibility.

Council claims we are building Plan A to attract business. The fact is that no development is taking place on land taken from the agricultural land reserve for development purposes because the land is not serviced. To me logic dictates that the first step in attracting businesses is to provide a place for them to build the business, before you worried about amenities or luxuries they might need.

We need to invest tens of millions of dollars in our water treatment facilities and rational behaviour would suggest we also make an investment in the water delivery system, since it really does not matter how much water you can treat if you cannot deliver it.

In discussions with people whose judgment I trust, I have been told that the city needs to invest more than $100 million in infrastructure over the next few years and in fact that $100 million is conservative and a minimum. Council speaks of how we are growing so fast, but does that not mean that the need to invest in infrastructure and that the amount of investment needed is also growing fast?

How were they planning to pay for the $100+ million needed to provided services to our growing city on top of the $102 (ands growing) millions spent and borrowed for Plan A? Was council so wrapped up in its own wants and egos that they were unaware of infrastructure needs or were they just planning to ignore the infrastructure needed for the City’s growth? Why were these other looming financial demands on the City’s coffers ignored in the slick Plan A sales campaign? Or are they simply planning to let local taxes to continue to spiral upwards at double digit rates?

These types of considerations and questions are why those currently running the City would never consider hiring me or someone like-minded to manage the City.
I believe in transparency and an informed citizenry, not in decisions made “in camera” behind closed doors. I believe in taking the best bid, not the cheapest bid. I believe in making the investment in maintenance to avoid pouring money into costly repairs.

I believe that when entire neighbourhoods are against something they deserve to be heard and to receive an explanation of why the proposal was allowed to proceed. Unlike council I do not believe public hearings should be used to cut off and ignore public input on any issued.

I believe that in this day and age city management and council should be blogging to keep citizens informed of what is taking place in city administration, on choices and challenges facing the city and its citizens. I believe that citizens have a right and a need to be informed of the whys and wherefores of decisions.

I do not believe in stonewalling, backroom deals and secrecy.

Reasons why I would never be hired to run the clandestine operations of Abbotsford City Hall.

A Reply - to a comment.

This is a reply to a discussion I had with someone commenting on one of my articles.


The complete denial of reality contained in your words "no freaking way am I gonna give a handout or support a handout for these slackers" serves to highlight why we continue be plagued by the problems of homelessness and addiction, not to mention so many other issues.

You are already spending tens of thousands of dollars on the homeless and those suffering the scourge of addiction- in the area of $50,000 per person on the streets. Once you begin to arrest and incarcerate people the cost per person doubles, then triples. If you doubt that I refer you to the government of BC website where you can find all the relevant costing data.

Perhaps your anger is such that you are completely happy to continue spending $$$ hundreds of thousands, $$$ millions per person and continuing this behaviour year in and year out. I would refer you to AA where in their hard earned wisdom they know that doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is insane. If you and others of like mind feel that the homeless should be left on the street, you are the ones who should be paying the $$$millions of extra dollars that following that course of action costs.

Even when my mental illness was at its most debilitating point I personally still retained enough common sense and connection to reality to know it is far more intelligent a reaction to acknowledge reality, not what one wishes to see, and deal with it by designing a system that supports and in most cases rehabilitates the homeless and the addict.

For many the unpalatable truth/reality of the matter is that it is far cheaper to put those who are incapable of working in some form of housing than it is to have them wandering the streets. That’s real life – DEAL WITH IT.

“what bothers me even more is people with ABLE BODIES AND SOUND MINDS ( even half with it ) are homeless”. All I can say is I do not know what addicts you hang with but the clients I deal with at the shelter are far from “ABLE BODIES AND SOUND MINDS”.

Addiction is a stone cold bitch and until you help them deal with their addiction they are not in any way, shape or form of able bodies and sound minds. Which brings to mind your words “who got themselves into their predicament because of their addiction”. The implication being that they chose to be addicts. No one, no matter how insane, chooses addiction. It is frighteningly easy to start out onto that slippery slope and slide down into addiction. And it is not a fate I would wish on my worst enemy.

“SOUND MINDS” A harsh truth, an indictment of our society, is the appalling number of homeless who are not of sound mind. There are several clients here tonight at the shelter who are incapable of looking after themselves. Who are condemned to the streets by those who see only what they want to see when they look at the homeless. There is no place, no agency of our “civilized” society that is charge with ensure those who cannot help themselves get the help they need. It is no wonder life is so hard when people are so harsh as to abandon the helpless to homelessness on the streets. Perhaps you would care to suggest that we reach into our barbaric past to once again take the elderly, the handicapped and mentally ill into the wilds and abandon to their death at the hands of the elements?

“what bothers me even more is people”; I will tell you what bothers me is people and a system so focused on denying the few, and as a percentage of the total we are speaking of a few, a tiny percentage who are not truly in need. They are so busy focusing on ensuring they deny help to those they deem unworthy, that they deny and inflict harm on those truly in need.

What bothers me is people who want to believe that the world is flat they refuse to see that in fact is (more or less) round; people who allow their anger (get a program) to drive them to unreasonable decisions and positions. That is to say they refuse to see just how much more it costs to deal with the homeless on the streets and in the legal system than it would cost to house them. Reclaiming those lives we can. And living with the economic realities of our society – it is far cheaper to enable lazy bums to be lazy bums than it is to pay through the nose just so we can be in denial about the reality of the world around us.

Case in point: Seattle recently opened a housing project aimed at housing the city’s worst drunks. Worse was defined as those who were costing the most to have on the streets (mostly medical, it is the USA, and police costs). We are speaking of a per person cost of $100,000 to as much as $1,000,000. It is now basically costing Seattle $19,000 per person per year. As I wrote to the radio host who was upset that the city was putting them up and allowing them to drink, if he and his listeners feel that strongly then they should approach the city and provide the money to cover the costs over the $19,000 the city currently spends. Why should the rational people of any city, province or country be required to pay for the irrational actions demanded by those who are angry or refuse to acknowledge what is, as opposed to what they want it to be.

What bothers me is the suffering and waste that refusing to act inflicts.

Let me close before this turns into a novel with a comment about your words “I work hard to provide for my family”. Are you aware that the number one reason for homelessness in Canada is now poverty? I have witnessed the growing number of clients at the shelter who are employed but lacking the cash to cover an unexpected expense found themselves on the streets. The current commercial with the can opener “ to pay her rent, she cannot afford to eat, to eat she cannot afford to….around the circle and back to … she cannot afford her rent, to pay her rent. The Post recently had an article about the Abbotsford Food Bank and how its clients have increased over only a few years from 980 per month to over 4,000 per month. I know and have spoken to the person in charge of the food bank. What frightens us both is how many of these people and families depend on the food bank for their food and who would face the choice between homelessness or starvation were it not for the Food Bank. The ugly truth is that as the cost of housing rises, not only in Abbotsford and the lower mainland but across the country, more and more of the working (40+ hours a week) poor are being forced into homelessness.

More worrisome is the growing number of people and families who will be forced onto the streets by any economic misfortune: lost job, unexpected bills (ie car repair) even to much sick time.

It is past time that we as a society get our heads out of…… and begin to deal with the real world, as it exists, around us in a mature, thoughtful, rational and creative way.

If not for reasons of personal honour, human decency and spirituality; then for the crass reason of enlightened self interest – it is simply to costly not to deal with these issues realistically.

I am tired too - a Reply

This was written in reply to a letter sent to SCN at http://www.somethingcool.ca/ which the editor forwarded to me for a reply.

I have to agree with you George, the homeless problem is getting really tiring. I too am sick and tired of the behaviours that allow this problem, not only to continue, but to grow. You know what else I am really tired of?

I am tired of 80 year old retirees ending up homeless and at the emergency shelter because their pensions no longer can cover the skyrocketing cost of housing in the lower mainland. While on the topic of affordable housing I am not only tired of, but outraged by the fact that an increasing number of the homeless work 40+ hours a week but at salaries so low they cannot afford to live in the communities they work in.

Not to mention how tired I am of a society that allows a mother and her children to have to chose to live in their car because she cannot earn enough to both pay rent and maintain her automobile – which she needs to get to work.

I am tired of seeing the mentally challenged and those with special needs fall through the cracks onto the streets and into the emergency shelter. I am sickened by the difference in quality of life between those with challenges and special needs who are fortunate enough to get access to the limited funds and programs society condescends to provide and those who find themselves alone and at the mercy of an indifferent system.

I am tired and appalled by the numbers of mentally ill people wandering the streets, many ending up in addiction as they self medicate. I am tired of the holier than thou attitudes taken by many people towards those who suffer the scourge of addiction and people who usurp the Deity’s role/sole right to judge a person. I worry when I find myself thinking along the lines of “s/he is nice and deserves help; s/he is such an a*s that they do not deserve consideration and to be treated with humanity”.

I am tired of watching the indignities and hardships inflicted by the behaviour of the MEIA office in Abbotsford as contrasted with the behaviours with offices in other parts of the province. I am tired of a system that is focused on denying help to those we feel don’t deserve help, to the point where it denies badly needed services to those truly in need of aid.

I am tired of politicians and a public that would rather, happily, spend $150,000 a year to throw someone in jail, than to invest $15,000 a year in getting that person sober, mentally well and an opportunity to live a life of their own design. I am tired of a system of recovery and rehabilitation that is demonstrably not accomplishing the positive outcomes it should, but to which politicians, bureaucrats and much of the public cling. I m tired of local politicians who say the right things but do nothing worthy of note and whose actions reveal their words to be nothing but political bafflegab.

I am tired of a society that whines about the decline of morality and spiritual values as it steps over the homeless sleeping in the street, turns it back on seniors, children, families, mentally ill, mentally challenged, the working poor, growing economic unfairness, wages inadequate to sustain life, ….

I am tired of all that and more. Which is why I write to Fred about homeless happenings in Abbotsford. Because the homeless issues in Abbotsford are issues across our country; important societal issues that we must address and that say a great deal about just what type of society we really are.

It is why I advocate for those who so desperately need an advocate and a voice. Why I created http://www.homelessinabbotsford.com/; I write to our local, provincial and national press; I get in the face of the Georges of the world, so they at least have to work at hiding their heads in the sand; it is why I have to move by the end of this month; it may very well be why I had to suffer mental illness, an old life lost, homelessness, recovery and a new, very different than expected life.

I am tired of it, so I work to be an agent of change.

You are tired of all this homelessness stuff – what are you doing to redress homelessness and other social ills?

You can stop bitching and work towards solutions and positive outcomes ( ‘cause if you have time to bitch about a problem, you have time to do something about the problem); or you can bury your head in the sand in order to ignore the problem and stop bitching; in either case (do something, do nothing) stop bitching.

Oh, and if you want pabulum masquerading as real news and issues, I suggest you try the mainstream press.

Pancake Breakfast Returns

It was good to see the Abbotsford Pentecostal Assembly pancake breakfast recommence after its summer hiatus. Thank you to the Pastor and his assistants.

Two observations I feel compelled to advance for consideration.

With respect to the decision not to send the bus around to pick up those needing transportation to get to the APA, thus avoiding the wrong sort of needy from partaking in your pancake breakfast and as a consequence limit attendance to those deemed worthy of your aid: I wonder just what Christ would have to say to you, and others in our community, about limiting charity and good works done in His name to only those you judge worthy?

My second observation set me to wondering if, as nice as the food is, it the opportunity to get one’s hair trimmed that draws many to the breakfast. Before seeking food or coffee many first make sure to get their name on the list for barbering; sitting around long after having sated their appetites, for their turn in the chair(s). For the homeless and poor something as simple as a haircut is out of reach because of cost.

I have observed that it is often the little things that start people on the road to recovery, simple things like haircuts, clean clothes and showers. This is why I believe the city should not only support the Abbotsford Cares Card by providing showers but seek ways to encourage regular, daily personal hygiene as a method of encouraging recovery.

No Public Washrooms

Those who know Fred Johns or are regular readers of his weekly webzine (http://www.somethingcool.ca/) know that Fred is, at best or at kindest evaluation, a little heteroclite. I shared how it was I found myself filming a soiled batch of paper towels. I now share Fred's words on this matter.Personally I am sure that, or at least I maintain, that finding myself in those circumstances is all Fred's fault and that I am just a sweet, innocent, NORMAL bystander sucked into the twilight zone by Fred's presence.

It was a fairly interesting set of circumstances that led James Breckenridge to be in a situation where he would be filming a patch of paper towels soiled with human waste, and yet there he was anyway. It wasn’t the first batch of makeshift toilet paper he had ever seen; what made this particular batch stand out from all the others was the fact that he had a video camera in his hand instead of paper towel himself.

It’s no secret that James Breckenridge used to be homeless. He even wrote a blog about it. But for all the posts he wrote and for all the discussions on the subject he had, nothing could quite compare with the experience of staring down at the spot where another human had wiped their ass in an open clearing just behind a popular Italian restaurant in downtown Abbotsford. No words were needed to describe both the injustice and despair that the soiled towels represented - the crap on them did that well enough on its own.

James openly admitted to being forced to do a similar thing once or twice himself. “I’ve been pretty lucky,” he said, standing a few feet from the dirtied towels. “That’s mostly due to good planning – I was always sure to be in the library or something once during the day so I could use the washroom facilities. But, I’ll admit it, there were times I had to find a bush or the dark side of a building so I could urinate and do my business.”

James isn’t embarrassed to discuss this topic, nor particularly uncomfortable, which puts him in the minority. Most people aren’t too interested in talking about how the homeless defecate, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still have to. It’s a taboo topic, one not openly discussed. Conversations about food and shelter tend to take precedence, but this doesn’t erase the physical needs of people without homes and proper washroom facilities. Homeless people are still people and as such, need to urinate and defecate like everyone else.

In Abbotsford, that’s particularly challenging. The majority of businesses in the downtown area have signs with the words “Washrooms for Customer Use Only” clearly inscribed on them. The library at Jubilee Park requires a key for entry. And there are an odd number of local gas stations that have washrooms that are suspiciously “out of order”.

Why such concern? It seems some of the local homeless seem to do nasty things while using the restrooms. “They tend to try and flush needles and stuff down the toilets,” a librarian at the Jubilee Park library said. “They mess the place up and leave it for us to clean. And it’s not safe for our workers to have to go in their and pick up needles and things. That’s why we require people to use a key.”

It’s a no-brainer too that local restaurant owners are uneasy about homeless people coming around and scaring their precious clientele. “It’s pretty simple actually,” one restaurant owner (who requested that his name and his restaurant be left out of this article) said. “People don’t come here to see homeless people. They come to eat in a friendly, fun and safe environment. They don’t want to be bothered by people who drink and use drugs so we don’t allow those kinds of people to use our washrooms.”

All fine and good for the customers, but what about the people that really need to pee, or, in safespeak, do a #2? “If you’re homeless in this town and you look it, you can try and use the public washrooms in the library,” Breckenridge said, recalling his own experiences as a homeless person. “Otherwise, you’re like the bears on those TV commercials, shitting in the woods.”

There is no shortage of working toilets along Abbotsford’s main business corridor, but few of them are ever in use. This is what irks Breckenridge so much, especially in a town with so many Christians who frequent the numerous local churches. “The Christians in this town appear to think that sleeping and shitting in the woods is perfectly acceptable for those homeless animals,” he said. “Now how Christian is that?”

Washroom facilities do exist at the local Salvation Army and people do not require a key to use the bathrooms at the Clearbrook library, way the other end of town. But the only other place in the main downtown district that would allow anyone to use their bathrooms was a tiny little comic store one street off the main drag.

“Why wouldn’t I let someone use the bathroom?” the owner of the store asked me when I told him his decision to open his bathrooms to the public was a bit of a rare one. “When you gotta go, you gotta go, right?”

Part of the reason he is so kindly is because there’s really nothing of value in his store where the bathrooms are located. “I have some .50 cent comics back there,” the owner said, “so if someone makes off with a couple of those, they’re almost doing me a favour.”

Most businesses, this owner said, do have valuable stuff near the washrooms, like merchandise and money, which is an added incentive to keep the homeless people out. “But it’s pretty safe here and I know as well as anyone what it feels like to have to go but having nowhere to do so. So I guess this is my way of showing a little community spirit.”

Now if only the rest of the community would get on board. There does seem to be a logical solution to this problem that would appease both the business owners and the homeless – public washrooms in parks. Even port-a-potties would do, wouldn’t they?

The librarian at the Jubilee Park location says that was already tried. “They had a port-a-potty in the park,” she recalled. “But then they burned it down. So now they have nothing.” She shrugged. “Whose fault is that?”

Whose fault, indeed. It’s a tough scene to imagine: it’s cold, probably dark and a homeless person finds him or herself alone with nowhere to take a crap. They have managed to scrounge up a clump of paper towel which is all they have to wipe their ass with. It’s hard to fathom the indignity a person must feel when they lower their ripped and torn pants and are forced to defecate, exposed to the world, with no privacy, the same way a coyote or a dog must.

“Thus it is that the homeless are forced to either hold it in indefinitely or urinate and defecate outdoors like animals,” Breckenridge said. “Perhaps, with even less dignity than animals considering there are businesses out there whose sole function is to clean up after people’s dogs.”

Who takes care of the human crap? Likely the homeless themselves, who are too embarrassed to leave it for someone else to find. Save for this one homeless person, who left the batch of soiled paper towels, perhaps for someone to find. And someone did find them – a journalist with a video camera and a former homeless man. As this odd pair stands above the dirty mattress the homeless person slept on and peers over at the nearby soiled towels, an idea forms. The former homeless man trudges off into the thick brush but returns a few moments later, with an item procured from a local convenience store.

“I think I’ll leave a little present,” James Breckenridge says, placing a roll of toilet paper atop the mattress. “For next time,” he says.

Afganistan Military Misjudgment

The Glaring Omission in Mr. Taylor’s August 28, 2007 mission statement in the Abbotsford Post is any Afghanistan mission statement demonstrating that this is a War worth fighting and not merely “a war of politicians and politics”.

The Valium of self-delusion Mr. Taylor speaks of would appear to have been administered to himself.

Afghanistan was not who attacked the US on 9/11 but terrorists. Being in Afghanistan, helping the US to pursue its anti-drug policies in wiping out the opium crop (from which heroin is made) upon which Afghani farmers depend for cash to live on and killing innocent civilians, does nothing but create enemies and more terrorists.

Fools rush in where wise men know better than to tread.

If we are unwilling to treat our addicts and help them into recovery, insisting on pursuing a foolish policy of ignoring capitalism and market forces via reducing demand through addiction recovery, there is no need to compound the foolishness by creating enemies – the farmers will be happy to sell their crop to us and don’t care if we then destroy it.

Wise men know that a terrorist in Afghanistan is not a threat to us in Canada – until someone bankrolls the terrorists thus allowing them to travel from Afghanistan to Canada, hide within Canada preparing their strike and providing the materials needed to commit terrorist atrocities.

Wise men know you go for those who bankroll the terrorists.

But Saudi Arabia is a friend of the Bush family and the US government; is extremely wealthy and generous to their friends; and controls the Saudi oil fields. Afghanistan is poor, unable to buy friends and influence.

He is correct on one point and both right and wrong on another. He is correct that the troops deserve our support and while correct that a firm withdrawal date should not be set, his implication that we should condemn our troops to an indefinite stay, suffering bleeding to death from a thousand cuts is criminal and flawed.

The bitter pill our troops must swallow is that they were betrayed by their government. Worse is the fact that this betrayal was perpetrated on them by a minority Government - the minority Conservative government who, while able to send our forces into harms way, had no ethical or moral right to commit out dedicated forces personnel to shedding their blood and lives in a purposeless and unjust war.

As the words of John Stewart Mills quoted by Mr. Taylor make clear - “war is an ugly thing” and if we are to be “willing to fight” and ask our forces to shed their blood, it must be a “moral” cause “more important than personal safety” and “worth war”.

The Balkan’s ethnic cleansing was. The Sudan with its genocide would be. Foolishness, political opportunism and cronyism are not.

A War of Politics and Politicians is not a war worth our nation’s treasure and blood, it is an ugly thing we should never have been involved in and that ethics demand we disengage from.