Monthly Archives: February 2011

Issues

NOT a homeless woman’s shelter.

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People were telling me about reading of a new homeless woman’s shelter that was going to open in Abbotsford.

Since I was unaware of plans for a homeless woman’s shelter/housing, I searched out a paper to read the article people were referring to. And there was the headline: ” New housing project for homeless women.”

Compounding the headline’s ability to create the wrong impression, the article did not clearly set out the purpose of the housing project on Clearbrook Road was and why the project was important for the wellness of the project’s residents and in addressing homelessness in Abbotsford.

This is not a shelter it is an apartment building. Homeless, mentally ill, addicted women will not be snatched off the street to live in the project. As Ms Willis stated: “This is an alcohol- and drug-free facility, and there will be no high-risk clients.”

It is second stage housing for Abbotsford, similar to the 13 units of second-stage housing the Women’s Resource Society of the Fraser Valley operates in Mission at Taulbut House. It will provide affordable housing so the women do not become homeless or have to live in danger of becoming homeless.

I can attest to how attention diverting, stressful and wearing it is when you are never sure you will have a place to live next month – until the moment when you have managed to pay the rent at the beginning of the next month. At which point the cycle of worrying whether you will have housing the following month begins to gnaw at you mind again.

The security, the stability, that affordable housing provides is invaluable in being able to focus on getting your life back on track, is a vital support to the woman (and their children) in getting their lives back on track.

” Executive director Pamela Willis said the Clearbrook Road project will allow the society to offer a a new level of support to women. “

Support is, in its way, even more important than affordable housing in getting your life back on track, in getting through the rough spots and over barriers.

I say this because it was support from friends that allowed me to overcome problems and not end up homelss in 2010. Friends were also the reason I made it through 2010 and the challenge posed by the rationing of mental health services.

Recovery and finding wellness is not a short, simple or easy process. Which is why the housing and support provided by the Clearbrook Road project is so needed.

There are emergency shelter spaces for woman who are homeless. There are first stage/minimal barrier spaces – although not nearly enough. There are treatment and recovery house spaces for woman.

What there hasn’t been – and what this project will provide – is safe, healthy, supportive, affordable housing to allow women to continue their journey of recovery, to help them get their lives back on track and to help them (and their children) find wellness and joy.

Caveat emptor, Federal, Issues, Municipal, Provincial

Society is Our choices.

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A recent e-mail sent me to the Chilliwack Today website to read a column inspired by a Chilliwack Progress story concerning the proposed establishment of the Chilliwack Contact Center * for helping those living on the streets by converting the Days Inn hotel currently operating on Young Road.

*[A facility designed to offer housing and health services and solutions to the homeless that, according to Chilliwack MLA John Les will make a difference in people’s lives and improve our community. Medical care, court advocacy, rental assistance as well as help for those facing mental health or addictions issues.]

The first thought was about how many projects like this and other affordable housing projects have been bypassing, or in the case of the Olympic legacy housing passing right through, Abbotsford on the way to Chilliwack.

While Abbotsford ‘s Mayor and council have been very good at saying the right things and paying lip service to the need for affordable housing, they have failed at providing action based leadership on this issue, as they have on so many other pressing city issues (secure water supply, facilities and road maintenance, etc). Seeming to bury their heads in the sand, as if these issues/problems will disappear on their own.

But I digress.

The column and story were about a major, perhaps the major, problem that has given birth to our current society and that prevents us from addressing the problems and issues Canada and Canadians face – IT IS ALL ABOUT ME!

Which reared its ugly head in opposition to the Chilliwack Contact Centre.

You can recognize the presence of IT IS ALL ABOUT ME syndrome by the use of buzzwords or buzz-statements such as those uttered by area resident Renée Woods: “It’s not that I’m against the project in any way, I think Chilliwack definitely needs it.”

‘Woods main concern is the location, asking why the health contact centre couldn’t be established downtown instead.’

I cannot say whether those suffering from IT IS ALL ABOUT ME are lying to themselves or to the public to excuse their actions and obscure the reality that they are opposing the project they claim not to be against.

A location has been chosen, plans specific to that location have been prepared, a deal to purchase the property has been agreed upon – all that remains is rezoning. If the rezoning is not approved the Centre does not come into existence.

Regardless of how you try to spin it or delude oneself, the reality is that if you oppose the rezoning you oppose the Chilliwack Centre.

A reality more clearly seen in Ms Woods words “I’m worried that they’re just moving the problem from downtown to here. I feel they are taking the lowest socioeconomic group and moving it a block from my house,” she said. “If it changes the dynamic of our neighbourhood, it’s unfair.”

I believe I will let her words speak for, or more accurately against, themselves.

The deep, dark humour/irony here is the existence of neighbourhoods were Ms. Wood is seen as a member of the lower socioeconomic classes whose mere presence would change the dynamic of the neighbourhood.

People speak as though society results for someone else’s actions, is someone else’s fault as though their behaviours have nothing to do with or no effect on society.

Our society has been built and continues to be built by the choices, actions and behaviours of all of us. Every choice we make, every action we take – or don’t take, how we behave creates the society we live in.

In September 2010 I wrote about a business man who, finding a homeless man and his dog camped out under the awning of his building did not have man and dog removed but purchased a garden shed and installed it at the side of the building to provide shelter from the elements for man and dog.

This week the homeless man came down with pneumonia, requiring hospitalization. Once again the businessman stepped up to the plate when nothing compelled him to do so, except his own code of behaviour, and took the homeless dog home with him to make sure he is cared for.

The Society so many deplore is created and shaped by us. Society is us, our choices, actions and behaviours.

Choose which society you want to bring into being – the one that is created by Ms. Woods words, actions and attitudes OR the one that is created by the actions, attitudes and behaviour of the businessman.

Your/Our choices bring into being the Society we choose. If you do not like the Society that we live in – change your behaviour and influence others to change their behaviours until the Society you/we want exists.

Municipal, Snafu

They will never learn.

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I want to salute local First Nations artist Raphael Silver for his sculpture. Elegant. It left me interested in seeing other works by Mr. Silver.

I also offer Mr. Silver my condolences as had his art been purchased by a fiscally sound and well managed city, or even an adequately managed city, the $64,000 would be considered to have been well spent.

Unfortunately for Mr. Silver he is dealing with the City of Abbotsford which, under its current mayor and council, does not meet even minimal standards of fiscal and management adequacy.

Leaving Mr. Silver’s artistry overshadowed by yet another demonstration by mayor and council of how out of touch with any sense of thrift, restraint, fiscally responsible behaviour or taxpayer’s wants/needs council is.

Council may consider $64,000 to be chump change, but $64,000 here, $64,000 there and before long it adds up to real money. The kind of money that the mayor, council and city management should have been setting aside to cover the $230 million cost of the needed new water supply.

In addition Mr. Silver’s art deserves a location where it can be savoured, rather than glimpsed – the case with its location at the center of one of Abbotsford’s new safe transit challenged roundabouts.

I wonder how many accidents will be caused, or claimed to have been caused, by drivers distracted by the sculpture. How many drivers will not see or have a chance to appreciate Mr. Silver’s art because they are focused on surviving their encounter with the roundabout?

Might I suggest that, rather than straining their arms patting themselves on the back for the $5 million ‘saved’, it would have been better to have invested the ‘savings’ making the roundabouts more travelable rather than leaving them in their current ‘accidents waiting to happen’ state.

But then making sensible investments in the basic operating infrastructure (roads, water etc.) of Abbotsford has never been of interest to council. Vanity projects – Yes. Nuts and bolts infrastructure and maintenance – No.