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.