Category Archives: The Issues

Homeless, Provincial

“D’oh”

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For Gordon Campbell quoting Homer Simpson would have been a verbally succinct method of conveying his real message on Homelessness.

Instead, in the way of politicians, he wasted peoples time by making them wade through a sea of words to arrive at the same place: Campbell and the Liberals have none of the fresh ideas or approaches needed to begin to reduce the homeless and addicted on our streets. With homelessness growing so quickly and into such a major issue Campbell and the Liberals had to do something, no matter how “Homer Simpsonish” (i.e. REAL DUMB) the actions were.

In desperation the Liberals have fallen back on the old political strategy of wastefully throwing taxpayers $$$ at the problem to make it appear they are addressing the issue. After all, if they are spending millions of hard earned taxpayer $$$ it must be going to accomplish something positive, right?

Wrong. Wasting money to open shelter beds 24 hours does not create a single new space for the homeless, although I concede it will pump more dollars into the pockets of those in the homeless industry/economy.

Unless of course an unannounced part of the plan is to use the beds in shifts in order to double (12 hour shift) or triple (8 hour shift) the effective number of beds available? Or perhaps the unannounced plan is to chain them to the beds, keeping them out of the public eye in order to create the illusion the problem is disappearing and thus solved?

I used the wording “something positive” in speaking of what opening 24 hours will accomplish because I know the opening 24 hour policy will give rise to negative effects. In speaking with those who run operations open 24 hours a day in our area they have stated that the one big change they would make is not to be open 24 hours – for a host of reasons.

Experience with the longer hours (basically 24) that come during an extreme weather response demonstrated that with 24 hour operations came/comes a host of headaches. These problems could be endured for the length of an extreme weather alert, but can be expected to compound at shelters that run 24 hours a day. The discussions I have witnessed among those experienced with shelter operations have always given rise to lots of problems and no real benefits – at least to the homeless.

What will this government, obviously bankrupt of any new and effective ideas, turn to next as a “solution” – internment camps in the interior?

We do need both more shelter beds and drop-in facilities for the homeless. Most of all we need to change how we deliver aid services to the homeless in order to help them recover themselves and their lives.

But such a course will require creativity, accepting reality as it is, risk, patience and change. In judging the likelihood of this based on Gordon Campbell’s recent statements I can only conclude:

D’oh.

Federal, Homeless, Municipal, Provincial

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. Grouch Marx

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A friend took me to Mission the other afternoon to visit the Union Gospel Drop-in Centre and speak to the people there as I had never been to the Drop-in. We found the leaders of the Union Gospel Mission’s mission in Mission out walking the streets and serving ice tea on a hot day as a way to reach out and stay in touch with their clients and those in need on the city streets.

While speaking to them about the homeless situations in both Mission and Abbotsford the subject of opening a Drop-in Centre in Abbotsford arose and I issued an invitation and urged them to pursue a place in Abbotsford since Abbotsford is sorely in need of an afternoon/evening drop-in/supper meal centre.

We also spoke of the benefits of adopting the wellness recovery action plan that Fraser (mental) Health puts on in communities in the FVRD and how a wellness plan would have significant benefits for those seeking recovery from addiction or those simply seeking to get their lives back on track form whatever had disrupted their lives.

Afterwards I sat down to have a coffee with some of the clients and chanced upon a copy of the new September/October issue of The Inner City Pulse, the Union Gospel Mission’s newsletter for the lower mainland. On page seven of this issue I found three stories about some rather interesting children.

A five year old who donated her birthday presents to benefit many other children who were in need. An eight year old, who seeing people living on the streets of Vancouver’s downtown eastside, collected blankets for these homeless people. An eleven year old who founded K.A.R.E. (Kids Actions Really Energize) to encourage people and local businesses to donate clothing and non-perishable food items for those in need.

I was contemplating these children as we crossed the Mission Bridge on our way back to Abbotsford, a community sadly in need of the lesson about generosity of the spirit which these children embody.

The children could also teach our self-styled leaders something about tackling seemingly overwhelming problems in society. They did not talk the situation to death; nor seek to study it to death; nor spend their energies saying all the right things but doing nothing. They did not pursue grandiose plans; nor seek a comprehensive solution where none exists; nor lose sight of the reality that at some point of dealing with a problem action is required.

These children took action to meet a need they saw.

The observer affect tells us that the act of observing will make changes on the situation/problem being observed. The uncertainty principle tells us that when we try to quantify the qualities of ending homelessness, these quantities can only be determined with some characteristic ‘uncertainties’ that cannot become arbitrarily small simultaneously.

You study a problem, you change the problem. The uncertainty principle defies attempts to measure or quantify the problem with exactness. Any action taken to put a plan in motion will change the nature of the problem and render the original plan moot.

Homelessness involves people and uncertainty: we are dealing with a chaotic system with its implications of little agreement about what should be done and even less agreement on how whatever should be done can be done.

Without starting you will never finish. We need to pick a point, any point, as the start point. With a place to begin we simply begin at the beginning and continue to the end.

The biggest hurdle to ending homeless and addressing other social ills is an apparent inability to start. A concept so simple a child can understand it and in understanding it set examples such as those above in how you end homeless – you start.

Municipal

Abbotsford city manager “Retires”

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I will not be shedding any tears at the departure of city manager Mr. Guthrie since I have felt for years that the city suffered from substandard management as well as pedestrian leadership. By the same token I will not permit council to avoid responsibility for Plan A by attempting to blame it all on Mr. Guthrie with that old children’s excuse: “he made me do it”.

While I find the idea of the salary attached to the position of city manager tempting and my education and professional background provide the skills needed to apply for the position I am not sure I would want the headaches that come with it. In fact any management professional taking a realistic look at the future of this city, especially in terms of finance, is not likely to consider the salary worth the headaches and mess they would have to deal with.

Council, Mr. Taylor and Mr. Teichroeb have, with Plan A, saddled the city with unmanageable financial barriers and problems. The first thing any fiscally rational manager is going to want to do is not build the arena in order to provide financial liquidity and flexibility to address more pressing infrastructure needs.

Despite the claim by some that at this point we have to build the arena because we have already spend money on it, the economic reality is that we have to put the arena on hold and eat any costs incurred to date. While this may not be pleasant it is a fact of life the City needs financial liquidity and flexibility.

Council claims we are building Plan A to attract business. The fact is that no development is taking place on land taken from the agricultural land reserve for development purposes because the land is not serviced. To me logic dictates that the first step in attracting businesses is to provide a place for them to build the business, before you worried about amenities or luxuries they might need.

We need to invest tens of millions of dollars in our water treatment facilities and rational behaviour would suggest we also make an investment in the water delivery system, since it really does not matter how much water you can treat if you cannot deliver it.

In discussions with people whose judgment I trust, I have been told that the city needs to invest more than $100 million in infrastructure over the next few years and in fact that $100 million is conservative and a minimum. Council speaks of how we are growing so fast, but does that not mean that the need to invest in infrastructure and that the amount of investment needed is also growing fast?

How were they planning to pay for the $100+ million needed to provided services to our growing city on top of the $102 (ands growing) millions spent and borrowed for Plan A? Was council so wrapped up in its own wants and egos that they were unaware of infrastructure needs or were they just planning to ignore the infrastructure needed for the City’s growth? Why were these other looming financial demands on the City’s coffers ignored in the slick Plan A sales campaign? Or are they simply planning to let local taxes to continue to spiral upwards at double digit rates?

These types of considerations and questions are why those currently running the City would never consider hiring me or someone like-minded to manage the City.
I believe in transparency and an informed citizenry, not in decisions made “in camera” behind closed doors. I believe in taking the best bid, not the cheapest bid. I believe in making the investment in maintenance to avoid pouring money into costly repairs.

I believe that when entire neighbourhoods are against something they deserve to be heard and to receive an explanation of why the proposal was allowed to proceed. Unlike council I do not believe public hearings should be used to cut off and ignore public input on any issued.

I believe that in this day and age city management and council should be blogging to keep citizens informed of what is taking place in city administration, on choices and challenges facing the city and its citizens. I believe that citizens have a right and a need to be informed of the whys and wherefores of decisions.

I do not believe in stonewalling, backroom deals and secrecy.

Reasons why I would never be hired to run the clandestine operations of Abbotsford City Hall.