Homeless, Municipal

Abbotsford: City without Compassion.

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With the growing numbers of homeless on the streets of Abbotsford the competition for a place to find shelter or camp is, like housing market of the lower mainland, highly competitive. So it was only a matter of time of time until some were forced to return to the wooded site dubbed Compassion Park. Since late last year a number of people had been quietly coming and going from these woods in order not to disturb the neighbours or attract the attention of Abbotsford City Hall to their homes, however so humble.

It took several months but once aware of the location these citizens resided at Abbotsford City Hall moved quickly to post No Trespassing signs followed speedily by confiscation of the camper’s meagre possessions. Making the poor a little more destitute, the homeless more homeless and robbing these people, these citizens, of what little protection they had from the terrible downpours of March.

Tents, tarps, bedding and food all gone – without offering any alternative shelter to those so ruthlessly exposed to the pouring rain and cold. One could only wish they would move as speedily on addressing the issues and needs raised by homelessness in Abbotsford.

The speed with which Abbotsford City Hall moved on this matter is hardly surprising since they undoubtedly dreaded the thought of the public and media attention possible following a “rebirth” of Compassion Park. It would highlight their lack of action, of ideas or leadership. Why, the citizens might demand the council cease focusing on building white elephants and focus, even do something, on the “mundane” problems facing the city such as homelessness, water treatment, dikes, run-away property taxes, attracting businesses to diversify the tax base etc.

Leadership, innovation, good business practices, solid management and problem solving you say? Nay, not in Abbotsford! Better we be know as a city without compassion or simple Christian charity than Abbotsford City Hall should actually have to have to think and take action on the City’s pressing issues.

Citizens are left wishing that the next municipal election were only months away so they could vote and thus limit the damage the current occupants of Abbotsford City Hall are inflicting on the City finances and the backlog of pressing problems they are causing by ignoring issues and/or failing to act.

Unfortunately for the lives of the homeless, taxpayers and citizens, Abbotsford City Hall still has lots of time to mire the City in debt, unresolved problems and to continue to inflict misery on the homeless.

Municipal

A Letter to Premier Gordon Campbell:

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Consider the words of that famous businessman Jacob Marley “Mankind was my business”. In choosing to pursue the premiership of British Columbia you made the health and welfare of these citizens “your business” and your “business” is failing badly due to your neglect, fear and unwillingness to provide needed leadership. These issues may not be pleasant, easy to address, popular or without great challenge.

True leadership is about making the tough choices. The story below from www.homelessinabbotsford.com calls for true leadership. It is time for you to Decide.

“Why is it so god-damned hard? Why is it so unfair?” I could hear the pain and fatigue in her voice as she asked the question, her eyes revealing her soul deep weariness of spirit.

She was not speaking of life but of detoxification from drugs. For the first time in the years I have known her, she desperately wants to get clean. If there were a detox bed available she would now be started on the path to a life free from drugs and off the streets.

But there are no beds, no room for someone seeking help. It will take up to three weeks of phoning every day, struggling to keep clean and free of drugs, trying not to use drugs to ease the pain of the wait. Homeless – but having to find a phone to call every day; Homeless – but having to try to keep from surrendering to hopelessness; Homeless – crying for help, those cries falling on deaf ears.

We know that the best chance for her those who find themselves seeking to reclaim their lives is to get a bed immediately. We have witnessed how many we lose of those who face the wait for a detox bed back to drugs and the street.

If a person is lucky in their timing there is a bed available to them immediately. The unlucky majority rolls snake-eyes and face detoxing on the street surrounded by the drugs that will relieve their pain. Many people get a little headache and they quickly take the drug aspirin for pain relief. Do you honestly think that YOU, facing the pain of detoxing alone and on the streets, would not seek the “pain relief drugs” you needed?

Maple Ridge, Chilliwack. Cordova and Vancouver – four detoxification centers for the entire lower mainland. There is a drug use epidemic on our streets and we have only these four inadequate facilities for those trying to find help. If this was not enough of a barrier bureaucracy steps forward to add another in the form of “health” regions. With two centers in the Coastal region and two in the Fraser region you cannot be on all four waiting lists in order to get the first bed but are restricted to your health region. Which raises the question of whether the reason we are not now opening another detox is that the two regions are to busy fighting over which region gets funding for such a facility to remember they are suppose to about Health?

I do know that a serious commitment to getting clean should not depend on, nor so often be defeated by, so literally a roll of the dice.

So the next time you see someone suffering the scourge of addiction instead of looking down your nose or assuming a “holier than thou” attitude it would be a more truthful reflection of reality if you apologized for the lack of detoxification, rehabilitation and the community based support programs we know will reclaim lives from addiction.

Addiction

Media lack of brainpower causes suffering and misinformation

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I saw Mark McCardell on Vancouver’s Global noon hour news on Wednesday February 21, 2007. All I can say about it is that this is precisely this type of media treatment of important issues that dooms Canada and its citizens to poor and misinformed decision making. At a time the country faces important decisions on a wide variety of complex issues, making the need for balanced, thoughtful and intelligent information a must, the media is serving up this kind of misleading, pointless nonsense.

Mr. McCardell demonstrates his total disconnection from reality and lack of familiarity with thought in his assertions that rounding up all the current drug dealers and jailing them would, in some manner impossible for anyone with more intelligence than a amoeba to fathom, ensure that illegal drugs are no longer available. At its roots the illegal drug industry is unfettered capitalism at its most avaricious, where the laws of supply and demand ensure a continuous supply of dealers and drugs. Any one who falls for Mr. McCardell’s glib assurances that the arrest of current suppliers would prevent their loved ones from the path of addiction, in reality would face an increased likelihood of the heartbreak of addiction so many now deal with. Given the immense potential for wasted lives and damage in Mr McCardell’s statement I would say his behaviour on this matter is criminal.

His solution for current addicts is to abandon them to their addiction in hopes they will solve the problem by dying off. Although, in further proof of his lack of an ability to reason, he fails to explain how this die off would occur once his magical plan for removing drug supplies from our streets denies them the drugs to kill themselves with. Perhaps Mr. McCardell favours some form of euthanasia for those who have not, for the convenience of Mr McCardell and those who wish to live in the type of society he advocates, killed themselves off before their drug supply miraculously disappeared.

Mr. McCardell is apparently to be numbered among those who wring their hands and decry a society where people step over those in need of help and walk away. As long as the person in need of help is suffering from something the Mr. McCardell deems worthy of help. I have no desire to live in the type of society that would grow out of adopting Mr. McCardell’s spiritually bankrupt ideology.

No. if you want to have a positive affect on these complex social problems, indeed a positive effect on Canada and Canadian society as a whole, you will not find it in the mindless demagogy of Mr. McCardell and his ilk. You will not find it in throwing drug dealers and addicts in jail; not in arbitrarily longer jail sentences; nor in ignoring the realities of addiction and the drug trade; assuredly you will not find it in wishing for the death of those suffering addiction for down that path lies corruption and darkness.

No, if we wish to find solutions we need to heed the wisdom of the great minds of the human race such as Albert Einstein. We must amend the criminal code, with draconically punishing sentence lengths, to make stupidity of the proportions and criminality demonstrated by Mr. McCardell as much against the law as it is against the public interest and intelligent thought. This would mean that at least minimal levels of intelligence will become a requirement for employment in the news media resulting in significant increases of useful information transfer to the public while cutting off the current deluge of misinformation. While an informed public does not guarantee wise decisions it at least affords a fighting chance for common sense and thoughtfulness to win out.

For as Albert noted: “The two most abundant elements in the Universe are hydrogen and human stupidity, and of the two I am not sure about hydrogen.” With the challenges facing our society, our country and our world today, we can no longer afford the luxury of human stupidity of the magnitude demonstrated by Mr. McCardell and those who foist him upon us.