First, I believe the only way to make any true headway on issues such as poverty or homelessness requires the entire community to be involved. We are speaking of very complex issues that need many new, innovative ideas so we can tease apart the separate threads making up the Gordian knot we currently have. In order to generate these ideas we must have discussion, debate and conversation. The second is that as part of the examination of these problems, issues and ideas it is a fair question to ask about my personal frame of reference. Having an understanding of my background and life experience should help readers understand what I am saying and not have misunderstandings occur, such as happened in the first paragraph of your letter.

Blame is a fool’s game. It accomplishes nothing and gets in the way of change. It would have been most beneficial to course of my life to have dealt with my mental health issues at a much earlier point in my life. I did not or could not get it together then and there is nothing I can do to change that past. I could blame myself for not having been able to act before and constantly beat myself up over that, but that behaviour accomplishes nothing. I have to let it go and accept it as one of the realities of my life I cannot change. While I cannot change what went before, I am responsible for my future mental health. I could be incredibly stupid and go back to the old behaviours that left me vulnerable to having my life trashed by mental illness. Alternatively I could choose to act in a rational and intelligent manner, accepting the reality that I suffer from mental illness. I can, by acting responsibly, choose to walk a path more to my liking. I have medication to put a bottom I can deal with on what was a bottomless pit of mental hell, tools to get me through the bad days, knowledge about my own mental health, awareness of and access to mental health resources to deal with unusual stress or problems, friends and groups for understanding and support, I have regained joy and found passion to pursue interests, issues and causes. Most importantly I have regained my ability to make choices. Hanging onto blame would only serve to anchor me in the unhealthy mental state of my past. I choose to let go and live well.

In a similar manner it is a pointless waste of time to attempt to assign blame for poverty, homelessness, addiction, mental health issues, injustices and the uncivil, selfish behaviour rampant in our society these days. There is plenty of blame to go around and absolutely no point in getting into a pointless argument about who, what, where, why or how we got into this mess. We are in it and I do not really care about blame. What I am concerned about is the future and that we as a community behave rationally and intelligently in the choices we make and the actions we take.

It is clear to me that the actions currently being untaken in regards to dealing with these issues have accomplished pretty well nothing positive while serving to add to the rolls of the poor, homeless, addicted, untreated mentally ill, victims of crime and a host of others ill-fated enough to need support. To continue current policies and behaviours expecting different results is to me behaving in a manner as insane as the insanity of an addict. What I in fact advocate, is that if we want to attain positive results (for example: cause the number of the working poor who depend on the food bank for enough food to live to go down or to reduce the number of homeless living on the streets), we must change policies and behaviours to reflect what is real as opposed to the current practice of seeing what one wants to see or believing what one wants to believe. Reality does not care what you want to see or believe it just IS. Ignoring or denying reality because you do not like, want to believe or want to acknowledge that particular reality is as pointless a waste as blaming. Refusing to face reality perpetuates current behaviours, wasting large amounts of money, resources and time to no purpose. When what you are doing only serves to increase the problems and challenges faced – it is time to change your behaviour.

Before we proceed to your points 1 thru 5 there is a question I need an answer to be able to more accurately understand the points you raise. Since I do not know you I have no real way to determine if you are narrow-minded, wilfully blind or merely uninformed. Your statements equate being homeless with being an addict which is erroneous. Before continuing to read I would suggest you familiarize with the reality of homelessness. Yes those with addictions make up a significant percentage of the homeless but they are far from all the homeless. The last figure I read, sent by another fellow citizen less than pleased with my words, was from a Toronto Star article on a study that cited addiction as the primary cause for 30% of those who found themselves living on the streets; a far cry from all the homeless. Labelling all the homeless as addicts, because some are, is no more fair than me labelling you as an unthinking, war mongering, ass-kissing megalomaniac who believes the size of his cojones is dependent on sending others abroad to kill and be killed just because conservative party leader Harper is.

It is totally irresponsible and un-Canadian for any Prime Minister to shove his nose so far up the American president’s derriere. It is beyond irresponsible to abandon our role as peacekeepers and place our soldiers in a situation where they will kill innocent bystanders and they cannot tell who the enemy is. It is insanity to spend our soldiers lives so that a bumper crop of poppies (heroin) can be raised, processed and exported to our streets to kill and addict the very Canadians our troops are pledged to protect. It is incomprehensible that any leader would think that aggressive actions, bullying and going around wrecking death and destruction make you a “player or leader” on the world stage. I cannot in any way comprehend how it is that Harper thinks the size of our military and his willingness to waste their lives and our countries treasures in military adventurism in any way enhances the size of his cojones.

On point 1 – Yes I believe in punishing crime. I do however suspect, based on your statements about “rights and freedoms” that we do have a very different view about our legal system. I believe everyone is entitled to the same “rights and freedoms”. Based on your words, you and your fellow conservatives advocate that some have or should have more “rights and freedoms” than others. Just what are the criteria you use for deciding which rights and freedoms someone should have? Where you were born, skin colour, religious beliefs? Does the amount of money you have and the size of donations to the conservative party entitle one to more “rights and freedoms” than those with less money and who vote Green? My personal beliefs is that our legal system should be as level a playing field as possible and that everyone should have the same “rights and freedoms”.

Your point that jailing pushers would solve addiction is a fallacy. Let us be perfectly clear on one point about the drug trade and that is, in one of those huge ironic twists that the Universe seems to abound in, the drug trade is the ultimate expression of Capitalism. Supply and demand is the foundation upon which the drug trade (legal and illegal) is built. No matter how many pushers you lock up, the lure of big bucks and all the things money buys ensure a ready supply of people willing to sell drugs to make the $$$. Similar to the way in which tobacco companies had and have no trouble finding people to make, distribute and sell a product causing death and suffering. If your approach to this group of issues is throwing pushers in jail, then you are doomed to failure as our society’s worship of the $$$ guaranties an endless supply of those willing to sell harmful products – of any shape or form. The only way to drive pushers out of business is to eliminate demand. This whole area of discussion demonstrates that what sounds good and appeals to ones personal world view often, when viewed rationally and through the lens of reality, will not accomplish your goal – unless your goal is to fill up prisons. We know from the experience of the USA that using incarceration to address drug use only fills up the prisons and makes rich those involved in the building and running of prisons. Yet another of those Universal ironies, another legal way to get rich from the illegal drug trade.

I have nothing against locking up pushers. I just firmly believe that for ethical, moral and spiritual values we should be concentrating our resources and time on helping the addicts as opposed to the conservatives desire to pour unlimited dollars into jailing pushers and then claiming we have no money to build detox beds. Build the detox beds, help the addicts get sober, you eliminate the demand, which eliminates the $$$ and thus the pushers. You and the conservatives may not find this approach nearly as soul satisfying as throwing lots of people in jail, but it has at least the possibility of working and it will help addicts.

Point 2: Another illustration of differing viewpoints. You see “down-and-outers” were I see my fellow human beings in pain and in need of help. As to your compassion and willingness to “give time, money and your home” – this is an important piece of what is needed to help those suffering with or from such challenges as addictions, mental health, homelessness or pure bad luck to get back on their feet. If some of the badly needed changes can be brought into being, I will be calling upon you to help execute those changes. Although there will be need of monies, properly spent, it is personal time and caring that will be the deciding factors in how successful we as a community will be in reclaiming lost lives.

This belief, that the soul of a community is determined by the involvement of citizens in volunteering, is why I also volunteer my time with organizations and activities that have nothing to do with poverty and homeless issues.

I think I will just pass on the issue of who gives more; it would be entering a pointless snake pit of definitions. Any decent accountant can build support for either side of your statement. There is far to much that needs doing and far to many who need help to waste time in semantically debates. I do not care where the giving comes from. What I do care about is that all the resources are used to take actions that efficiently and effectively produce positive results.

Point 3. I apologize for the following verbal jab but while I am much healthier mentally I do fail sometimes and this jab is just to good to pass up. Apologies. I bow to your working prowess. While I have, in a factory setting, occasionally worked 2 eight hour shifts I found that by the end of the second week I had to cut back the hours and get some more sleep and rest. As for your having “worked two eight hour jobs and sometimes three” there is nothing I can say as I always had to get some sleep and as I said by the end of the second week of 16 hour days I had to cut-back to get more rest. I could not, I would not even be willing to try, work three eight hour jobs as I have always had to get some sleep each day. No, going 24 (3 X 8) hours a day without rest is beyond me.

I must also apologize as I must have misunderstood your politics as I had thought you supported the conservative party. I must be mistaken about your supporting the conservatives since you want your taxes to go to a responsible government. On top of this you want a government to “re-steer the homeless addict through rehab into a self fulfilling job in society”. I think I will also apologize for stealing your words because, although I will drop the re- in re-steer, the goal of “steering the homeless addict through rehab into a self fulfilling job in society” is an expression of a goal I can get behind and support. So with you demanding both responsible government and sound social policy it is obvious you cannot be a conservative supporter. To be truthful, I do not see how you can support any of our current political parties using your stated criteria.

Point 4. This point forces me to take my tongue “out of my cheek”. I am not sure whether the current conservative government fooled you (and many others) completely or if you were so desperate for a responsible government that you became self-delusional. It does not matter. Let us be clear on one important fiscal point – this current conservative government does not behave in a fiscally responsible manner. Actually, they do not behave in a responsible manner in most of their actions. That aside, I base my judgement of their fiscal idiocy and irresponsibility upon my education and background – Bachelor of Commerce, Chartered Accountancy and wide experience in accounting and business. A fiscally responsible government does not cut taxes, it does not even promise to cut taxes during an election campaign. A fiscally responsible government takes every cent it can muster and applies it to reducing the government debt levels you cited. A fiscally responsible government does not tout a surplus when that surplus is an illusion. The so-called surplus exists only as long as interest rates remain low. Currently they are rising and are going to continue to rise, eventually reaching and surpassing the point where increased interest costs turn the “surplus” into debt. To increase the recklessness of this, the conservative government has committed to pour out of our coffers hundreds of billions of dollars, in following their ideology, on programs or assets that will add nothing of economic benefit to our country or its citizens.

Worse, in the pursuit of their ideology the conservative government fails to think. For example, in the area of their ideological based childcare program they failed miserably to consider what effect the additional $200 would have on the working poor. I recently heard, and agreed with, the indignation someone was feeling over hardships this unthinking, ideological policy making had. She was trying to come up with someway to overcome the disaster looming for a family in jeopardy of going hungry because the $200 placed the family over the income limits for accessing the food bank. Apparently the conservatives only worry about helping the working person who is able to donate to their party. The working poor who, needing every dollar just to survive, cannot afford to waste a dollar supporting any political party appear, in the conservative world view, to be unworthy of sparing a thought about. The conservatives are so busy pursuing their ideology they have no time to behave responsibly.

I have to admit to having no understanding of your comment citing our debt having gone to pay for a rich sheik in Asia. Should you choose to clarify what you are speaking of I would be glad to address this point. Currently that statement seems incongruous to being linked to paying for roads, hospitals or helping the homeless.

Point 5. I agree people need to be engaged in their community, province and country an a daily basis. The true problem with voting is that so many fail to vote and so many of those who do vote fail to expend the effort to actually think. They would rather just hear something they like, something they want to believe is true or promises of easy, fast fixes for difficult problems thus it is you have our current political situation. If people actually took the trouble to think and apply common sense to the issues and challenges that face us, they would ignore the existing parties and forming a new political collaboration based on acting in a responsible manner based on reality – not ideologies or world view.

As to your analogy of the bridge and ambulances: I think you are viewing the situation completely wrong. I would say that in pointing out what actually results from current policies and practices, then calling for the changes necessary to act in the manner required to help steer people into fulfilling places in society, I am standing on your imaginary bridge attempting to change the direction of travel from the disastrous path over the edge. In seeking to perpetuate the current policies and actions, to remain on the same old path onto the bridge and over the edge into the abyss, thus adding to the carnage of the pileup at the bottom of the gorge (or society), you are standing at the bottom of the gorge beside the river. Perhaps you would care to join me in switching from the old path over the edge onto a new path leading upwards and outwards.

We, the members of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada’s Roundtable on Poverty and Homelessness, and other signatories, are representative of the many Canadian people of Christian faith who believe that the care of poor and vulnerable people of all ages is a central tenet of our own faith, of good government, and of responsible, compassionate citizenship. We have already committed significant personal and organizational resources to this purpose. We have witnessed the rise of homelessness as a crisis of disturbing proportions, and of societal, systemic and individual complexity. The time has come to add to material action a clear, creative and challenging public voice. We believe that Jesus Christ was and is the unique Son of God, and that he lived, died and was resurrected for our salvation. We believe that the Bible is, in its entirety, God-breathed, and that His voice may be heard clearly throughout. And we are convinced that the teaching and example of Jesus, together with the repeated testimony of the Bible, reveal that God specifically values those who are poor and rejected as having been made in His image, and, therefore, as inherently precious to Him. We are convinced of the fundamental dignity and worth of each and every human being, without qualification.

We All Need Homes, Not Just Housing

A home is more than just four walls and a roof. It’s a whole life situation that means being welcomed into a safe, secure and dignified place to live; healthy, nurturing relationships; the opportunity for education, meaningful work for reasonable pay; and to worship, dream and play in vibrant community. Housing initiatives need to take these values into account, and aim at creating far more than “affordable” space.

We Are More Alike Than Different

Drastically different life circumstances can create the illusion that we are inherently different beings, especially when those external differences are ones that may frighten or repulse us – such as homelessness. These perceived differences allow us to distance ourselves still farther, until we can easily justify our nonengagement with people who are homeless. Yet the closer we get to people, even those whose experiences, circumstances and proclivities seem completely foreign to us, the more essentially similar we find ourselves to be. People who are homeless have the same needs and longings we all share.

Compassion Demands Action

Compassion is more than a feeling. Genuinely caring about people motivates us to take action. We must, therefore, apply ourselves to learn why people become homeless or are trapped in poverty, engage in social and political advocacy, make a point of getting to know people who may live outside our own “comfort zones”, and seek to share our time, abilities and material resources. All of these energies are directed at effecting material change – such as dignified housing, meaningful work, or access to health care or education – in the lives of the people for whom we have compassion.

Grace And Mercy Are For All Of Us

Choosing to help only those who “deserve” help and leaving behind those whose behaviours we may disapprove of is prejudicial and not Biblical. The grace and mercy of God, upon which we all rely, are, by definition, only for people who are undeserving and/or guilty. Christians, knowing themselves to be by nature undeserving, ought to be able to identify with those who appear to be homeless or poor because of their own behaviours. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8

Ignoring Poverty Impoverishes All Of Us

Abandoning people to poverty increases health problems and welfare rolls, and sometimes drives people to crime – all major burdens for governments, and therefore, tax payers. The generational entrenchment of poverty diminishes hope (the capacity to dream) and the sense of personal value in the individual. Children, the unrealized potential of our nation, when they are born into poverty, start life so far behind others that they may never be able to catch up. The whole of society is enriched when the creative gifts of the poor are supported by governmental and social systems that affirm the value of what they have to offer. When people are shut out because of their poverty, poverty itself “snowballs”, at once increasing our societal burden and diminishing our societal capacity. Homelessness in Canada is a clear and concrete manifestation of this truth.

Justice And Mercy Define Good Government

Believing that our progress is measured by our standard of care for the least privileged among us, we expect good government to formulate policy that not only works toward a level playing field, but offers “second chances” to people who have failed or done wrong. We believe that justice ought to be primarily restorative rather than punitive. We recognize that both social policies and budgets are declarations of a government’s moral intent. We will offer whatever support we can to government initiatives that are just and merciful, and will continue to use every means at our disposal to press governments at every level until such policies are made a priority. We believe that homelessness will be a priority for policy makers concerned with justice and mercy.

Poverty Belongs At The Centre

The Bible teaches clearly and consistently throughout, that care of people who are poor, oppressed or marginalized is intrinsic to both the announcing of the gospel of personal salvation, and the purpose of government. Throughout western history, when governments and the church have put care of such people at the centre of their agendas, both have flourished. For perhaps 150 years, the general political and religious trends in the western world have been aimed at reducing poverty – with a significant level of success. In recent years, however, these positive trends have diminished and further marginalized people who are poor, sometimes to the point of criminalizing certain aspects of poverty. We believe that, if this trend continues, it will ultimately be disastrous for our country and our churches. The church in Canada has a responsibility to provide moral leadership by making a priority of caring for people who are poor, and particularly people who are homeless, in its own budgets and activities.
Government Responsibility Does Not Excuse Church Apathy
While various levels of government clearly have a responsibility to address these matters, the church must not succumb to a theological dichotomy whereby we construe the church’s responsibilities to concern only the spiritual, and the government’s only the physical. As communities of faith, we have different capacities than governments or social service organizations. We must be ready to provide creative leadership in some circumstances, and partnership or humble servanthood in others, in order to create realistic, dignified and sustainable options for people who are homeless.

Christian Groups Make Good Partners For Government Initiatives

Christian groups have for many years been the largest nongovernment service provider to the poor and homeless in North America. In fact, many social services now funded and directed by government were begun by such groups. Since Christian teaching and practice encourages the development of functioning communities, a high level of volunteer participation, and the donation of money and other resources, we can often achieve more with less, adding value and offering a wealth of experience and healthy community context to government resources. Already existing Christian communities offer a holistic context for the development or implementation of services and programs that government is not equipped to create on its own. We encourage Christian groups to support and partner, wherever possible, with government initiatives aimed at the substantial reduction of homelessness, poverty, and their root causes.

Therefore, To Our Brothers And Sisters Who Struggle With Poverty And Homelessness, We Commit to…

LEARN all we can about the systemic, sociological, economic, cultural and spiritual deficits that have left them in this state. We will listen carefully to them, for they are our greatest teachers. We will seek out the knowledge others have acquired, and teach what we ourselves have learned to those who want to care more effectively for people who are poor or homeless;ACT with diligence and integrity to create with them healthy, nurturing relationships, and safe, secure, dignified homes;SPEAK on their behalf when their own voices are not heard, and support them in speaking for themselves, to the end that Canadian churches, governments, media and businesses would make the substantial reduction of homelessness, poverty and their root causes a high priority; and COOPERATE with others committed to these baseline objectives, respecting differences of approach and philosophy.

Before God, We Make These Commitments In The Places Where We Work And Serve, In Our Communities Of Faith, And In Our Personal Lives