This is a reply to a discussion I had with someone commenting on one of my articles.

The complete denial of reality contained in your words “no freaking way am I gonna give a handout or support a handout for these slackers” serves to highlight why we continue be plagued by the problems of homelessness and addiction, not to mention so many other issues.

You are already spending tens of thousands of dollars on the homeless and those suffering the scourge of addiction- in the area of $50,000 per person on the streets. Once you begin to arrest and incarcerate people the cost per person doubles, then triples. If you doubt that I refer you to the government of BC website where you can find all the relevant costing data.

Perhaps your anger is such that you are completely happy to continue spending $$$ hundreds of thousands, $$$ millions per person and continuing this behaviour year in and year out. I would refer you to AA where in their hard earned wisdom they know that doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is insane. If you and others of like mind feel that the homeless should be left on the street, you are the ones who should be paying the $$$millions of extra dollars that following that course of action costs.

Even when my mental illness was at its most debilitating point I personally still retained enough common sense and connection to reality to know it is far more intelligent a reaction to acknowledge reality, not what one wishes to see, and deal with it by designing a system that supports and in most cases rehabilitates the homeless and the addict.

For many the unpalatable truth/reality of the matter is that it is far cheaper to put those who are incapable of working in some form of housing than it is to have them wandering the streets. That’s real life – DEAL WITH IT.

“what bothers me even more is people with ABLE BODIES AND SOUND MINDS ( even half with it ) are homeless”. All I can say is I do not know what addicts you hang with but the clients I deal with at the shelter are far from “ABLE BODIES AND SOUND MINDS”.

Addiction is a stone cold bitch and until you help them deal with their addiction they are not in any way, shape or form of able bodies and sound minds. Which brings to mind your words “who got themselves into their predicament because of their addiction”. The implication being that they chose to be addicts. No one, no matter how insane, chooses addiction. It is frighteningly easy to start out onto that slippery slope and slide down into addiction. And it is not a fate I would wish on my worst enemy.

“SOUND MINDS” A harsh truth, an indictment of our society, is the appalling number of homeless who are not of sound mind. There are several clients here tonight at the shelter who are incapable of looking after themselves. Who are condemned to the streets by those who see only what they want to see when they look at the homeless. There is no place, no agency of our “civilized” society that is charge with ensure those who cannot help themselves get the help they need. It is no wonder life is so hard when people are so harsh as to abandon the helpless to homelessness on the streets. Perhaps you would care to suggest that we reach into our barbaric past to once again take the elderly, the handicapped and mentally ill into the wilds and abandon to their death at the hands of the elements?

“what bothers me even more is people”; I will tell you what bothers me is people and a system so focused on denying the few, and as a percentage of the total we are speaking of a few, a tiny percentage who are not truly in need. They are so busy focusing on ensuring they deny help to those they deem unworthy, that they deny and inflict harm on those truly in need.

What bothers me is people who want to believe that the world is flat they refuse to see that in fact is (more or less) round; people who allow their anger (get a program) to drive them to unreasonable decisions and positions. That is to say they refuse to see just how much more it costs to deal with the homeless on the streets and in the legal system than it would cost to house them. Reclaiming those lives we can. And living with the economic realities of our society – it is far cheaper to enable lazy bums to be lazy bums than it is to pay through the nose just so we can be in denial about the reality of the world around us.

Case in point: Seattle recently opened a housing project aimed at housing the city’s worst drunks. Worse was defined as those who were costing the most to have on the streets (mostly medical, it is the USA, and police costs). We are speaking of a per person cost of $100,000 to as much as $1,000,000. It is now basically costing Seattle $19,000 per person per year. As I wrote to the radio host who was upset that the city was putting them up and allowing them to drink, if he and his listeners feel that strongly then they should approach the city and provide the money to cover the costs over the $19,000 the city currently spends. Why should the rational people of any city, province or country be required to pay for the irrational actions demanded by those who are angry or refuse to acknowledge what is, as opposed to what they want it to be.

What bothers me is the suffering and waste that refusing to act inflicts.

Let me close before this turns into a novel with a comment about your words “I work hard to provide for my family”. Are you aware that the number one reason for homelessness in Canada is now poverty? I have witnessed the growing number of clients at the shelter who are employed but lacking the cash to cover an unexpected expense found themselves on the streets. The current commercial with the can opener “ to pay her rent, she cannot afford to eat, to eat she cannot afford to….around the circle and back to … she cannot afford her rent, to pay her rent. The Post recently had an article about the Abbotsford Food Bank and how its clients have increased over only a few years from 980 per month to over 4,000 per month. I know and have spoken to the person in charge of the food bank. What frightens us both is how many of these people and families depend on the food bank for their food and who would face the choice between homelessness or starvation were it not for the Food Bank. The ugly truth is that as the cost of housing rises, not only in Abbotsford and the lower mainland but across the country, more and more of the working (40+ hours a week) poor are being forced into homelessness.

More worrisome is the growing number of people and families who will be forced onto the streets by any economic misfortune: lost job, unexpected bills (ie car repair) even to much sick time.

It is past time that we as a society get our heads out of…… and begin to deal with the real world, as it exists, around us in a mature, thoughtful, rational and creative way.

If not for reasons of personal honour, human decency and spirituality; then for the crass reason of enlightened self interest – it is simply to costly not to deal with these issues realistically.

This was written in reply to a letter sent to SCN at http://www.somethingcool.ca/ which the editor forwarded to me for a reply.

I have to agree with you George, the homeless problem is getting really tiring. I too am sick and tired of the behaviours that allow this problem, not only to continue, but to grow. You know what else I am really tired of?

I am tired of 80 year old retirees ending up homeless and at the emergency shelter because their pensions no longer can cover the skyrocketing cost of housing in the lower mainland. While on the topic of affordable housing I am not only tired of, but outraged by the fact that an increasing number of the homeless work 40+ hours a week but at salaries so low they cannot afford to live in the communities they work in.

Not to mention how tired I am of a society that allows a mother and her children to have to chose to live in their car because she cannot earn enough to both pay rent and maintain her automobile – which she needs to get to work.

I am tired of seeing the mentally challenged and those with special needs fall through the cracks onto the streets and into the emergency shelter. I am sickened by the difference in quality of life between those with challenges and special needs who are fortunate enough to get access to the limited funds and programs society condescends to provide and those who find themselves alone and at the mercy of an indifferent system.

I am tired and appalled by the numbers of mentally ill people wandering the streets, many ending up in addiction as they self medicate. I am tired of the holier than thou attitudes taken by many people towards those who suffer the scourge of addiction and people who usurp the Deity’s role/sole right to judge a person. I worry when I find myself thinking along the lines of “s/he is nice and deserves help; s/he is such an a*s that they do not deserve consideration and to be treated with humanity”.

I am tired of watching the indignities and hardships inflicted by the behaviour of the MEIA office in Abbotsford as contrasted with the behaviours with offices in other parts of the province. I am tired of a system that is focused on denying help to those we feel don’t deserve help, to the point where it denies badly needed services to those truly in need of aid.

I am tired of politicians and a public that would rather, happily, spend $150,000 a year to throw someone in jail, than to invest $15,000 a year in getting that person sober, mentally well and an opportunity to live a life of their own design. I am tired of a system of recovery and rehabilitation that is demonstrably not accomplishing the positive outcomes it should, but to which politicians, bureaucrats and much of the public cling. I m tired of local politicians who say the right things but do nothing worthy of note and whose actions reveal their words to be nothing but political bafflegab.

I am tired of a society that whines about the decline of morality and spiritual values as it steps over the homeless sleeping in the street, turns it back on seniors, children, families, mentally ill, mentally challenged, the working poor, growing economic unfairness, wages inadequate to sustain life, ….

I am tired of all that and more. Which is why I write to Fred about homeless happenings in Abbotsford. Because the homeless issues in Abbotsford are issues across our country; important societal issues that we must address and that say a great deal about just what type of society we really are.

It is why I advocate for those who so desperately need an advocate and a voice. Why I created http://www.homelessinabbotsford.com/; I write to our local, provincial and national press; I get in the face of the Georges of the world, so they at least have to work at hiding their heads in the sand; it is why I have to move by the end of this month; it may very well be why I had to suffer mental illness, an old life lost, homelessness, recovery and a new, very different than expected life.

I am tired of it, so I work to be an agent of change.

You are tired of all this homelessness stuff – what are you doing to redress homelessness and other social ills?

You can stop bitching and work towards solutions and positive outcomes ( ‘cause if you have time to bitch about a problem, you have time to do something about the problem); or you can bury your head in the sand in order to ignore the problem and stop bitching; in either case (do something, do nothing) stop bitching.

Oh, and if you want pabulum masquerading as real news and issues, I suggest you try the mainstream press.