Municipal Archives - Page 19 of 137 - James W. Breckenridge

Considering that City Council’s answer to the questions “If not Now, When? If not Here, Where?” posed to Council at the public hearing on the ACS 20 bed Housing First proposal was, stripped to its bare bones, “Never, unless forced! Then – ADBA! [Any District But Abbotsford] it is no surprise the homeless find themselves wondering:

Having 1) ensured there is nowhere for the homeless to go, other than somewhere else on the streets of Abbotsford; 2) ensured their prey cannot escape them by transitioning off the streets using the proven housing first approach; 3) confirmed their willingness to act with total irrationality with respect to the homeless and the issue of homelessness……..

……..how long can it be before City Council returns to chasing the homeless around Abbotsford, ignoring the fact that more than a decade of experience demonstrates that this approach accomplishes nothing other than allowing the problem to worsen…….

……. and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around…….

…….Abbotsford. Ad nauseam.

Pool betting is that the City will welcome the return of the Wild Hunt before March 1, 2014.

Pool betting also favours the gentleman who relocated his camp in order to secure first in line status in case Council decided to pursue services and housing based on best practices that have been demonstrated to be effective and financially prudent being the first victim of a renewed Hunt.

Hmm? You don’t suppose that those squandering spendthrifts who voted NO did so because they were unable to vote for a course of action that was ‘financially prudent’?

Be that as it may, pool betting is that this individual is at the top of council’s new hit list since the location of his camp is a pointed reminder of yet another ‘Folly’ by Abbotsford civic misgovernment.

Are the homeless correct? Is the course indicated by the betting in the Pool correct? Will Abbotsford’s Mayor and City Council add to Abbotsford national and international reputation for pointless, reprobate, simpleminded behaviour by resuming the City’s Crusade against the homeless?

Of course the question may well become moot, should Pivot seek and secure an injunction against the City starting a new Crusade against the homeless until the court rules on the question as to whether the 2009 ruling by the BC Court of Appeals, that the homeless have a right to camp in a City’s parks if the City is not making sufficient effort to provide affordable housing the homeless can access, applies to the current state of affairs – vis-à-vis the homeless – in Abbotsford.

Given City Council’s demonstration at the February 17, 2014 council meeting that, not only is the City not acting to provide affordable, accessible housing but, the city is actively preventing such housing from being built…….

…….none should be surprised if the court issues an injunction preventing the city putting the health and lives of the homeless at risk by chasing them around Abbotsford. Nor should anyone be surprised if the court, in light of council’s behaviour, upholds the right of the homeless to camp in any of Abbotsford’s parks and not be harassed by the City or its APD.

So that, while there may be no homeless housed in their Backyards, there may well be homeless housed in camps in City Parks.

A situation that potentially will motivate mayor and council to abandon their irrational behaviour.

Understanding, Choosing, Wisdom.

Our lives, our society, are the sum result of all the choices we make, both consciously and unconsciously. In control of the process of choosing, lies control of all aspects of our lives.

Positive control of the process of choosing requires choosing wisely; choosing wisely requires understanding. Without understand and wisdom, chance is left in control of our future.

On Monday February 3, 2014 Abbotsford City Council will decide whether Abbotsford Community Services can build the First Stage Housing they have proposed to use to help the homeless, those faced with mental health and/or substance use challenges, to begin the process of recovery.

Housing that would start to answer the question council’s decades old policy of chasing the homeless endlessly around Abbotsford has ignored – “Where else can they go?”.

Housing First is a model of recovery recognized by psychiatric professionals as an alternative approach to the traditional approaches to treatment; an approach pioneered in the 1990’s by Sam Tsemberis [a faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry of the New York University School of Medicine] and the Pathways to Housing organization in New York City.

The results achieved using Housing First have resulted in it being recognized as a ‘best practice’ for governments and service-agencies in their fight to end chronic homelessness; have resulted in the use of Housing First by governments and organizations in countries around the world, including Canadian cities such as Calgary, where Housing First is part of Calgary’s plan to address and end homelessness.

The mistake often made about Housing First as a result of its first priority being to provide housing, is that Housing First is not about abstinence. However, in understanding the Housing First approach one understands Housing First is about dealing with a person’s substance use and/or mental health challenges – after housing them. It is an approach that has proven to get people into treatment faster than the traditional approaches do.

An outcome that reminds us that, when addressing homelessness, mental illness and substance use, we need to remember that People are at the center of the process and when People are central to anything, it is a given that outcomes will have a large iffy [full of unresolved points or questions] factor.

But these are just facts, and while facts are important to choosing wisely, a wise choice also requires understanding and awareness of what other, less obvious or hidden decisions will be included in the choice(s) made.

Whether the City of Abbotsford and the APD step out of the 19^th century and into the 21^st century; whether a start is made on addressing chronic homelessness, mental illness and substance use on Abbotsford’s streets, are not the only decisions that will be made by Abbotsford City Council in their Yea or Nay on the ACS housing proposal..

Council’s Yea or Nay on the ACS proposal will decide – and declare to the world – something far more fundamental and important: What type of community Abbotsford chooses to be.

Not the type of City Abbotsford proclaims itself to be.

But the type of City revealed in the actions and behaviours of Abbotsford; for it is actions and behaviours, not words, that true colours are shown.

Will City Council choose for Abbotsford to set out to become, in the reality of deeds, the City that Abbotsford unfoundedly claims to be?

Or will City Council choose to continue to be the City its behaviour, such as the use of chicken manure as a poor man’s biological weapon against its mentally ill and homeless citizens, declared Abbotsford to be to fellow Canadians and the World.

“You can speak with spiritual eloquence, pray in public, and maintain a holy appearance… but it is your behaviour that will reveal your true character.”

Steve Maraboli, Reflections on Life and the Human Experience