Category Archives: Homeless

Homeless

Canada Day Musings

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I like to celebrate Canada Day by volunteering at Abbotsford’s Canada Day celebration. It is the spirit of volunteerism, sharing and caring that sets Canada so strongly, so clearly apart from our neighbour to the south. This volunteer spirit, in its mix of manifestations, I see as a key to addressing the major social issues and problems facing us as a community, province, country – as a people, a race.

And if you are going to open your mouth and comment on the behaviour of your community one had better be willing to practice what you preach. Fortunately for me, in this instance volunteering is easy, rewarding enough to bring me back year after year.

I like to get my volunteer registration in ASAP so I will get to work? play? in the zone of my choosing. There is something therapeutic in watching kids enjoying the day, playing games, listening to stories and doing crafts.

Some kids think carefully and only then take action while others are a frenzy of crafting activity. Watching them, helping them recharges one’s positive attitude battery even as the day in the sun outside leaves you physically tired.

Finished and packed up at the Canada Day celebration I had just enough time to grab a bite to eat, a shower and open the shelter for the night. Quite a thought provoking contrast between these two very different groups of people I spent my Canada Day with.

The kids full of energy and bright promise, the decisions that will affect the course of their lives ahead of them. For the clients of the shelter some of those life altering decisions have been made – poorly made, with to some extent, appalling outcomes and consequences. But like the kids out celebrating Canada Day every client’s future still holds more life affecting decisions ahead of them, holding out the promise of making wiser choices.

One of the harsh truths of our world is that some of those happy children out exploring and enjoying Canada Day are going to make bad choices and end up struggling with addiction, mental illness, misfortune, homelessness or some combination thereof. There can be no doubt that on past Canada Days some of our clients too had spent the day exploring and enjoying the day as happy children, their life altering bad decisions and poor choices in the future.

Looking across the sea of young people on Canada Day it is impossible to know which young people will make good decisions and wise choices and which ones will make bad decisions and unwise choices. All you can know is that some will end up clients in need of help.

The point of this train of thought, this musing, is that at some point in their lives shelter clients were young children full of life and promise. They were, and are, somebody’s children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers, sisters and friends.

There is no way to tell which children, whose children will suffer the fate and fallout of bad decisions and poor choices. All you can do is make sure that the housing, programs and support for those in need of the help to start making better decisions and wiser choices, to begin the road to recovery, are in place.

Ensuring that when those unfortunate, unlucky kids from Canada Day July 1, 2007 make their bad decisions and choices their road to recovery will not run into the barrier of indifference. And all the barriers and obstacles that indifference throws into the path to recovery; those barriers and obstacles that deny prior generations of children who made bad choices – recovery.

Ending homelessness, supporting those in recovery from mental illness and addictions are a matter of choice. We can choose and commit ourselves to accomplishing these goals. We merely need the will to DO IT, the willingness to change from sticking Band-Aids on these wounded fellow citizens to actually dealing with the issues and needs.

We need only commit ourselves to these goals and demand that our elected representatives do what we elect them to, but they loath risking, providing leadership on addressing difficult issues and problems. We have to exercise the patience of “one day at a time” and “progress not perfection” ever remembering we are dealing with people problems, guaranteeing a certain messiness.

If we as Canadians so choose, Canada Day 2008 can hold the promise of a brighter, healthier future for our children and all Canadians and our country – Canada, whose day we celebrate.

Federal, Homeless, Municipal, Provincial

A letter to the residents of the Clearbrook neighbourhood of Abbotsford BC:

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While I cannot say I share exactly your frustration over recovery houses, homelessness and crime problems, I can say I too am intensely frustrated over recovery houses, homelessness and the crime fallout from the way people and politicians continue to fail to exercise basic common sense in responding to the situation.

I concur that we need a recovery house policy, not to appease citizens but to protect the addict(s) in recovery who are seeking safe and supportive housing to continue their journey of recovery. Having witnessed the damage and pain that results for those who have the misfortune to end up in one of the houses that has nothing to do with recovery, I whole heartedly agree that we as a community owe it to those seeking recovery to ensure that is what they will find at a recovery house in our City.

What I find so frustrating is the continued failure of people and politicians to exercise common sense by asking some basic and obvious questions, then proceeding to address the issues raised by these questions. So here are some questions for the residents of Clearbrook to think about – and to demand the City answer.

Where are the displaced residents from houses that close going to go? Why would those who find themselves “released to homelessness” do anything other than join the ranks of the homeless who currently call the Clearbrook area home? There are no services, resources or housing to draw them away from the Clearbrook area, an area they are familiar with.

Have you considered the effect that dumping between 100 and 200 newly made homeless onto the streets of Clearbrook will have on the area? If you think you have problems with crime, homeless and addicts in the area now, what do you think is going to be the result of tossing large numbers of additional people onto the streets?

Are you prepared for the newly made homeless to take up residence in sheds, yards, parks, doorways, under trees and bushes, on the sidewalks etc? These people are homeless why would you expect them to just disappear? Where else do the homeless have to go?

Why is it that when these points were raised with the City over a year ago, when they first began to work on recovery house regulations, they have failed to address the most basic and pressing question of what/where are you going to do with those released to homelessness?

What kind of neighbour, what kind of citizen are you? Are you about solving these problems or are you about chasing them to some other part of the City, into someone else’s backyard as the homeless were harassed out of the downtown and into Clearbrook?

What is the point of the City chasing the homeless, the poor from residential neighbourhood to residential neighbourhood when they have no other place to go but around in circles, from spot to spot within the City? Would it not be common sense to provide leadership, support and political will to provide viable alternatives for housing, support and recovery?

Do you want to continue to act thoughtlessly or to act with purpose in pursuing long term, solution focused policies? Do you want these problems and issues to continue endlessly into the future, worsening year by year, or do you want to achieve the goal of the issues and ending these problems?

Think about it, then demands the city, provincial and federal governments begin to act with thoughtful common sense…

Homeless

Big Blue Bus rolls into Abbotsford BC

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I read in the Abbotsford News on Saturday June 23, 2007 about Mr. David Poulette and his big blue bus and would like to extend both thanks and a welcome to Abbotsford. With the growing number of homeless on the streets of Abbotsford there is plenty of need for more compassion and for action based leadership.
Since anyone who has not had their head buried in the sand was and is aware that part of the growing numbers of homeless on Abbotsford streets is due to migration from Vancouver it was not a surprise that Mr. Poulette was aware of this flow. What was a surprise, a most pleasant surprise, is Mr. Poulette’s response to this knowledge. He acquired a second bus, followed the homeless and provided leadership to get a few local churches involved with his program.

In a City that prides itself on being one of the most affluent in Canada; that prides itself on the number of churches within its borders; that prides itself on being a “Christian” community; that prides, nay boasts about, being the most giving (donations) city in Canada; the need for the big blue bus demonstrates exactly how hollow this pride, this false pride is.

A Vancouver resident sees the increase of homeless in Abbotsford, from downtown Vancouver and heads out to Abbotsford to provide caring, compassion and food. And a badly needed example and lesson for the citizens of Abbotsford on caring, compassion and simple Christian charity.