My life is starting to feel as if I am sailing aboard the SS Minnow where, no matter how creatively I patch the holes, the water keeps finding new ways of leaking in, threatening to drag me down into homelessness once more.

The difference in the number of pay periods (26/2 = 13) versus disability cheque issues (12 X 2 = 24) resulted in an extra paycheque being included in a cheque period (3 cheques instead of the usual 2). The result was that $280 was clawed back off the disability cheque leaving me short $250 to pay June’s rent.

‘Delaying payment’ of the monthly bills provided $100 towards June’s rent. Of course the price of using the $100 to pay June’s rent is the need to struggle for at least the next three months to squeeze $100 out of my budget to bring the accounts of the monthly bills back to current from delinquent. On a budget were even a 2kg jar of peanut butter is a major expenditure finding the $100 feels more like one is paying in blood or having it carved out of one’s hide.

With no discretionary spending in the budget each ‘savings’ is a decision made at the expense of something else.

If Fate or The Universe had not intervened to return a damage deposit, three years late and in the precise month (May 2010) it was needed, the car I am writing this sitting in would have been providing me shelter during my return to homelessness.

I am sitting in the car writing this waiting for a free supper to be served because I cannot afford the gas to drive home and then return for supper. I am a member of a Fraser Mental Health committee that exists to advise Fraser Mental Health, from the point of view of someone using the services provided by Fraser Mental Health, about its the services and delivery methods it uses. I was forced to miss June’s meeting because there was no money to pay for gas to drive to and from Surrey.

My car provides the only form of transportation that allows me to get to the places I need to be at the times I need to be there. Being unable to get to work and get home from work at 1:30 in the morning would mean I could not afford my current lodgings, could not afford the rent on any safe and healthy housing. Volunteer activities, Fraser Mental Health committees (Surrey, Coquitlam), Housing and Homeless working groups, mental health groups to facilitate (Abbotsford, Mission and Chilliwack) are among the commitments only a car allows me to keep. A car is not a convenience but a necessity.

I am so tapped out that the other day when I found a British made ink pen with four different nibs and ink cartridges in a Thrift Store for the bargain price of $0.65, a pen I needed to replace one that had ceased to write, I had to borrow $0.30 to have enough to pay for it. Repaying the $0.30 was accomplished through cashing 6 pop cans in at the bottle depot.

So of course, when your life begins to feel more and more like you are a passenger on the SS Minnow or are transferring to the Titanic, when one is financially past the point of being tapped out and the car you need and depend on needs to be aircared … that is when said automobile starts running rough and spewing out fumes that have people in the vicinity of the exhaust pipe choking and gasping for fresh air.

With my current financial situation, pretty much penniless, the need for a tune-up (or whatever the Cavalier requires to pass Aircare) requires the benefaction of a mechanic and parts required at a cost of … zero, zip, nada, $0.00 OR the philanthropy of a vehicle with a price at the same level of zero, zip, nada, $0.00.

Finding the future, Housed or Homeless, once again out of my hands and consigned to Fate …

… well, not only is life feeling as if I am a passenger on the SS Minnow but this latest twist has me feeling as if I have been tossed an anchor instead of a life jacket.

Continue reading Just when did I board the SS Minnow? →

Success was a matter of hard work. Today hard work may well only permit you to keep your head barely above water. Today the difficulties in breaking out of poverty and those who find they cannot break out vastly outnumber the stories of someone who rose from rags to riches.

I speak from experience having had to start my life over due to mental illness.

The first time around hard work did lead to success. Of course salaries then allowed me not only to pay my living expenses but save enough to go to University and graduate without any debt. Articling and becoming a Chartered Accountant, moving into business all were made much easier because I had no debt, was young and there were simply more opportunities then.

Contrast that with today’s graduates who graduate owing tens of thousands of dollars they must repay. I could save money for school working 40 hours a week; throw in 20 hours of overtime and I could save enough in a year to attend University and do the four year course in three years because I had saved that much money in a year.

There are people working close to 60 hours a week in Abbotsford just to earn enough to cover the cost of living, particularly housing. Worse they have to juggle their schedule because they are working 3 jobs since they only get 20 hours per job so that their employer can avoid paying benefits.

Throw in the fact that in BC we have the highest cost of living in Canada and the lowest minimum wage and you begin to get an impenetrable barrier.

Close to 80% of my income this time around goes for housing. The other 20% disappears before my other expenses are covered forcing me to decide which items I can afford and what items I must do about.

I need a car to get to work but insurance and gas take the lions share of that 20%, but without getting to work and getting paid I cannot cover my housing costs which would put me on the street homeless (been there, had that happen) leading to a torturous, years long journey just to get back to my current position.

Currently my car needs work but there is no money (OK I have 9 cents to my name) for parts or repairs. Leaving me hoping, praying the car continues to run long enough for me to scrounge up enough money to keep it running.

Hunting for a better job? I cannot afford ink for my printer to send out resumes and/or cover letters.

I could go on citing the differences in my experience between starting out the first time and starting over/out this time but I will spare the reader so as not to lose them. Suffice it to say that I have found a vast difference between several decades ago and today.

Luck and who you know is today a better predictor of ones getting one’s life in order than hard work. It does not matter who is responsible for this state of affairs; something is wrong when hard work and effort will often do no more than keep your head barely above water.

As to poverty and crime be glad that poverty is not the root of crime since with my background and experience it is integrity and honour that stands between me and wealth. Every time I hear of people losing their savings, several perfectly legal methods of transferring wealth to myself pop into my mind and I have to remind myself that it is not all about “what I have.”

I do not begrudge people their success. I do however object to those who use the power and influence that comes with success to deny others an opportunity for success.

Having the government change the rules to give employers advantages that permit union busting and the lowering of wages; or allowing employers to limit all employees to only 20 hours a week to avoid paying benefits thus complicating peoples lives because they have to work several jobs to get 40 hours (or however many hours are needed) work and reducing their quality of life; having government raise, year after year, tuition fees to pay for tax cuts rather than keep them at an affordable level; ….

One of the few areas of our society and economy that rewards on ability and hard work is the illegal drug business. It is this open opportunity that has created a vast pool of workers to draw upon to replace people lost to the natural attrition inherent in the illegal drug business. One of the reasons that hard work pays off is that the business operates outside government regulation. As a result of this there are no rules or barriers to protect the successful from those looking to advance.

We are forcing our children to assume large debt loads to obtain an education at the same time we are loading our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great- great-grandchildren with government debt to finance our “successful” life styles.

Success or continued success that comes at the cost of others wellbeing and quality of life is unacceptable.

During our recent unprecedented worldwide economic boom homelessness, poverty and the numbers of poor rose.

Far too often these days one can make the effort to change who and what you are, work hard and still be unable to achieve much more than survival. A reality attested to by the recent survey conducted by the payroll company which found over 70% of Canadians wage earners are only one paycheque away from financial disaster.

Suggesting that more and more today the fault is not in ourselves but in our stars – or more accurately our society and government.

What do I want? I want to have the same opportunity to get ahead through ability and hard work that I had the first time I set out in search of Success.

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COLUMN: Don’t begrudge success, because it’s in us all

Mark Rushton

My buddy, with a smile on his face, asked “Where’s the fancy truck” when I rolled up beside him in my nine-year old pickup.

“You’re lookin’ at it,” I replied, “and right now I probably couldn’t get enough for it to buy a decent bicycle and replace the eight-foot row boat that somebody swiped.”

In other words, my friend reads the letters to the editor.

And I couldn’t help pointing out to him that if I had said poor people were to blame for all the crime and theft, I’d have been pilloried.

That’s the problem with assumptions … whether it be criminals or my possessions … because to assume is to make an ass(of)U(or)me. And it’s not me, because while I may not be the brightest light on the Christmas tree, I have been polishing the bulb for a lot of years. And I try to choose words carefully so sometimes what’s between the lines is more important than what’s in them.

So I don’t, and will never, believe that poverty is the root of crime.

Yes, poverty can be one of the causes, but so is greed. In fact, the majority of crime is instigated by money, large sums of it, and the people perpetrating it are anything but poor or uneducated.

However, I don’t take issue with poverty, and in fact, think it awful there are people who truly have to scrabble hand to mouth.

But at the same time, don’t preach to me that people’s success is the cause of flaws in our society.

Hard as it may be for some to accept, it is the successful in society who pay for the social safety net that provides for those who need it the most.

Ask anyone who makes a good income to tell you how much tax they pay – tax that provides hospitals, schools, social assistance, etc.

There is no shame in being successful. And there is no restriction in our society to anyone who truly wants to be successful.

Some fritter away their day watching TV, or incessantly beating out inanities on Twitter; others become preoccupied with bemoaning their lot in life and never attempt to rise above it.

For others, I readily admit, there are difficulties in breaking out of poverty. But for every one of them, there is a story of someone who rose from rags to riches.

And each and every one of those who have made life a success will rage at the thought that their efforts, their drive and their success are the cause of the flaws of our society, or that they should feel guilt, because for every dollar they take in, another goes out to benefit those in need.

That’s how society works in a democracy, which flawed though it may be, has fewer people on the poverty line than in those countries which are not.

Am I ashamed of what I have? An unadulterated NO! Should others who through skill, good fortune, education, or yes, even family assistance, be ashamed of what they have accomplished or what they have? Again ‘no’! And to be honest, we’d all like more!

Poverty is both a state of being, and a state of mind – neither of which is good.

But being poor does not make one a criminal, nor does it take away one’s dignity.

What is important is pride of self, and if one applies that pride, one is truly never poor. And if someone is willing to work as hard, or harder, as they think they possibly can, poverty can become a thing of the past.

Will everyone climb out of it? No.

But those who have, those who may never have faced it, and those who are successful are not the cause of the flaws in our society.

The cause is within each and every one of us who doesn’t make the effort to change who and what we are.