View From the Homeless Streets

Robberies, ‘bums’ walking down the street and girl strung out on drugs wandered into my house. These are courtesy of the actions of the Downtown Business Association and the City of Abbotsford administration in driving the homeless out of the downtown area. It is not surprising that the focus of the Association was on the Downtown area and thus they were not concerned about the effects on the citizens or their fellow businesspeople such as those on Sumas way. But one would have thought that the City would have shown a little concern for the citizens of Abbotsford. On the other hand, it may well be that an administration that thinks that giving a homeless person living in a tent a 48 hour notice to move is an intelligent action that will accomplish something, lacks any capacity to plan its actions and thus cannot see the effect its actions will have.

I wrote and posted an article last fall for www.homeless-in-abbotsford.blogspot.com about this, when the City and the Association embarked on their efforts to drive the homeless out of downtown. I pointed out that the only thing it would accomplish would be to relocate the homeless (or as you call them ‘bums’) to the residential neighbourhoods. But the City continues to think that they can accomplish something by forcing the homeless to move – rather than address the real problem of where do they move to. I also pointed out that those forced to move would not have access to the food available downtown and thus would become hungry. Ask yourself, answer honestly, would you quietly starve? Neither would I so it was quite predictable to anyone capable of even rudimentary thought that in chasing the homeless into the suburbs you were laying the groundwork for a rash of robberies.

“I want city council to wake up!” I could not agree with you more. Until the City actually addresses the real problems these types of problems are only going to get worse. BUT – you, your parents and your fellow citizens must accept some responsibility for the current situation you find yourselves in. “My family is now talking of moving to another town farther away to get away from all of this mayhem.” This running away from the problems will accomplish what? The reason these problems are as large as they are is that people seem to prefer to bury their head in the sand and refuse to see them until they begin to have an impact upon them. Then they blame someone else, demand someone else fix the problem or bury their heads again and move elsewhere – until the problems they would not face follow them to their new location.

Letting the situation deteriorate to its current levels ensures it will take much more time to address it. The more time wasted hiding from the fact there is a problem, the bigger the mess becomes. And the truth (which most do not want to hear) is that there are no easy, quick, clean solutions (which/like the public demands). This is a very complex situation that requires many different approaches to deal with the myriad of problems that get lumped together and hidden under the tag homeless. But if you and your fellow citizens want these issues handled you have too be prepared to step up and be part of the solutions, not sitting back waiting for someone else to ride to the rescue. It is your city, your society – what kind of city and society do you want to build?

However I must totally agree with your statement: “I want council to stop worrying about whether there should be a casino by the college – because college kids might waste their money – and focus on what really matters. I feel that maybe something really drastic has to happen before we see a major change. But why should it?”

James W Breckenridge
jmswbreckenridge@msn.com