BC "the best place on earth"

The phrase quoted this post's title is an attempt by the BC Government to whitewash its Olympic message about homelessness.

According to the BC Government's Downtown Eastside 'Information' Centre (DTESIC):

• Lack of affordable housing isn't the problem.
• Lack of housing, period, isn't the problem.
• Lack of LAND for affordable - even CHEAP - housing solutions isn't the problem.
• Lack of municipalities with by-laws that encourage, rather than discourage, innovation in housing and housing density isn't the problem.

The problem of homelessness according to the DTESIC is due to the unaccountable rise of mental illness. Thus the problem of homelessness in BC has to do with too many people here being mentally ill.

Because we all know homelessness is caused by mental illness, right?

WRONG

"They say that homelessness is about addiction and mental illness; it's not true," says Wendy Pederson of Carnegie Community Action Project. "We have a housing supply problem. We don't have low-income housing in this city. We have an income problem. We need to raise welfare."

Now that's the truth of the matter but let's not have truth interfere with our propaganda.

[Cross-posted at economicus ridiculous]

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UPDATE: Housing contradictions in BC, "the best place on earth"

Unfortunately, a sad predictable follow-up regarding Pivot Legal's "red tent" campaign to help homeless. Reasons given by City of Vancouver councillor Kerry Jang are ludicrous and insulting. See italicized below.

--

Headline: Micro-lofts promise Vancouver renters a break.

The fine print: "The new lofts in the building are expected to rent for about $675 to $750 per month, making them suitable for anyone earning over $25,000 a year, but out of reach of their former residents, many of whom were on social assistance."

Doesn't that make you feel good? That certain Vancouver renters will be getting "a break" - at the expense of  others, those our society deems of lesser, and less deserving, status?

Before you get all warm and fuzzy inside, juxtapose that news with this: 'Red Tent' Campaign Planned for Homeless during Olympics.

Pivot Legal Society "plans to team with local shelters to get bright red tents - emblazoned with 'Housing is a Right' and 'End Homelessness Now!' - into the hands of Vancouver's homeless."

In the event the group is denied permission by the City of Vancouver to do this, they are prepared to mount legal action.

"As a matter of constitutional and administrative law the City cannot have a blanket prohibition on any tenting in public places," says Pivot representative John Richardson.

ETA: Vancouver is likely to deny Pivot the right to give (well, I think it should be a right) red tents to homeless people during the Olympics.

Read that article. The reasons stated by Councillor Jang, a member of Vision Vancouver, the lead party on Council, are ludicrous and insulting to homeless people. For example, "We can’t support this campaign as it's currently set out. It’s primarily because of health and safety concerns.”

To which I am compelled to ask: Whose health and safety?

No wonder that, when compared to 272 cities around the world, Vancouver ranks number one in terms of unaffordable housing. It gets 9.3 on the Metropolitan Market Median Multiple. Any number that is 5.1 or higher is described by the Frontier for Public Policy as "severely unaffordable" and according to them Vancouver's number is "unprecedented in modern history."

Victoria is the proud occupant of the number two position, at 7.9.

British Columbia: the greatest place on earth to live. If you can afford it.

ETA: Given the City of Vancouver hasn't denied Pivot YET, homeless activists should raise a ruckus to make sure the city doesn't deny them. Likely it won't help, but it's better than not trying.

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UPDATE 2: Michael Ignatieff's Facebook Townhall

[Re-worded my question... Which never saw the light of day except here. Predictable and depressing that is.]

Here is was my question for Michael Ignatieff.

Question: "Creative, inexpensive - even cheap - shelter for permanent housing, using new design techniques and materials could quickly and substantially reduce Canada's homeless numbers and permit more choice for people of low income. These designs exist now and are part of the tiny house movement, yet such solutions are blocked, time and again, due to outdated municipal laws. Do the Liberals have a federal housing strategy and if so, how does it encourage municipalities to be more inclusive and more open to alternative housing options?"

According to Ignatieff's Facebook page, people are supposed to RSVP at a specified site. Tried that. Canna see how I'm to RSVP. What am I missing?

ETA: OK, worked out the RSVP thingie. My NoScript extension on Firefox needed tweaking.

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It Just Warms My Heart

... to read such drivel.

Where DOES the Times-Colonist find these people? First it was this privileged whine. Now Lawrie McFarlane blusters forth with his inflated two cents:

Two B.C. courts have now ruled that the City of Victoria was wrong to prevent homeless people setting up tents in downtown parks.

Let's bypass the fact that a good portion of the campers were propagandists who use "homelessness" as a bludgeon. Our courts seem bent on redrawing civic rights in a way that has no foundation in law.

Their first step is to suppose that if a serious issue exists, it must be the duty of government to fix it.

Careful, Mr. McFarlane. Your stereotypes are showing.

Agreed: It is not the business of government to provide housing.

That's where our agreement ends.

It IS the business of government to regulate market conditions such that affordable housing is available to anyone who wants it. This includes half the people living in poverty who work one or more full-time and/or part-time jobs on low wages without benefits, and a considerable number more people living in poverty who worked in similar employment much of their lives and now face the end of their days in meagre retirement.

Among these people are those who serve you at your favourite retail haunts, wait your tables, serve you at theatres, monitor your home security, take your parking fees, wash your cars, book your travel arrangements, and provide your catering, home cleaning and home repair needs.

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On "Needy Renters"

One would think from reading the Cowichan NewsLeader that people who are struggling to find affordable rental housing are "needy renters."

Why do media types insist on using the word 'needy' when describing people without housing? People looking to be housed are not simply a bundle of needs. In fact, that's the least of who they/we are.

We have skills to offer, and insight and wisdom born from our struggles, which we wish others would recognize as useful and worthy of respect. We have solutions for our communities to what others deem intractable problems; and our solutions require considerably less outlay than those typically proposed by politicians, non-profits and business.

A serious shift in thinking is required. It can begin with simple acts, like journos and others no longer using words like 'needy' to describe people without housing.

Language matters. It's about R E S P E C T.

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A Privileged Whine

... about the privileged homeless.

While it's true that the homeless have rights, the rest of us have rights as well. Do the rights of the homeless matter more than ours do? If so, why?

How do you balance the right to survival with the right to parks protected from overuse?

The full article, which appears in today's Victoria Times Colonist, smacks of old-fashioned prejudice and the arrogance of the propertied.

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BC Housing Plans Campaign to Combat ...

... homelessness?

No.

Headline reads: BC Housing Plans Campaign to Combat Negative Press on Homelessness.

h/t David Eby, formerly of Pivot Housing and now executive director of the BCCLA.

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City of Victoria vs. the City's Homeless

Victoria's homeless win.

"The City of Victoria is on the hook to pay Appeal Court costs, as well as the October 2008 court costs. How high that bill will be is not known."

Tee hee.

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Furry Painkillers

What a difference a pet can make!

Imagine recovering from a painful surgery and the doctor orders two doses of pet therapy a day while recovering in hospital. Imagine snuggling up to a soft and purring kitten when you are ailing, lonely, frightened or stressed to the max.

Well, it seems that researchers have finally acquired enough 'evidence' to support what we've known for a long time: that pets can reduce stress, relieve pain, encourage exercise and enhance longevity.

Julia Havey, from the Loyola University Health System (LUHS), Chicago, who led the research, said: "Evidence suggests animal-assisted therapy can have a positive effect on a patient's emotional and physical well being.

Too bad 'researchers' didn't include homeless people, who insist on keeping their pets over being forced to abandon them in favour of a roof over their heads.

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One Homelessness Factor Avoided Like Plague

This story illustrates one major contributing factor to the swelling numbers of homeless in BC. It's constantly avoided by the powers-that-be in this province.

Sherry was polite and resolute.

I was puzzled. I asked why she was willing to sleep in a parking lot in order to be with her cats.

"They've always been with us," Sherry told me. "Even just moving out of the house, one of our cats - because she'd been abandoned before and she'd been abused - she thought that we were going to leave her. She just got really freaked out and stuff."

Sherry looked me in the eye. Tears welled in hers. I forgot whether she was talking about her cats, or herself.

"We're not going to leave her," she declared.

Lori gave Sherry an armload of food, and promised to check back in a few days. We wished her well and left her at the edge of the crumbling blacktop.

The minivan was quiet as we drove away. Lori finally broke the silence.

"Actually, that happens quite a lot," she said. "People who've lost everything else, they get quite attached to their pets. Their pets are like family."

Not quite. For people who have lost everything else, their pets aren't LIKE family, they ARE family.

Consider this question, seriously: Would you give up your family for a roof over your head?

Before you answer that, don't make the same mistake Lori did. Accept the fact that for some people, their pets ARE their family. You may not consider animal companions in the same light. If you have pets, you may view them as being LIKE members of your family, but you are not so attached to them that you couldn't imagine giving them up for a roof over your head. Such is not the case for the people I'm talking about. For the purposes of my question, your view of pets isn't the issue; it's their view that matters, which is why I've framed the question as I have.

So again, I ask: Would you give up your family (your children, or dependent sibling or parent) for a roof over your head?

The problem in BC isn't just about the scant few pet-friendly shelters for the homeless. Contributing to the problem is the BC Residential Tenancy Act which allows landlords to deny accommodation to people with pets. And because property owners can do this, almost every last one of them does do it.

No serious discussion about housing for low-income BC residents can endlessly avoid this issue. The more destitute or alone a person is, the more likely s/he is to have a pet. For housing legislation to allow that a pet be given up for the sake of housing, temporary or permanent, only contributes to the problem of homelessness.

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Oh, the Compassion! - Part 2

Here's more about BC's new bill to sweep Vancouver and other cities' streets of layabouts.

The bill says the definition of 'extreme weather' will follow the definitions cities are using in their Extreme Weather Response Plans, but the provincial cabinet can make regulations to adjust the definition.

Criteria in Vancouver include temperatures near zero with rainfall making it 'difficult or impossible for homeless people to remain dry'. Sleet, freezing rain, snow, high winds or temperatures below negative two degrees Celsius also count as extreme weather.

In other words, the BC government can tweak the definition of 'extreme weather' to suit their own agenda-laden purposes, which is what I'd suggested likely in Part 1 of this post.

As the Bill itself suggests, when it comes to staying dry (or warm), 'difficult' isn't the same as 'impossible'. Street people are inventive; given how long many have been on the streets, it's safe to assume they know how to survive in all manner of weather.

Here's the short, and not so sweet, Bill 18 - Assistance to Shelter Act.

ETA: There's also this little inconsistency concerning the province's purported regard for street people's health and safety. (That David Eby! Formerly the driving force behind Pivot Housing and now, deservedly, the executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, he's a champion of the best sort.)

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Oh, the Compassion!

The wording in the BC Government media release says it all. The new Act, just announced, is intended "to protect homeless in extreme weather." How fortunate that the Act has been put in place in time for the Olympics!

The Province has introduced the Assistance to Shelter Act to keep homeless British Columbians safe from extreme weather by giving police the authority to take people at risk of harm to emergency shelters, announced Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman.

"When an extreme weather alert has been issued, we want people at risk off the streets and into safe accommodation," said Coleman....

Once at the shelter, [homeless] have the right to decide whether or not they want to stay at the shelter....

"The RCMP fully endorses efforts to assist homeless and less fortunate people on our streets," said Gary Bass, RCMP Deputy Commissioner, Pacific Region. "We recognize that for the most part, these individuals do not commit crimes, but consider it a key pillar of our Crime Reduction Strategy... We view this as a positive step forward in terms of assisting not only the homeless but those making efforts to avoid a criminal lifestyle."

For the most part, street people are VICTIMS of crime, not the perpetrators, you idiots!

Victoria Police Chief Jamie Graham said, “The terrible dilemma for police officers is when the weather is so extreme and vulnerable people are found who are at very substantial risk. When a mental illness or addiction takes over rational decision making, the only hope is for the police to have supportive legislation allowing them to take people to safety."

Who are YOU, your officers, or anyone else for that matter, to decide what is "rational decision making"? How do YOU know that the decision to stay away from shelters might not be based on excellent reasons? And who are YOU to say whether someone is 'mentally ill' rather than simply one who doesn't conform to YOUR standards?

Compassion and concern for the wellbeing of street people isn't driving this Act. It's concern for the unsightly appearance of BC's homelessness problem during the Olympics. As for the Act, now all the government has to do is get Environment Canada onside - or at least its BC equivalent - so that 'extreme weather alerts' occur regularly during the optimum period.

ETA: See also Part 2 of this post.

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If a CEO says it, then it must be true

If a homeless or street person says it, it cannot possibly be true. Even if it is, it's a truth of little significance.

But does a truth spoken by, for example, Gates Foundation CEO Jeff Raikes have significance? Such as, "homeless people aren't just a problem to be minimized or cleared away; they have amazing potential"?

Half of Seattle's homeless population are parents in their prime productive years, with children in their prime development years.

In fact, homeless families tracked by the University of Washington had better high school graduation rates than the Seattle School District....

"Most homeless families are right on the edge of being a productive part of a healthy community and a thriving economy," said Raikes.

People living the life have been saying this for decades, probably for centuries.

In WISE's own itty bitty project - which unexpectedly resulted in a book that sold to universities, resource centres, libraries, social service professionals, healthcare clinics, nursing students... and to places on and off this continent -, we TOLD YOU that education wasn't the issue. Neither was lack of intelligence, talent or resourcefulness.

Hell, you try living on nothing and see how well you do! Resourceful?! In spades.

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Those Darn Homeless and "Affordable Housing"

Seems BC is intent upon locking up people who refuse shelter accommodation. However, as Jody Patterson points out, there are a whole lot of reasons having nothing to do with mental illness to be unpersuaded by shelter amenities.

Then there are the problems of establishing permanent housing, which I discuss further below. (Hint: Affordability isn't the problem.)

About sheltering street people,

sometimes, it's as simple as not being able to bear the thought of lying on a mat in a big room with 70 or 80 other troubled souls trying to make it through the night in noisy, restless fashion. Or about having no place to leave your cart without all your worldly belongings being stolen by the morning, or another night of waiting in line outside the shelter just to find out there are no beds left, by which time all the good outdoor sleeping spots are long gone.

It's about having a spouse and wanting to sleep like a couple, or having a pet that you can't possibly leave outside alone in the cold. When our region's "cold wet weather" protocol kicks in - and believe me, it's damn cold and wet before that happens - only one adult emergency shelter, the one at St. John the Divine, welcomes couples and pets.

Then there's a whole other group of resisters with severe addictions, whose sleep/wake cycles are so completely out of whack that the idea of lying down quietly at night for eight hours isn't even an option.

Some have mental-health issues that keep them out of shelters, although not many in my experience, and certainly not enough to give Coleman the quick street cleanup he's envisioning. There's also a tiny group who would actually choose to live outside no matter what: Modern-day hermits, maybe 32 people in all in our region.

One positive solution is already here, in Vancouver. It has nothing to do with arresting people or having them corralled by police and left at shelters that may have no room for them.

The City of Vancouver has had amazing success with such populations using a new kind of shelter piloted late last year. None of it has required arresting people.

The goal of the project was to lure resisters inside by providing shelter with a difference - locked spaces for carts, couples and pets allowed, a 24-hour TV room to accommodate the sleepless, the dignity of booking another night before you left the shelter rather than having to line up much later in the day and hope for the best.

The empty buildings used for the shelters were pulled together quickly and on the cheap, with an operating cost of roughly $1.5 million for the three-month pilot. All were located in areas where people were already sleeping.

...More than 500 people who'd previously refused to use shelters came inside within a few days of the shelters opening last December.

People who are homeless have as much right to choice and dignity as anyone else. Of the choices they might make, how hard is it to imagine yourself refusing to be separated from your spouse or your pet or your entire worldly belongings?

It's not rocket science to reduce homelessness only to those people who would choose it as a lifestyle (many of whom reject the 'homeless' label).

Temporary measures include permitting and supporting tent cities, and providing serviced parking areas for people whose homes are on wheels (cars, trailers).

Permanent solutions must begin by changing the municipal by-laws that effectively enshrine NIMBYism. In few communities is it possible under current laws for the construction of a village of tiny houses. In my own community, laneway housing is still not permitted, despite Vancouver's recent example. (Regarding the latter, $150,000 to $200,000, which includes BC Hydro servicing, are the costs typically cited for the construction of a tiny house on existing property. The City of Vancouver is allowing these laneway houses only to be rented. Why would property owners bother? The costs cited are absurd. A tiny house can be built for one-tenth the price.)

The tiny house movement has coincided with the green movement. Downsizing is in vogue. Municipal laws and other regulations pertaining to buying property and house construction haven't kept up.

The problem of 'affordable housing' isn't one of lack of innovative ideas for shelter materials, construction and community design. The developers are out there who would build these things.

The problem isn't affordability of the shelters themselves. People in the US are building their own homes for NOTHING, from recycled scraps, from shipping containers, from old railway cars. Others are buying materials for under $3,000. Still others buy their tiny houses pre-built for under $25,000. Then there is the mobile home option: fifth wheels and other trailers. Too many used trailers to count sit unoccupied on RV dealer lots.

In other words, the problem isn't the HOUSING.

The problem is systemic NIMBYism, the failure of municipalities to accommodate changing community needs, the lack of will on the part of politicians at all levels to open their eyes and see where the problems truly lie, and the "I'm all right" attitude that blinds too many residents from seeing the need for change.

The problem is the LAND on which to place the housing, land whose use is not restricted by municipal laws. The problem is ALLOWABLE housing.

The problem has NOTHING TO DO WITH AFFORDABILITY and EVERYTHING to do with keeping 'those people' out.

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Funding to Clear the Streets?

What this story doesn't tell anyone is that the 'funding' provided to scoop homeless people off the streets of Vancouver and deposit them at the doorway of shelters will end, conveniently, shortly after the 2010 Olympics are over.

"This bill would have police arrest citizens who are not guilty of any crime, and detain them without any charge, simply because they are homeless," Eby said.

The officer takes the person to a shelter. If the person is not accommodated at the shelter, alternate accommodation may be found. As a last resort, and in order for the police officer to discharge their legal responsibility, the individual may be taken to police cells, either voluntarily or involuntarily, where they will be held until the extreme weather declaration is no longer in effect.

Oh, Brave New World.

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Heart Lifting Story - Please spread word

A woman who lost her long-term employment last summer and subsequently became homeless was just offered an internship with Elle Magazine. I've been following her on Twitter and consider her one of my newfound friends.

Bri has written her first blog post on Elle's website. If you want to negate the negative spin of people who are homeless or those living on the brink; if you want to spread understanding that the desperately poor are resourceful and inventive - how else could they/we survive? - then please click this Digg link, vote up the article and spread the word.

Two weeks ago, Bri tweeted that her trailer and truck had been towed. Now she has an Elle internship, is being contacted by various media and it sounds like she's also getting other offers of employment.

It can happen, but it won't happen enough unless attitudes change - not the attitudes of people living at the bottom of the poverty well, but the attitudes of people in positions of power, including all owners of property in neighbourhoods everywhere.

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Isn't this lovely?

Here's another technique for managing street people:

A controversial manure cure for homelessness in Surrey was apparently the result of discussions between city staff and members of the Surrey RCMP, Deputy City Manager Dan Bottrill said Monday. Bottrill said he is still trying to determine exactly who came up with the idea of spreading smelly chicken manure around a Whalley social service building to drive away vagrants.

By definition, 'vagrants' are without a place to stay, day or night. Until communities and this province see to it that there is sufficient affordable housing for all, we are going to have people on the streets.

DEAL WITH IT, HOUSE PEOPLE. Until then, allow encampments on public land so that at least people without housing can feel safe in their own tent communities. Also arrange for safe, serviced parking areas for the wheeled homeless to stay in their vehicles.

By the way, can you catch the jargon in this sentence? It's from one of the quotes in the original article: "Our neighbours in Vancouver seem to have a little better approach to the problem of dealing with the disease of substance abuse."

Can you spot it? Call it the psycho-medicalese that encourages the pathologizing of everyday life and the delicate stepping-around and reinvention of reality. The English language is now saturated with it.

H/t to Penlan who, in a comment on another post, brought this item to my attention.

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Portland's Solution to Homelessness

So much for praising Portland to the rafters: "Portland's homeless problem may seem less pressing, but that’s largely because ... Portland locks a large portion of its homeless problem in jail."

Such a solution for 'managing' people without housing is decidedly un-Canadian.

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Sacramento Tent City Demolished

... only for Mayor to propose, months later, a 'city sanctioned' tent city.

I read about this in a post on the SLO Homeless blog. The writer points to the stupidity, not to mention the inhumanity, of dismantling an already-established community only to reconstruct another.

"Something in all of this doesn't make a whole lot of sense."

Ah, but it does.

You see, those who have, such as legislators and your not-so-friendly neighbourhood property owners, consider people who don't have as not being entitled, or even having the capacity, to do or look out for themselves. I mean, how dare 'those people' come together and form a community!

But those same Haves, with their glorious sense of superiority, think themselves perfectly entitled to tell the have-nots where to go, er, where to live.

In societies where acquisitiveness is the name of the game, forget what their individual charters of rights say. People with property have more rights, de facto, than people without property.

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Whoever Controls the Food Controls the People

Do you remember this beautiful, brutally honest piece about homelessness, from the point of view of someone who knows it from the inside looking out? After I'd copied and posted it to this blog, many people stopped by and said how moved they'd been by it. Me? I began crying and nodding agreement long before finishing the second paragraph.

MétisRebel continues to write with a truth that I've read nowhere else. Her latest is about the forced indignity of hungry people required to spend each day travelling to where the food is, to locations that society permits to serve or hand out food to 'the vulnerable', 'the needy', 'the less fortunate' - in this land of plenty.

You want to understand 'homelessness'? Do you REALLY want to learn the solutions? Are you - politicians, bureaucrats, nonprofit boards, NEIGHBOURS -, prepared to ACT on them?

Unless you're reading MétisRebel, you've likely no clue what the true solutions are, which means you are likely supporting, intentionally or otherwise, the status quo.

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