Eliza had always asked me how you knew when you were in love. I said "you just know". While she had her share of romances, starting in her head with her grade six teacher and then Billy Ray Cyrus, through a variety of characters who served to raise my blood pressure to monumental proportions, she really didn’t know.
After meeting Andrew, she also didn't know the day she found Andrew sitting on the toilet eating Captain Crunch and watching the hockey game from a television strategically placed in the room across from the bathroom.
She didn't know the day he graciously helped an elderly couple across a frozen parking lot so they didn't slip in a sudden ice storm, and they offered him money to buy himself some pants and a decent pair of shoes.
She didn't know about an hour after he has milk, cheese or ice cream and has to text message him in the bathroom asking if he is ok and to keep it down he was waking the baby.
She didn't know when he took her vegetables out of the vegetable drawer and the fruit out of the fruit drawer in the fridge and filled them with Lucky Lager.
She didn't know when she found his toenails neatly stacked on the living room carpet. Many times.
She didn't know when he poisoned her with shellfish.
She didn't know when she had to call Hay Electric to ask for an electrician to change her light bulb in the kitchen.
Now I heard that they fell in love on the Lady Donna, yes, love was made that day.
She knew in a moment on sky pilot rock.
She knew when he chose their first movie to see together: not Love Story, not Ever After, not An Affair to Remember, not even Titanic.......no, it was Harold and Kumar
She knew when she fell out of the kayak and he didn’t say anything about her granny panties.
She knew when he laughed at her flatulence and tried to top it.
She knew when he was pretending not to watch the Bachelor, Desperate Housewives, Greys Anatomy, and American Idol.
She knew when, very pregnant, she threw up in Ian’s car Andrew cleaned it up.
She knew when he carried her pink suitcase up to her hospital room and wore closed in shoes for the first part of labour.
She knew when he held their daughter in his arms and she watched him fall in love with the other girl in his life.
Some people know that Eliza depends a lot on what I know. After all, I have been known to make a mother bear look guilty of child neglect. I have had to be both mother and father to my children for many years. And there are a lot of them! With that responsibility comes many emotions. You want to cook the young man a nice meal and take him out back of the wood shed at the same time. My children are my heart, precious gems not merely to be handed over to the first suitor who comes along. I want them to be treasured after I let them go, as much as they have been while in my care.
So when Eliza knew, I had to know too.
I knew when I first met Andrew and we had an argument and he yelled at me.
It took him 6 days and 4 hours and 22 minutes to apologise, and secretly I admired him because I know he achieved what every single one of Eliza's previous boyfriends longed to do but never did, tried to put me in my place.
I knew when he drove 200 km an hour hoping I wouldn’t notice when Eliza was being air lifted out to Victoria in early labour and was trying to keep me distracted by asking me for parenting advice.
I knew when we spent Valentine’s Day and night together in a hotel room, he worried I would see him in his boxers and I worried I would snore.
I knew when he came to my house at midnight to fix my sliding glass door that was jammed open and I didn't have a single tool in the house. He worked for over an hour with a broken spatula handle. He didn't complain.
I knew when he gave me a tool kit for Christmas.
I knew when he took all my 4 dogs into his house when we had a flood and had to evacuate. I know now because he is going to go along with that number.
I knew because he asked Eliza to marry him even though his life will never be a box of chocolates. He knows living with Eliza that life is like a box of explosives and you never know when it is going to detonate, unless of course you visit her home unannounced and see her bedroom, her office, her laundry room and her kitchen. Now I know I should take some responsibility because I didn't raise my daughters to do that work, I raised them to hire people to do it for them, but as usual, Eliza made her own path.
Our family loves Andrew, the boys see him like a brother, Emma has a little crush I think and Emelia just wants to pluck his eyebrows at the first opportunity. She plans to get you drunk tonight by the way.
So when he showed up at my house at 10 o'clock at night all sweaty in his soccer uniform and asked for my blessing, I said ok. And I hugged him even though he was really sweaty and didn't even have the ring to show me, and I don't hug very often.
And I didn't phone Eliza and spill the beans. I wanted them to have that moment.
While everyone I am sure recognizes that opposites attract, and if Owen Wilson or Little Grey had been available we might not be here... and that if Andrew had his way we would be at a pig roast right now and he would be wearing shorts and sandals and if eliza had her way everything here would be pink and there would be an ice sculpture somewhere and Tom Jones would be making a guest appearance.
They share their hearts and their lives and their love with a little girl names Carys who is bar none the light of my life, the light of all our lives. She is their masterpiece, and we all knew the moment we saw her enter the world. She was not an accident, a mistake, an oops, she was a miracle.
And in about 24 years, or as Andrew insists in 45 years, maybe, they will know too. Since this is a Hollywood themed event I couldn’t finish this toast without quoting from one of Eliza’s favourite movies.
They have a little girl. An adorable little girl who looks up to you and adores you in a way you could never have imagined. They remember how her little hand used to fit inside theirs. Then comes the day when she wants to get her ears pierced, and wants you to drop her off a block before the movie theatre. . From that moment on you're in a constant panic. You worry about her meeting the wrong kind of guy, the kind of guy who only wants one thing, and you know exactly what that one thing is, because it's the same thing you wanted when you were their age. Then, you stop worrying about her meeting the wrong guy, and you worry about her meeting the right guy. That's the greatest fear of all, because, then you lose her. But if they are lucky like me, she will take you with her on her new journey away from you and you will know like I know that love conquers all.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Holy Places
I met Tony for the first time on the jewish holiday called Tashlikh which means casting off. We walk to the local river on the afternoon of the first day and empty our pockets into the river, symbolically casting off our sins. Now we don't empty our wallets or pocket change, but we put small pieces of bread and pebbles in our pockets to cast off. This Sunday afternnon, Tony was camped out down by the river front, in a lean-to made from an old tarp and some wood he had scraped together. He had the customary shopping cart with all his worldly possessions, and there was evidence of vain attempts to start a bon fire. To see 14 men down at the river bank throwing bread from their pockets into the water must have caused Tony to think he had drunk some bad wine! I saw him out of the corner of my eye as he approached us.'It's Rosh Hashanah already?" he said. 'I lose track of time out here." The rest of my group got that "Oh No" look on their faces, the kind of look people in the city have when they step over or around the homeless people laying on the street and hope the person doesn't speak to them. I found this ironic. He we are cleansing our souls, throwing away our sins, and we are about to commit a fresh one, turning our back on a brother who is in need. Jewish law dictates that charity begins at home. I lingered around Tony's home as others left briskly.I'm Joel, I said, introducing myself as I reached out my hand. Tony looked stunned. He said " Oh you don't want to shake this, I haven't washed in a while." I humbly put my hand back in my pocket and took the opportunity I had long awaited for.Tony couldn't say his own name since his front teeth fell out. They were rotten so it didn't take much to knock them out from their sockets. Just like his life had turned out.Knocked out from its socket. His clothing stuck to him like paste, because he had worn them too long. He smelled like a combination of an outhouse, stale whiskey, and ammonia from the body odor that hadn't been washed away in weeks. We talked for a little while, there on the riverbank.The last time he remembered having a shower was when he was arrested for sleeping in the park, and the kind jail guard let him have a shower before he left the cell block the next day. He still had to put on his old clothes though, and it felt like trying to dress in wet cardboard. This was Tony's life. Thony is what he called himself as his tongue exits through the gap where his front teeth used to be. He is happy to tell you about his front teeth. He says their loss was the beginning of his journey to homelessness. I stayed back against the strong advice of my companions in order to get to know Tony better. I was drawn to him. Here was a fellow jew, in trouble, and I felt it was better to reach out now than to go back to Temple to pray for him. Tony had grown up not far from here, in the suburbs of New Jersey. "I was working class poor" he said as he offered me a can of something unknown as the label had washed off in the rain. I accepted it to be polite, and non chalantly put it down on the ground next to me where we sat. " My mother was a waitress, my father was a bastard." With that he let out a loud, sad laugh, as if hoping the humor he was forcing would penetrate the sadness that exhaled from his body. "He left us pretty early, my brother and I. My mother did her best, and I respected that. We made do. But we stopped going to Temple because she was embarrassed that she couldn't dress us properly and most of the time she had to work anyway." Tony looked out to the river as if comtemplating how much more he was going to tell me, a perfect stranger. " So as time went on, my mother started getting lonely I guess and brought boyfriends home. My brother and I hated all of them before we even saw them. We started staying away from the house a lot of the time. You know, young guns out on the streets with no dad to come find them, bring them home and ground them. One day we showed up at home, a little drunk and a little stoned and her latest boyfriend decided he was going to be our father and steer us in the right direction. Tony paused again and I thought I saw him tear up. I looked away as I didn't want to embarrass him. He steered my brother right into the wall and me across the room with his fist in my mouth. Tony showed me his missing front teeth as if I had not noticed the big black hole until now. I acted like I hadn't. You see, my mother didn't have money for dentists. She barely had enough money to put food in our mouths let alone fix our teeth. They just came shooting out, right down the back of my throat. I swallowed them. Tony burst out laughing, a laugh longer than it should have been.I wondered if he was getting nervous with me being there and sharing this debriefing with him.There was a long silence between us. I thought for a moment it might be time for me to move on, and I moved a little bit in an effort to get myself up from a position no 45 year old with bad knees should have put himself in. It had started to rain. "Hey Tony" I said before I realized I had said it. "Why don't you come back to temple with me and we can have a nice meal afterwards, get out of the rain, and talk some more" "You mean like this" he asked, putting his arms out wide as if to present himself to the world as what he was; a smelly scary looking homeless person. "Come on Tony, let's go" You can imagine what happened when I appeared back to the services with Tony alongside me. He sat at the back. I sat back up front with my family, where he insisted I go. Occasionally I would look back over my shoulder and saw Tony following all the rituals correctly. His faith had abandoned him but he had not drifted far from his roots. No one sat next to Tony, and those who were there moved hurriedly to another location. I assumed it was his appearance and his body odor. Afterwards, Tony remained seated, probably enjoying the warmth and shelter I had invited him into, for as long as he could get it. The Rabbi asked me to ensure Tony moved on, and as I sent my family home ahead of me, I took Tony out to dinner. After he had been hit by another step father in the house, Tony and his brother left to sleep at a friends house. The mother saw the blood and injuries on both the boys and they ended up in foster care. " I thought my mother was poor" he said as he swirled his tongue around the aged empty gap in his mouth.The state had no money to fix my teeth either." Tony was separated from his brother in homes only willing to take one young troubled jewish boy. He didn't see him again. Fifteen foster homes later, Tony found himself out on the streets after he had aged out of the system. There were no parents for him if there was no money to pay them. Drugs and alcohol had helped ease his transition into adolescence and young adulthood. He got series of jobs here and there, nothing to make a career out of. He insists his physical appearance cost him opportunities. " The only job I might have been able to make any money at would have been boxing 'cause I have the look. Just not the body for it." He laughed out loud again. I liked Tony. There was something big brotherly about him. It was hard to say how old he was exactly, I assumed homelessness and hard living had taken a toll and he probably looked twenty years older than he was. Tony had lived in shelters, cars, cardboard boxes, and a few times had found jobs long enough to rent small apartments but he never made enough money to get ahead of the rent. He had girlfriends, but the girls he met in his part of town only served to keep him poorer and with more heartbreak. "I've sworn off women" he said, as he finished his meal and headed back to the river. I had a dog once, I loved that dog, but the dog catcher came and took him away from me. They said he wasn't licensed. I didn't have the money to license him. I thought about breaking him of the place, but I have gotten by this far without being a criminal and just didn't want to start that. So I prayed my dog would find a better home, something indoors maybe. Tony looked the saddest I had seen him all day. We walked quietly back to his riverfront home, and with more guilt than I felt comfortable, I left him there. "See you next week" he said as he bedded down for another night rough sleeping. Tony joined me the following week at Temple. The Rabbi took me aside and said his presence was disturbing people and he had to leave.The rabbi has told me that people do not want to sit next to him and some feel afraid. He said that people have complained he smells. Tony had washed up in the bathroom earlier and they complained about that too. After the service, I walked Tony out and tried to find a way to uninvite him to the Temple. This felt wrong. Hypocritical. Sick. I know what the Torah says and what Isaiah says about treating the homeless in our midst and it certainly isn't send them out because they are scary looking and smelly. I respected Tony and so I told him what the Rabbi said, at the same time letting him know I would be his advocate and we would work this out. We went out for what I didn't know was out last meal together. Tony ended up comforting me. " Why is there such inequality in the world?" I lamented. "Why does God make some people poor, some rich, some wise and some evil, some happy and some sad?" I intended this to be a rhetorical question but Tony had an answer. "God said who will then guard kindness and truth". He bit big into a hamburger. Talking with his mouth full, he continued." If everyone had all they need, then how would kindess fit into my world?" He swallowed. "I am poor so the rich have an opportunity to give to me. I am a happy person and I have the opportunity to cheer you up. The smart people can teach the not so smart people. We all suffer so that others can be able to give." Tony gulped down the rest of his milkshake. He stood up, shook my hand, and said he had to get back to his camp before dark. "We'll see each other again" he smiled, and we walked together in silence back to the riverbank. I had offered Tony help. Financial help, to stay with my family until he could get back on his feet. He declined. He was happy where he was and grateful we had met. A few weeks passed and I found myself drawn back to the riverbank to check on Tony. He was gone. All that remained was the black woody circle of a bonfire and some scraps of wood he probably couldn't carry with him. I never saw him again. I felt deeply and truly that he had great wisdom and had great gifts to give the world. But sadly, the world would not listen to him. There is a tremendous amount of denial out there about who is homeless and who the homeless used to be or could have been. In my growing appreciation for the homeless, I have come to believe that people living on the street have a lot to offer us; profound insights gleaned as we process our experience with them. Although they are not intentionally our teachers and most likely don't realize the insight into life they offer, they can offer us deep understandings about life. These poor souls, poor economically but rich culturally and spiritually andhumanly, taught me a profound lesson. When we look for God, we don't have to look in churches or synagogues. The most holy places are not where we traditionally think they are. The holy places are the shelters where we house the homeless, thesoup litchens where we offer them a warm meal, the street corners where we stop and talk to the panhandler, or bend down to make sure someone who is passed out is safe and ok. The holy places are the spaces we give the homeless to store their things. The holy places are the abandoned campsites where we have made a friend.
A strong start begins with a living wage.
Since it cost us each five cents to hear our Premier speak in his October 27th television appearance, there is just cause for all of us to put our two cents worth into the dialogue.
Gordon Campbell used his time to defend the HST and to sweeten the mix with a tax cut that at most will amount to about seven dollars a week for regular folk and nothing for the 40% who are low income taxpayers or the very poor. To make any real difference, he should have announced a rise in the minimum wage level and income assistance rates to at least the poverty line.
Welfare income in this province keeps families income about $21,000.00 below the poverty line (which is $39,000 for a family of four). In addition, over 245,000 BC workers earn less than ten dollars an hour. It takes a wage of $16.74 an hour for two working parents and two children to live at the poverty line.
Ministry of Housing and Social Development statistics reflect a rise in the number of people on welfare from 145,700 in March 2008 to 179,394 in March of 2010, an increase of 33,674 people. Many of these include children. In 2009, over 80 percent of food banks in BC saw an increase in people needing food, and one third of BC food bank users are children. Unemployment rates have also increased from 4.3% in April 2008 to 7.3% in April 2010, representing an additional 75,600 British Columbians, many with children. All these children are paying the price.
Remedying this situation would likely address his concern that one in five grade four students are not at grade level for reading, writing and arithmetic. There is a very interesting parallel here. One in five children in this province live in poverty, the highest rate in Canada. Could it be that the kids who are not getting adequate nutrition, shelter, health and dental care, who are stressed, who see their parents stressed, who are cold, sleepless, hurting, humiliated and who often sleep in mould infested quarters are the ones who aren’t really equipped or motivated to read a book, write a journal, or do long division? It is known that children who experienced poverty during the first four to five years of life experienced a full nine-point decline in intelligence test scores compared to children who experienced no poverty.
Campbell thinks the answer is to create more StrongStart Centres across the Province. Under the direction of licensed early childhood educators, parents and children participate in early learning activities, such as story time, music, singing, art, and puzzles, during daytime hours, usually in local schools. We have several programs here taking place at local schools. What happens to the working poor family who cannot take time off for the mandatory accompaniment, or to the single parent who does not have enough money for transit to get to these centres? What about the parent with an addiction, a mental illness, depression, or who has to sleep during the day because the only job they can find is a night shift stocking shelves job? What about the homeless family? This is the reality for many families who, despite what Campbell thinks, do not struggle from paycheque to paycheque, but who start struggling the day after their paycheque arrives and is swallowed up by rent and hydro costs, not to mention the additional cost of the HST.
A “strong start” does not begin in the gymnasiums and community centres of the province because by then the damage has been done to pre- school children living in poverty. Poor mothers have not received adequate prenatal care or nutrition, infants have not benefited from breast feeding because the mother is malnourished, or from formula that is not watered down because it is too expensive. Babies have spent their days couch surfing with homeless mothers, lacking attachment to stressed parents, fail to thrive in living desperate living situations, toddlers have become chronically sick with upper respiratory infections, skin problems, allergies, asthma, kidney disease, mental disability, all statistically linked to being poor.
A strong start for children begins with the parents, offering those who are marginalized the dignity of a living wage or supports that provide for the basic necessities of life, unconditionally.
Gordon Campbell used his time to defend the HST and to sweeten the mix with a tax cut that at most will amount to about seven dollars a week for regular folk and nothing for the 40% who are low income taxpayers or the very poor. To make any real difference, he should have announced a rise in the minimum wage level and income assistance rates to at least the poverty line.
Welfare income in this province keeps families income about $21,000.00 below the poverty line (which is $39,000 for a family of four). In addition, over 245,000 BC workers earn less than ten dollars an hour. It takes a wage of $16.74 an hour for two working parents and two children to live at the poverty line.
Ministry of Housing and Social Development statistics reflect a rise in the number of people on welfare from 145,700 in March 2008 to 179,394 in March of 2010, an increase of 33,674 people. Many of these include children. In 2009, over 80 percent of food banks in BC saw an increase in people needing food, and one third of BC food bank users are children. Unemployment rates have also increased from 4.3% in April 2008 to 7.3% in April 2010, representing an additional 75,600 British Columbians, many with children. All these children are paying the price.
Remedying this situation would likely address his concern that one in five grade four students are not at grade level for reading, writing and arithmetic. There is a very interesting parallel here. One in five children in this province live in poverty, the highest rate in Canada. Could it be that the kids who are not getting adequate nutrition, shelter, health and dental care, who are stressed, who see their parents stressed, who are cold, sleepless, hurting, humiliated and who often sleep in mould infested quarters are the ones who aren’t really equipped or motivated to read a book, write a journal, or do long division? It is known that children who experienced poverty during the first four to five years of life experienced a full nine-point decline in intelligence test scores compared to children who experienced no poverty.
Campbell thinks the answer is to create more StrongStart Centres across the Province. Under the direction of licensed early childhood educators, parents and children participate in early learning activities, such as story time, music, singing, art, and puzzles, during daytime hours, usually in local schools. We have several programs here taking place at local schools. What happens to the working poor family who cannot take time off for the mandatory accompaniment, or to the single parent who does not have enough money for transit to get to these centres? What about the parent with an addiction, a mental illness, depression, or who has to sleep during the day because the only job they can find is a night shift stocking shelves job? What about the homeless family? This is the reality for many families who, despite what Campbell thinks, do not struggle from paycheque to paycheque, but who start struggling the day after their paycheque arrives and is swallowed up by rent and hydro costs, not to mention the additional cost of the HST.
A “strong start” does not begin in the gymnasiums and community centres of the province because by then the damage has been done to pre- school children living in poverty. Poor mothers have not received adequate prenatal care or nutrition, infants have not benefited from breast feeding because the mother is malnourished, or from formula that is not watered down because it is too expensive. Babies have spent their days couch surfing with homeless mothers, lacking attachment to stressed parents, fail to thrive in living desperate living situations, toddlers have become chronically sick with upper respiratory infections, skin problems, allergies, asthma, kidney disease, mental disability, all statistically linked to being poor.
A strong start for children begins with the parents, offering those who are marginalized the dignity of a living wage or supports that provide for the basic necessities of life, unconditionally.
The Baker's Dozen.
Pierre Trudeau said that the essential ingredient of politics is timing. There is just cause to suggest that the “Baker’s Dozen” have mixed this up and created a recipe for disaster.
We should ready ourselves for a fourth term of the BC Liberals now that the NDP has imploded under the weight of those who thought Carole James was good enough to rebuild the party from 2 MLA’s and no party status to 35 MLA’s, but not good enough to pursue a real chance to govern after the next election. She was good enough to form the largest NDP opposition in history but not good enough for 13 members of that opposition who likely got into or stayed in power due in large part to her hard work. She was good enough to garner a 42% approval rating from the voters of B.C. on May 12, 2009, the highest level of support in 23 years, but 13 duly elected MLA’s ignored the will of their constituents and decided they knew better. This is not a great recipe for democratic representation of the people by the people for the people. It certainly is a “new” type of democracy however!
We don’t know what has gone on behind closed doors but we do know that James won the party's support as delegates voted 97 to 18 against a motion calling for a leadership convention in 2011, translating to an 86% approval rating. Those 97 delegates recognized that it is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared (Whitney Young quote).
When the next Gordon Campbell clone is voted in as the leader to succeed him, the essential ingredients for a Liberal win will include adding a snap election to the mix, while the NDP are still whining “did not” , “did too” and poking their tongues out at each other. Now was NOT the time to rebuild the foundation of the NDP when they had a real opportunity to put their platform to work and rebuild the foundation for so many marginalized British Columbians who have had it pulled out from under them since 2003.
On their website, the NDP states that social justice translates to fairness and respect for all. All except to Carole James, the delegates and constituents who by vast majority supported her leadership. As social democrats they say they believe in a balanced and responsible approach to government. Thirteen MLA’s having so much power and influence seems pretty unbalanced to me and airing their dirty laundry publically is completely irresponsible. The NDP say they will work together to make sure the needs and aspirations of ordinary people are effectively represented in the political process. The one thing the NDP isn’t doing is working together and as such they have just burned themselves and the ordinary people who had some real hope that the injustices they have suffered for the past 8 years may have been remedied.
We should ready ourselves for a fourth term of the BC Liberals now that the NDP has imploded under the weight of those who thought Carole James was good enough to rebuild the party from 2 MLA’s and no party status to 35 MLA’s, but not good enough to pursue a real chance to govern after the next election. She was good enough to form the largest NDP opposition in history but not good enough for 13 members of that opposition who likely got into or stayed in power due in large part to her hard work. She was good enough to garner a 42% approval rating from the voters of B.C. on May 12, 2009, the highest level of support in 23 years, but 13 duly elected MLA’s ignored the will of their constituents and decided they knew better. This is not a great recipe for democratic representation of the people by the people for the people. It certainly is a “new” type of democracy however!
We don’t know what has gone on behind closed doors but we do know that James won the party's support as delegates voted 97 to 18 against a motion calling for a leadership convention in 2011, translating to an 86% approval rating. Those 97 delegates recognized that it is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared (Whitney Young quote).
When the next Gordon Campbell clone is voted in as the leader to succeed him, the essential ingredients for a Liberal win will include adding a snap election to the mix, while the NDP are still whining “did not” , “did too” and poking their tongues out at each other. Now was NOT the time to rebuild the foundation of the NDP when they had a real opportunity to put their platform to work and rebuild the foundation for so many marginalized British Columbians who have had it pulled out from under them since 2003.
On their website, the NDP states that social justice translates to fairness and respect for all. All except to Carole James, the delegates and constituents who by vast majority supported her leadership. As social democrats they say they believe in a balanced and responsible approach to government. Thirteen MLA’s having so much power and influence seems pretty unbalanced to me and airing their dirty laundry publically is completely irresponsible. The NDP say they will work together to make sure the needs and aspirations of ordinary people are effectively represented in the political process. The one thing the NDP isn’t doing is working together and as such they have just burned themselves and the ordinary people who had some real hope that the injustices they have suffered for the past 8 years may have been remedied.
Blaming the homeless for not having homes.
Campbell River recently beat the provincial average. A homeless person dies every 12 days in B.C., according to the BC Coroners Service, not two in one day. The average age at death is 45 years. The five leading causes of death among the homeless are natural disease, drug poisoning, blunt injuries, hanging, and drowning. Of course they are dying from natural diseases, how are you supposed to manage your diabetes, high blood pressure, dental infections that go to your heart, or cancer, when you don’t have a home?
If you are someone who blames the homeless for their situation and does not feel so charitable towards the issue, then think of this. According to the Ministry of Health, our hospitals are sheltering homeless patients in acute care beds because, even though they no longer need to be in hospital, they have nowhere else to go. This ‘alternative level of care” costs a thousand dollars a day per homeless person. Keeping them on the streets costs at least $55,000.00 a year but some say that between ER visits, ambulance trips, court appearances, drug and alcohol treatment, incarceration and shelters it is more like $100,000. The cost of a unit of supportive housing, by comparison, is about $37,000 a year. If you do the math, you know what the answer is.
Poverty is now the leading cause of homelessness in Canada. It used to be substance abuse and mental illness. Now there are families, women, students, immigrants, aboriginals, many working, all who just need a place to rent that they can pay for and still afford to eat.
There is just cause to suggest that had there been two business people found dead in the streets, or two school children or two grandmothers, the community would be up in arms. But when you are homeless, hurting, addicted and/or mentally ill we seem to devalue those lives, they are not as important as the others. If they are lost because of homelessness and the impacts of living rough, then it really is yesterdays news. But these people did have those who cared about them and loved them and they will at least be mourned by a few who look past their circumstance to the human beings they were. Until we are ready to acknowledge that there but for the grace of God go I, homeless deaths will continue to occur, as hidden as the homeless themselves.
There has been a lot of talk about homelessness over the last few years. Most of the talk has been about the homeless and not with the homeless. The problem has grown so much in the wake of cutbacks to social services and the fact that Canada is the only developed country in the world without a national housing plan. There have been studies, committees, task forces, homeless counts, homeless initiatives, stakeholders meetings, and action plans; all have sucked money out of the system and service providers out of their offices to all these meetings, and yielded very little if anything in return.
We need to stop profiling, defining and examining an issue when the answer has already been tried and proven elsewhere and in consultation with the very people we are trying to help. It is called Housing First and it has met with significant success in the United States and Britain. We don’t need more coalitions, we don’t need to coordinate services, we don’t need to identify service gaps, we don’t need to allocate and organize resources, because the solution we need is waiting on the sidelines while we all continue to talk about the problem. The homeless have said that finding permanent housing for them instead of just focusing on improving services as they continue to live on the street is what they need. The homeless say provide realistic and timely support after that, to help them stay housed, to give them time to heal. The homeless say we need to address the poverty and inequality that underlies their situation by raising welfare rates, minimum wages, and disability pensions to the same level as what it costs to rent a home and be able to eat and obtain health and dental care. We need to stop talking about them and for them or we will continue to mourn them as they die alone in our back alleys and our forests.
If you are someone who blames the homeless for their situation and does not feel so charitable towards the issue, then think of this. According to the Ministry of Health, our hospitals are sheltering homeless patients in acute care beds because, even though they no longer need to be in hospital, they have nowhere else to go. This ‘alternative level of care” costs a thousand dollars a day per homeless person. Keeping them on the streets costs at least $55,000.00 a year but some say that between ER visits, ambulance trips, court appearances, drug and alcohol treatment, incarceration and shelters it is more like $100,000. The cost of a unit of supportive housing, by comparison, is about $37,000 a year. If you do the math, you know what the answer is.
Poverty is now the leading cause of homelessness in Canada. It used to be substance abuse and mental illness. Now there are families, women, students, immigrants, aboriginals, many working, all who just need a place to rent that they can pay for and still afford to eat.
There is just cause to suggest that had there been two business people found dead in the streets, or two school children or two grandmothers, the community would be up in arms. But when you are homeless, hurting, addicted and/or mentally ill we seem to devalue those lives, they are not as important as the others. If they are lost because of homelessness and the impacts of living rough, then it really is yesterdays news. But these people did have those who cared about them and loved them and they will at least be mourned by a few who look past their circumstance to the human beings they were. Until we are ready to acknowledge that there but for the grace of God go I, homeless deaths will continue to occur, as hidden as the homeless themselves.
There has been a lot of talk about homelessness over the last few years. Most of the talk has been about the homeless and not with the homeless. The problem has grown so much in the wake of cutbacks to social services and the fact that Canada is the only developed country in the world without a national housing plan. There have been studies, committees, task forces, homeless counts, homeless initiatives, stakeholders meetings, and action plans; all have sucked money out of the system and service providers out of their offices to all these meetings, and yielded very little if anything in return.
We need to stop profiling, defining and examining an issue when the answer has already been tried and proven elsewhere and in consultation with the very people we are trying to help. It is called Housing First and it has met with significant success in the United States and Britain. We don’t need more coalitions, we don’t need to coordinate services, we don’t need to identify service gaps, we don’t need to allocate and organize resources, because the solution we need is waiting on the sidelines while we all continue to talk about the problem. The homeless have said that finding permanent housing for them instead of just focusing on improving services as they continue to live on the street is what they need. The homeless say provide realistic and timely support after that, to help them stay housed, to give them time to heal. The homeless say we need to address the poverty and inequality that underlies their situation by raising welfare rates, minimum wages, and disability pensions to the same level as what it costs to rent a home and be able to eat and obtain health and dental care. We need to stop talking about them and for them or we will continue to mourn them as they die alone in our back alleys and our forests.
A boy and his dog.
There is a poem by Edgar Guest called “A Boy and His Dog”. The first verse goes like this. “A boy and his dog make a glorious pair, no better friendship is found anywhere. For they talk and they walk and they run and they play, and they have their deep secrets for many a day. And that boy has a comrade who thinks and who feels, who walks down the road with a dog at his heels.” Today, Jack Russell terrier Seymour would be two and a half years old, and would be at the heels of Nick Rose. They would make a glorious pair.
But the person who is accused, who said it was an accident after fleeing the scene, who lucked out by the ongoing shortage of judges and court services staff in our province, applied this week for the charges to be dropped arguing that his right to be tried in a reasonable time had been violated. Section 11 of the Charter of Rights guarantees that any person charged with an offence has the right to be tried within a reasonable time. There are no such protections for the rights of victims of crime.
Our injustice system has struck again and not only set an accused free and clear of being tried for an alleged horrifying, vicious, cowardly attack on a boy’s dog, but in doing so has completely crushed the confidence of a little boy in adults’ ability to make things right. How can he have any respect for the law when it was not there to protect his rights, only those of the person who killed his puppy?
Sadly, we must remember these are courts of law, not courts of justice, and in this case the constitutional rights of the accused trumped the killing of this innocent animal in front of the children who loved him.
We know that fewer than 1 percent of animal abuse complaints in Canada are successfully prosecuted. A report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) shows Canada has the worst animal cruelty laws among the 14 countries surveyed including the Ukraine and the Philippines. The problem is that animals are considered property and property crimes are not considered to be serious by the courts. But, those crimes that are deemed serious have also benefited from the speedy trial rule. An RCMP officer charged with dangerous driving while impaired was thrown out in November 2010, two people charged with cocaine trafficking thrown out in May 2010, many impaired driving charges have been stayed because of court delays due to government underfunding of the judicial system. Currently, more than 30,000 traffic tickets await trial dates and nothing has been done to address nearly 16,000 criminal cases in the province that are older than six months. (Justice Delayed: A Report of the Provincial Court of British Columbia Concerning Judicial Resources). British Columbia was the only province in Canada to suffer a reduction, 17.35 per cent, in its judicial complement over the years 2005 to 2010. Other than saying he is “troubled by this” what is our Attorney General going to do about it?
While the judge said that the charges had been hanging over Cody Wellard “like the sword of Damocles”, there is just cause to suggest the constant threat and imminent peril is really hanging over the people of British Columbia who are living amongst criminals whose crimes have gone unpunished.
But the person who is accused, who said it was an accident after fleeing the scene, who lucked out by the ongoing shortage of judges and court services staff in our province, applied this week for the charges to be dropped arguing that his right to be tried in a reasonable time had been violated. Section 11 of the Charter of Rights guarantees that any person charged with an offence has the right to be tried within a reasonable time. There are no such protections for the rights of victims of crime.
Our injustice system has struck again and not only set an accused free and clear of being tried for an alleged horrifying, vicious, cowardly attack on a boy’s dog, but in doing so has completely crushed the confidence of a little boy in adults’ ability to make things right. How can he have any respect for the law when it was not there to protect his rights, only those of the person who killed his puppy?
Sadly, we must remember these are courts of law, not courts of justice, and in this case the constitutional rights of the accused trumped the killing of this innocent animal in front of the children who loved him.
We know that fewer than 1 percent of animal abuse complaints in Canada are successfully prosecuted. A report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) shows Canada has the worst animal cruelty laws among the 14 countries surveyed including the Ukraine and the Philippines. The problem is that animals are considered property and property crimes are not considered to be serious by the courts. But, those crimes that are deemed serious have also benefited from the speedy trial rule. An RCMP officer charged with dangerous driving while impaired was thrown out in November 2010, two people charged with cocaine trafficking thrown out in May 2010, many impaired driving charges have been stayed because of court delays due to government underfunding of the judicial system. Currently, more than 30,000 traffic tickets await trial dates and nothing has been done to address nearly 16,000 criminal cases in the province that are older than six months. (Justice Delayed: A Report of the Provincial Court of British Columbia Concerning Judicial Resources). British Columbia was the only province in Canada to suffer a reduction, 17.35 per cent, in its judicial complement over the years 2005 to 2010. Other than saying he is “troubled by this” what is our Attorney General going to do about it?
While the judge said that the charges had been hanging over Cody Wellard “like the sword of Damocles”, there is just cause to suggest the constant threat and imminent peril is really hanging over the people of British Columbia who are living amongst criminals whose crimes have gone unpunished.
Whose the real fraud?
The word “Bilk” means to defraud, cheat, or swindle and was used last week to describe the actions of a disabled woman on a disability pension who was accused of defrauding the Ministry of Social Development because she had collected her $906.00 monthly income to live on and at the same time had received other income she didn’t realize had to be reported. Then it would be taken off dollar for dollar from her $906.00.
She told the court she didn’t mean to do anything wrong and did not understand the rules. She has had no previous run-ins with the law, for “bilking” or other crimes. She is 61 and diagnosed with a severe mental illness that requires the support or supervision of another person in order to perform her daily living activities. Now she has a criminal record for theft over $5000.00 and has to pay the government back it’s $20,000.00 via a standing restitution order for the year and nine months she lived “high on the hog”. Or did she?
The “bilking” works out to about $925.00 a month. Evidently she was expected to go off disability assistance and live off the income she was receiving. What we don’t know is how much that income was, or if it was really income (because often “income” under welfare rules is not income as the average person would see it). Was it enough to survive on? Were they really funds that were permitted to be spent on her shelter and support costs? The rules do not take that into consideration. Examples of income that is not allowed to be received the same time you get disability pension include child or spousal support, loans including student loans, accessing more than about $5200.00 a year from a disability trust to promote your independence, gifts in kind, income tax refunds and Canada Pension Plan income to name a few.
Welfare in B.C. has harsh rules that force welfare recipients into a day-to-day struggle for survival, trying to buy healthy food, find safe shelter, and the basics, because welfare rates push them into such deep poverty and the rules keep them there. Welfare since 2002 has been structurally dependent on charities and food banks in order for people to meet their basic needs. So excuse the poor people if they are too busy buying fresh fruit and vegetables for once, or finally being able to move out of an abusive situation, that they miss reading the rules about their windfall.
It has been reported that many of the recent court cases initiated by the provincial government against welfare recipients do not stand up to legal scrutiny. The problem is that welfare recipients cannot get legal representation and the government capitalizes on that. They cannot comprehend or fully respond to legal proceedings on their own, particularly if they are mentally challenged or have literacy issues. This imbalance of power forces people to pay back money they might not even owe.
There is just cause to suggest the title for this article should have been “Government and Courts kick unrepresented disabled woman while she is down; gets blood from pulverized stone.”
The real crime here is the theft of dignity and opportunity from people like Ms.Young whose poverty and disability have been criminalized. Jobs have been taken away, wages remain well below the poverty line, and welfare rules make it impossible to get ahead. Then, as a poor person, you have no access to justice because poverty law services have been taken away. The highest child poverty rate in Canada exists here, where children, their parents, and their grandparents are hungry and sick. This might not be a crime but it is certainly an embarrassment when we take a 61 year old disabled woman to court and slam her with a criminal record when there was no intent on her part to do anything wrong. It seems to me that the real bilkers sit in power in Victoria.
She told the court she didn’t mean to do anything wrong and did not understand the rules. She has had no previous run-ins with the law, for “bilking” or other crimes. She is 61 and diagnosed with a severe mental illness that requires the support or supervision of another person in order to perform her daily living activities. Now she has a criminal record for theft over $5000.00 and has to pay the government back it’s $20,000.00 via a standing restitution order for the year and nine months she lived “high on the hog”. Or did she?
The “bilking” works out to about $925.00 a month. Evidently she was expected to go off disability assistance and live off the income she was receiving. What we don’t know is how much that income was, or if it was really income (because often “income” under welfare rules is not income as the average person would see it). Was it enough to survive on? Were they really funds that were permitted to be spent on her shelter and support costs? The rules do not take that into consideration. Examples of income that is not allowed to be received the same time you get disability pension include child or spousal support, loans including student loans, accessing more than about $5200.00 a year from a disability trust to promote your independence, gifts in kind, income tax refunds and Canada Pension Plan income to name a few.
Welfare in B.C. has harsh rules that force welfare recipients into a day-to-day struggle for survival, trying to buy healthy food, find safe shelter, and the basics, because welfare rates push them into such deep poverty and the rules keep them there. Welfare since 2002 has been structurally dependent on charities and food banks in order for people to meet their basic needs. So excuse the poor people if they are too busy buying fresh fruit and vegetables for once, or finally being able to move out of an abusive situation, that they miss reading the rules about their windfall.
It has been reported that many of the recent court cases initiated by the provincial government against welfare recipients do not stand up to legal scrutiny. The problem is that welfare recipients cannot get legal representation and the government capitalizes on that. They cannot comprehend or fully respond to legal proceedings on their own, particularly if they are mentally challenged or have literacy issues. This imbalance of power forces people to pay back money they might not even owe.
There is just cause to suggest the title for this article should have been “Government and Courts kick unrepresented disabled woman while she is down; gets blood from pulverized stone.”
The real crime here is the theft of dignity and opportunity from people like Ms.Young whose poverty and disability have been criminalized. Jobs have been taken away, wages remain well below the poverty line, and welfare rules make it impossible to get ahead. Then, as a poor person, you have no access to justice because poverty law services have been taken away. The highest child poverty rate in Canada exists here, where children, their parents, and their grandparents are hungry and sick. This might not be a crime but it is certainly an embarrassment when we take a 61 year old disabled woman to court and slam her with a criminal record when there was no intent on her part to do anything wrong. It seems to me that the real bilkers sit in power in Victoria.
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