Monthly Archives: August 2009

Caveat emptor, Consider, Municipal

Homelessness can kill you.

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The death of an ex-member of homeless community while riding his bike to work reminds us how fragile life is. He had been hit by cars while riding his bike many times and if he could not walk away from all of them, he at least survived these earlier encounters with Abbotsford drivers.

Cycling in Abbotsford you almost feel that there must be some kind of secret contest being held by drivers where they score points hitting cyclists (or pedestrians).

The tally of scrapes, bruises, torn muscles, concussions, broken arms, legs and collarbones would fill volumes. Since bicycles are the major form of transportation for the homeless, marginalized and poor this group suffers most from Abbotsford drivers.

When the immutable laws of probability catch up with the cyclists and a cyclist dies it is usually a member of the homeless, marginalized and poor who is sacrificed to chance.

People think about winter weather killing members of the homeless community but the truth is that it is the summer, especially hot summer, weather that is a greater threat to life. It was luck that some homeless I know told me about someone needing help during the last day of the oppressive hot spell. I was able to get him onto his unsteady feet and into the cool conditioned air. After keeping his water glass filled for over three hours his colour improved, his temperature cooled down and he perked up enough to eat some salted crackers, have some more water and get some sleep.

This experience is made more sobering by the news reports of Curtis Brick’s death from heat in Vancouver.

But it is health care that kills the most. Not strictly as a result of medical personnel’s attitudes (although attitude does kill some) but from the reality that being homeless makes it hard to take good care of your health. Currently someone I know lies in a coma as a result of infection.

Infection nearly killed me while homeless. If it had not been for the kindness of a fellow Alanon member giving me a bed to stay in and a good supper every day so I could make the three weeks of twice daily, 3 hour intravenous antibiotic treatments I would have been another homeless victim, dead of unnatural ‘natural causes’.

As a modern society we have forgotten the death toll infections of various types inflicted on the human race in times past.

Fire, pneumonia … the list of ways that homelessness can kill you goes on and on and ….

So the next time you hear some loudmouth talking about the easy life the homeless have and how everyone should have that wonderful an easy life, know they are only demonstrating their ignorance of the harsh reality of a life of homelessness.

Homelessness can kill you and is a curse I would wish on none … well except politicians and loudmouths who could greatly use just such a reality check.

Consider

Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

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Seize the day; put no trust in the morrow!

A friend, Trevor Kirkland, was killed Tuesday August 11th at 5 AM as he biked to work when he was hit by a Pontiac Sunfire headed in the same direction on Maclure Road.

It is a sobering reminder of how ephemeral life can be considering I spoke to him late Monday afternoon, never imagining it would be the last time I would see him alive.

I met Trevor shortly after I took the first painful step, homelessness, on the life altering journey that gave birth to the person I am becoming today.

He was one of the people who taught me to look beyond the clichés and the ‘everyone knows’ about addiction.

Watching Trevor struggle to find sobriety, to move into recovery and wellness made crystal clear what a stone cold bitch addiction was. His struggle highlighted the incredible ignorance and lack of understanding contained in the statement “all they have to do is quit; or want to quit”.

Watching and talking with Trevor about addiction, sobriety, slips, temptation and life was an educational, a learning experience.

Knowing Trevor and others, observing up close on a daily basis addiction, experiencing both homelessness and grinding poverty, dealing with welfare and other parts of ‘the system’ – government/charities/etc – so appalled the accountant/businessman side of me with its pointless waste and numerous, major barriers to recovery, wellness, getting out of poverty and back on one’s feet that I was driven to advocate for the changes needed to stop wasting more money increasing the problem than it would take to do it correctly and effectively and reduce these social problems.

His parents were out from Edmonton to see him for the first time in years. I and another friend sat with him on Saturday while he was waiting for his parents to swing by and pick him up. We laughed and joked that, given where his parent’s hotel was, they must have gotten lost; enjoying a real laugh when they arrived and had gotten lost.

I know how important it was to Trevor that his parents were visiting; how happy it made him.

He had a good job, was in the process of moving out of a basement suite into a trailer in a trailer park just off Maclure, just celebrated his birthday, and had spent time reconnecting with his parents … and Tuesday morning he was struck and killed while riding to work in the early morning dark and rain.

I know a lifeguard who has ‘live each day as if it’s your last’ tattooed on his side.

Some days, when I am trying to make a dollar do the work of twenty or scrounge up enough nickels and pennies to have a $1 to spend for the meal, the thought of the money to be made going back to accounting, or some other well paying employment, is SO tempting.

It is the sagacity embodied in ‘live each day as if it’s your last’ that allows me not to fall prey to the lure of the almighty dollar.

Not that I would not mind earning a few extra dollars, but I want to do it pursuing a course of action, a goal, a purpose that I consider important; changes I believe need to be made to create the type of society I want to live in and leave as a legacy.

The old me would have gone for the money and/or played it safe. The person I am becoming is strong enough to embrace ‘live each day as if it’s your last’ and accept the risks and consequences inherent in living each day as if it’s your last.

It is this truth, this final lesson – that any day can be your last day, which Trevor’s death bears witness to.

I do not want my last thoughts to be wishing I had pursued dreams, taken more chances and made more mistakes.

By striving to continue living my life in balance and congruity with the paradigm ‘live each day as if it’s your last’ life will not only be more interesting, challenging and fun but also accord honour to a friend’s life.

Consider, Municipal, Snafu

Sad State of Affairs

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It is a sad state of affairs when the citizens of Abbotsford find themselves depending on the provincial government to say “NO” in order to save citizens from Abbotsford city government’s out of control and fiscally irresponsible behaviour. Find themselves dependant on the provincial government to force Abbotsford’s municipal government to exercise self control and discipline, to prepare proper operating budgets and to plan rather than scrambling from cash grab to cash grab, from problem to problem never doing anything to solve the problem, but merely haphazardly plastering over problems.

Lamentably that is the position the citizens of Abbotsford are in, dependent on the provincial government to reject city council’s latest attempt to pillage citizen’s already impoverished pocketbooks in order to satisfy city council’s every growing need for cash to pay for their spending addiction.

Like the panhandlers in parking lots around Abbotsford who approach the unwary with their tale of having run out of gasoline with their car “just a few blocks over there” and in need of gas money to get home, but who are in reality seeking money for their addiction, Abbotsford Council is telling their tale for the unwary of having run out of money and needing gas money (a gas tax) so they too can have money to feed their addiction – to spending taxpayer’s dollars.

Like any addict, Abbotsford city council’s addiction has grown worse year by year until they find themselves teetering on the brink of financial disaster.

Unfortunately, unlike the panhandlers in the parking lots whose addiction has left themselves homeless, it is the citizens of Abbotsford who will bear the financial consequences for city council’s addict mentality and behaviour.

Even, as George Peary was quoted in the local paper, “to the point where people lose their homes because they can’t pay [their] taxes.” A position some citizens have already reached and that current economic conditions have more citizens fast approaching.

Enabling an addict, or in the case of city council a group of addicts, by giving them the money needed to continue in their addiction, does nothing more than enable them to continue in their addiction.

We have to stop enabling city council and allowing it to stay in its addiction; stop permitting city council to continue to act with fiscal irresponsibility, to mismanage city operations and to spend taxpayer dollars as if taxpayers have bottomless pockets that city council can reach into to meet their endlessly increasing need for more (and more and more and …) money.

There is no need to wait to the fall and “public meetings” to begin to act. This is a provincial decision.

Citizens can, and should, begin now and often to contact our MLAs (John van Dongen, Michael de Jong) and the Premier (Gordon Campbell) telling them to “Just say NO” and not to further enable Abbotsford’s municipal government’s addict behaviour.

Indeed citizens who know just how worthless an addicts promises and assurances are, may well want to request the provincial government send in the provincial Auditor General to determine the true state of Abbotsford’s financial affairs and operational status.

We must say NO to enabling Abbotsford city council’s bad behaviours and urge the provincial government to say No as well or accept the consequences of our enabling behaviour and pay the ever escalating costs of enabling city council’s spending addiction.