I am getting to old for homelessness or perhaps having a bed to sleep in spoiled me. Either way my new living arrangements have me stiffer than the proverbial board, feeling over 100 years old and moving very sloooooooooooow.

I admit I was definitely remiss in not focusing on making sure I got a station wagon or van during my sojourn indoors – and a laptop computer. I suppose I should have kept my priorities focused on the car and computer and not let things like classes, earning certifications, working, volunteering and pursuing mental health distract me from preparations for being on the street again.

With our out of balance housing market and economy it is a fact of life that more and more people, many of them working poor, are going to experience homelessness for at least some period(s) of time.

In fact we are now and have been for a while seeing even people with full time jobs who do not earn enough to pay all their bills because increasing housing costs have consumed a larger and larger portion of their disposable income. The working poor have the additional burden that their jobs prevent them from getting to the food bank to be able to save on food costs and therefore have more money available for housing.

As a society we can behave in our normal manner ignoring the problem, letting it worsen into crisis, having politicians and pundits make political footballs out of the matter etc. OR we could try a new approach – rational behaviour. Personally I am solidly in favour of acknowledging reality and behaving rationally as I have no wish to inflict on or share homelessness with anyone.

I admit I do not have a nice neat solution, probably because there isn’t one. From the Tao of James: always be suspicious of anyone who claims nice neat solutions to complex problems that involve people – they are lying or delusional.

Affordable housing is just such a complex problem. But by starting to work on it sooner rather than later, by being open-minded and flexible we can avoid having more and more citizens thrown onto the streets.

So as you prepare to sit down to eat or are going to bed or are listening to the rain pound down – ask yourself what you can do or better yet will do about addressing this question of affordable housing. There are lots of little actions that can be taken to help, remember little actions all add up. And a good idea shared or put into action will spread.

We all know rain/water can wear away mountains. It does not do this in a massive wall of water but through countless little drops falling over time in different places. For affordable housing and other “too big” problems if many of us choose to be as that single drop of rain, we can and will wear away the “mountains” our inaction has made many issues into.