During this past week, first at a tele-learning session and then at a planning session for Vibrant Abbotsford, the word community was bandied about. I began to wonder about several questions: does community always mean the same thing or does it take on varying meanings depending on usage or context, even when it is the same person using the word; how much difference in what they mean by community is there between different people, even when they are speaking about the same set of circumstances or conditions; how many of those who use the word community have actually stopped to consider what they mean in using the word community; are any of cities of those groups affiliated with the Vibrant movement actually living in a community in more than a geographical sense?

We develop learning plans to learn about the extent and character of poverty, attitudes towards poverty and the assets available to reduce poverty all in our communities. Are we failing to ask the most important question of all: do we live in a community or just a collection of buildings and people in a convenient geographical spot? Is not the existence of community fundamental to any poverty reduction?

In writing www.homelessinabbotsford.com I have asserted that Abbotsford is not a community in more than a geographical sense. That in fact Abbotsford is the most unfriendly and unwelcoming city I have lived in, having lived in many major Canadian cities including Toronto. I have advanced the argument that the behaviours of the numerous churches make a major contribution to the lack of community in Abbotsford. In a city that prides itself on the number of churches within its boundaries, this line of reasoning has caused some members and leaders of these organizations to be less than happy with me.

Why do I make this assertion? All these churches provide focal points for their members to form separate groups (cliques) turning inward and away from their fellow citizens in an exclusionary way. With the large number of churches in Abbotsford, this behaviour of turning inward to focus on a single church based group and exclude ties to non-members, makes these churches a major barrier to Abbotsford becoming a Community.

For is not Community rooted in interconnectedness? Organizations or practices that discourage widespread connectedness in favour of exclusionary small circles of people with barriers between them and others contribute greatly to Abbotsford’s failure to become a Community.

This interconnectedness, this sense of Community is not something that exists only in our past as suggested by all those who long for “the old days, when neighbour helped neighbour”. It thrives in our smaller towns and cities and exists in some larger municipalities which have the required citizen behaviours.

At one point I was mixed farming on a farm 50 kms outside Boyle, Alberta. As a small town of 3 – 400 Boyle was the booming metropolis for the region and the Postal delivery center. Less than two weeks after I arrived on the farm, without ever having been into Boyle itself, a letter from a great aunt of mine addressed simply to James Breckenridge, Boyle Alberta arrived without delay. What made this noteworthy was that in order to get delivered the address should have the rural route #, the location box number and the individual post box number within the location box.

Without me ever being in Boyle itself the postmistress was aware of my arrival and location because of the interconnectedness of the Community. Note that the “community of Boyle” encompassed hundreds of square kilometres and the widespread farms and ranches within that area. Community then is not defined by a neat centralized geographic location but by the interconnectedness of those who form or make up the Community.

I tend to get strange looks when I say that perhaps my favourite city to live within in Canada is Saskatoon, which is admittedly a little chilly in winter. For me this coolness of temperature was more than offset by the warmth of the Community. I suspect that a contributing factor is that many residents are from farms or rural communities and still have ties to those farms and communities. You also have a large University of Saskatchewan student population comprising a significant percentage of the City’s total population.

I drove into Saskatoon with a pickup truck full of clothing, music and books knowing no one in the City. Yet from the time, shortly after arrival, I found a place to live I felt connected to the City. My landlords were from a farming community and made me feel welcome, even part of the family. Considering my mental health issues this feeling of connection says a great deal about the welcome they extended. It also says something about the feeling of connectedness throughout the City that I felt and still feel a connection to the City.

The difference between Saskatoon and Abbotsford lies in interconnections. Saskatoon also had many sub-communities from Boy Scout troops and churches to the University – itself made up of many sub-communities. Yet Saskatoon, a City of similar size to Abbotsford, is a Community for the reason that its citizens are connected to the Community itself. In Saskatoon the subgroups by and large have and encourage connections to other groups, neighbours, neighbourhoods and the City itself.

In Abbotsford the subgroups by and large are exclusionary denying connection to others outside the subgroup with the result Abbotsford is comprised of a series of unconnected sub-groupings of people living in a geographical location with that geological location being the only commonality they share among the different subgroups or cliques. This lack of interconnectedness means Abbotsford requires leadership if it is to become a Community; leadership and vision to bring about the changes and interconnectedness to be a Community.

If Community is a result of interconnectedness is there another major factor we need to be aware of and take into consideration? Yes, the fact that this interconnectedness is not achieved without effort or cost.

I have heard people in Abbotsford speak covetously of those days when if a barn burned down all the neighbours turned out help rebuild. “Those were the good old days when community meant something” they rhapsodize. Then turn around and say “Oh I cannot help there or do that because I do not have time or that’s my movie night or I’m to tired or No I cannot miss MY TV show or …” As if community is state of nature requiring no effort to acheive.

Community is not about it being easy or requiring no effort or sacrifice. It is not all about you but about the Community. When they speak longingly of a community where neighbours turned out to help rebuild the barn, they ignore or refuse to see the sacrifices the neighbours made in order to help. The chores of the farmer from the neighbouring farm do not magically disappear or do themselves. After helping raise the barn he has to go home and do his own chores, putting in the long, extra hours it takes to make up the time he gave to help his neighbour.

We are losing our Communities not to growing complexity of society or growth in population and city size, but to our own concern for and centeredness on SELF. The more it becomes all about ME, the less connected we become to each other and our communities. We are losing our Communities to our own selfishness.

So why is this idea of Community so important? Because poverty reduction is going to require a willingness to make sacrifices for others in the Community, whether in volunteering one’s time, a willingness to pay slightly more for goods so that stores can pay living wages or perhaps a willingness to call upon companies you own stock in to pay as much attention to their employees and the communities they operate in as to the bottom line.

There remains another very important aspect of considering what community is/means. As noted in the second paragraph of this discussion paper, learning plans are about assessing the readiness of the Vibrant communities to undertake poverty reduction. Does it not follow that an integral part of any learning plan must be and examination of what we mean when we speak of Community? That we need to make a careful consideration of whether we live in a Community or merely occupy a geographical happenstance?

There are major implications that flow from the assertion made that in fact we live not in Communities but in collections of people whose commonality is, for the most part, limited to the position – the latitude and longitude – they occupy. If, Then. If interconnectedness and Community are vital to achieving the changes needed to affect poverty reduction on the micro or macro level; then we must bring about and sustain Community to accomplish anything, including poverty reduction.

In assuming a state of Community Vibrant Abbotsford and other Vibrant communities may well be doomed to endlessly spin their wheels, getting no traction for change because this fundamental assumption is, at least in my mind incorrect. While formulating and executing a learning plan is a necessary component of bringing about the changes needed for poverty reduction it is not the most crucial aspect. In fact up some circumstances the learning plan could prove useful but ultimately dispensable

I assert that the indispensable requisite condition is the existence of Community whether at a single geographical location or nation wide. It follows that any effort to effect poverty reduction requires this state of Community to exist at the level the attempted poverty reduction is being made. Therefore it is imperative that while Vibrant Abbotsford is following its learning plan it must also be bringing about a state of Community in Abbotsford. If not Vibrant Abbotsford will find itself with a completed learning plan but lacking a Community to make use of the knowledge flowing from the learning plan.

I would also assert that a careful consideration of the question of Community is a vital undertaking for all members of the Vibrant initiative, including Tamarack. Else we risk finding ourselves knowing at least some of the changes we need to effect to reduce poverty, but unable to bring about change because the essential enabling condition of Community is nonexistent.