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Newspapers need to stop taking the easy way out

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Editor

This is my first time in my 40 years I have been compelled to write a newspaper. I have been dealing with my mental health issues and for the last three years have received help and support from an organization which has supported and helped many other in our community.

I have been reading both the Times and News for a few years watching for recognition of this organizations contributions to the community of Abbotsford.

From personal experience I know this organization is client centered, providing not just services but a fellowship and belonging which next to shelter and basic needs is necessary for Self-esteem and Self-worth.

To a certain degree this not receiving recognition is a fault of the organizations priorities. Employing a PR person to arrange for newspaper stories and recognition of their numerous contributions to the community and the people they serve is simply not a priority for this organization as it has better uses for its money and time.

Apparently my view of what newspapers are supposed to be about is skewed. I have always assumed that publishers, editors and reporters where aware of and in touch with what was going on in their communities and what organizations were contributing to the welfare of citizens within their communities. I thought local newspapers would inform the community at large about these organizations services and contributions to the health of the community.

Instead it seems that our local papers simply rely on and write about what an organizations PR shill chooses to submit to them.

Leaving an organization which provides amazing long term successful mental health recovery services and programs in our community not getting the recognition they deserve from our local media.

I agree with James W Breckenridge’s article about the fact that if you add up all the claims of people housed by organizations in Abbotsford we should have a negative number of homeless on our streets.

A number of organizations are pumping out turnstile numbers to access funds and grants, taking funds away from organizations that actually provide people with the fellowship, belonging and long term support that is necessary for recovery. Because if an organization is not providing the services to be successful long term they have a turnstile endlessly counting the same services and people over and over.

I count today; tomorrow when you come back I will count that as 2: when next day comes that will be 3; and so on and son on.

Same with housing, Wondering why they are able to help so many, yet the numbers on the street haven’t changed. What are the successes based on? Even if an individual is able to find housing for a month, but has no other fellowship or sense of belonging to anything else besides the street they will simply find there way back where? To the street, Why? We fed them gave them shelter all the necessities right. Why did this person throw all that away? I will explain this and its simple you can give a person all that you feel they need but if there fellowship and belonging has not changed they will return to the one they had.

A successful count should be only be long term only has meaning in the long term. Having a person housed for 12 months with a newly developed sense of fellowship and belonging in the community should be a bare minimum consideration for being able to say they have a success.

There needs to be some kind of accountability when these organizations say they have helped xyz number of persons in need.

I am not saying that these organizations are not in need, they very much are. I would just like them to be honest and upfront – if you simply fed or shelter someone then say we successfully served xyz with a meal and shelter for xyz number of days. But do not say that this is recovery or rehabilitation because it is simply not true.

I believe, based on my personal experience, that any organization that does not develop a peer system or fellowship with the persons they serve will fail. Whether it is addictions, mental health, or homelessness they will fail.

Somewhere some basic psychology has been lost. One of the first things you encounter in psychology, that has been around forever is Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs to self actualization.

Most successful organizations in the recovery field have a peer support system; examples of this are AA sponsors, MH Peer Support Workers, Mentors. For some reason the most inexpensive and successful treatment of persons in need has been lost, replaced by politicized, expense formulated costly services that have complicated matters and left out the basic need for fellowship.

Fellowship provides belonging, when we are validated and accepted only then do people have a sense of self-esteem or worth. Organizations need to heed this approach to be successful.

Newspapers need to stop taking the easy way out, start paying attention to what is happening in the community and informing the public what the actual situation is. Only in this manner can the public make informed judgments and decisions about these pressing social problems.

Ray Patrick

Consider, Municipal

True generosity?

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True generosity?

“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” Jack London


Watching the news reports about the desperate state of need for donations at local food banks left me considering the true essence of generosity and charity.

There are studies that have shown that the people with little or nothing to spare can be the most generous. Not in the amount given, since obviously the $$$ are just not there, but in the relationship between what they keep for themselves and what they give. When things are tough and there is little to spare this group continues to give – often because they have worn the shoes of people who depend on places such as the food banks for enough to eat to live.

On $1 meal days I have watched those who did not have a dollar the meal day before and who may not have a dollar on the next meal day, but had a spare dollar this meal day, buy someone else a meal. I have had to ponder my own generosity after watching someone spend their $1 on someone they thought really needed the meal – even though it meant they had to eat a bowl of free soup.

Yes the future is uncertain, but rather than being less generous we need to be more generous to essential services such as the food bank – because the demand for help to put food in stomachs increases during economic down turns.

Jack London is right, true generosity is sharing even when times may be tight or tough for you.

Consider, Federal

Do we really live in a Democracy? la deuxieme partie

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Do we really live in a Democracy? la deuxième partie

Listening to the Elections Canada radio ads had me pondering the state of democracy in Canada – assuming Canada can still be referred to as a democracy. A claim that strikes me as highly questionable when you give some thought to the matter.

Democracy is one of those either/or states, either it is or it isn’t. There is no such thing as a partial democracy. Either all the people have the right and ability to vote, the right and ability to run for office and the right and ability to vote for candidates of their choice – or you don’t have a democratic system.

The economic policies, actions, inactions and failure to address poverty and homelessness by the federal government have driven tens of thousands, perhaps even a hundred thousand plus Canadians onto the streets in an ever increasing tide of homelessness and poverty. Unknowable further tens of thousands (or again a hundred thousand plus) find themselves couch surfing etc. from place to place and are not in stable housing.

None of these thousands of dispossessed will be receiving voter information cards in the mail to tell them where to vote. If you go to your local polling station on Election Day they will want proof of address and proof of identity.

How do you provide proof you are living under a bridge, in a tent, in a park, in a field, under a tree et al?

We take having ID for granted, but for many of the disposed ID has long been lost and the only record of their ID is photocopies at Income Assistance. Others lack even that for proof of identity.

One person denied their right to vote is too many.

Our current Federal Election will see thousands, tens of thousands perhaps hundred(s) of thousands of the disposed disenfranchised.

How can Canada be called a Democracy when it has disenfranchised so many of its citizens?

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If you visit the Elections Canada website you will find the following statements:

“The right to be a candidate in a federal election is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The procedures and responsibilities are spelled out in the Canada Elections Act.”

“Unless specifically declared to be ineligible under section 65 of the Canada Elections Act, any person qualified as an elector may run for election.”

And yet the Canada Elections Act proceeds to do exactly that – deny me and others the right to run for Parliament.

The requirement that a $1,000.00 deposit be posted by all candidates denies those who are not wealthy enough to be able to spare $1,000.00 or backed by political parties their Charter right to run for election to Parliament. The requirement of an onerous deposit particularly discriminates against the dispossessed and poor, denying them their right to seek federal office.

The violation of rights does not end there. By denying a candidate the right to run for election, all those who would have voted for the candidate are denied their right to vote for the candidate of their choice.

Democracy is suppose to be about voting for the candidate of your choice, not being forced to vote for the candidate you dislike the least.

How can Canada be called a Democracy when citizens are denied their right to seek federal office, denying other citizens their right to vote for candidates they may want to choose by limiting those who can run for federal office?

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When we accept and allow thousands upon thousands of Canadian citizens to be disenfranchised;

When we accept and allow a significant portion of Canadian citizens to be denied the ability to exercise their right to seek office through imposed financial barriers;

When we accept and allow the choice of Canadian citizens as to who will represent them to be limited to a chosen few, the choice becoming that of who is least objectionable dislike;

We no longer have a democracy.

“The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins