View From the Homeless Streets

Editor, The News:

I wish to affirm the letter from Mr. James Breckenridge regarding the deplorable and callous treatment meted out to a homeless person called Kevin (The News, July 15).

On June 28, I spent five hours in an emergency room hallway waiting for my husband to be seen by a doctor. I witnessed first-hand the indifferent way this very, very ill person was treated. It disturbed me greatly.

It was clear that the emergency room staff had dealt with Kevin often and knew him well. He was sent away twice in the time I was there, despite his obvious extreme difficulty breathing.

At some later time, he was admitted to ward Two West, where my husband was also admitted. Once on the ward, he seemed to get the care and kindness to be expected by a patient and it seemed like he was made as comfortable as possible in his final days.

I wish to let Mr. Breckenridge know that Kevin’s death has had a profound effect on both me and my husband, and we won’t soon forget what happened to a fellow human being in desperate need of help.

Marilyn Kozak

The original letter about Kevin is below.

Kevin George Ellis, a member of Abbotsford’s homeless community, died last Tuesday night. His release from the pain of these soulless streets will be mourned in the homeless community and those who care to serve the needs of these citizens. Kevin was human and had the flaws that come with that state of being. It was his misfortune that one of his flaws was addiction, a scourge that devoured his life. Kevin had serious respiratory problems that were only complicated by his addiction. Worse misery lay in his having the wrong addiction. If you ever doubted the driving power of addiction consider that Kevin knew his addiction would, together with his respiratory illness, cause him an early, painful death. Even in the face of this death sentence Kevin was a helpless prisoner of his addiction. Sadly, Kevin is not unique. I lost a cousin decades ago because he could not stay sober (from beer) long enough for life saving medical treatment.

While the broad majority of his fellow citizens will not notice his passing from the City’s indifferent streets and those malignant of spirit will demonstrate this warping with the utterance “Good, one less homeless bum, the rest need to die – the faster the better”, the humane will deplore the circumstances of his passing. It was wrenching to see the suffering inflicted on Kevin by the system and to a lesser degree society. I do not know if system and attitude changes would or could have granted him a longer life. I do know our current systems and attitudes condemned him to death and made his life at the end extremely miserable and painful, denying him any comfort. Others with a desperate need for caring will die in pain and loneliness, killed by the callousness of our society.

Kevin is not the first person I have seen die or dying from the complications of a respiratory illness and an ongoing addiction. He is the first who I have seen with an illegal drug addiction. Until now the addiction I have associated with respiratory problems has been nicotine, with cigarettes the method these addicts use to get their drug fix. While this group of addicts may not have received a great deal of sympathy, they did receive care, consideration and un-begrudged medical treatment. Having labeled Kevin as a homeless druggie and bum the system and society judged him as unworthy of solicitude and denied him simple mercy.

When you look at the world around you and find it an unfriendly, dark and frightening place, remember it is this way because of choices we make and have made as a society. We have made human life the cheapest commodity on the planet and created a class of disposable human beings. The society and behaviour we so deplore is merely the reaping of the whirlwind we as a society have chosen to sow. If we want a better world we need to build it on a solid foundation of love for our fellow man, especially the least among us and those in desperate need.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.

So Ms Ganske feels the citizens of Abbotsford should be delighted that they do not have to pay bribes to get things done? Interesting attitude. However, I do believe that one could make a very strong, cognizant argument that the extravagant wage rates paid city workers in fact represent a bribe. Although many forced to deal with the city bureaucracy may well prefer a system of direct payment of bribes in the belief that this would increase the probability of getting things done.

Ms Ganske speaks of “not uncommon to skip their coffee break or even their lunch hour”. Based on any of the reports of interacting with city workers I have every heard this sounds like an Urban Myth. Which like the tale of the purchase of a new, mint condition corvette in which someone had died for only $300, has a bad odour about it. Perhaps the problem lies in a misperception. The idea behind “keep this burgeoning city functioning smoothly” is that it should function smoothly for the consumers of city services – the taxpayers – not the people who are SUPPOSE to deliver those services.

Ms Ganske states “If we were in tough times”. I guess if you are being paid excessively rich wages and are demanding these wages continue their spiral into the stratosphere the enormous tax rate increases imposed this year and threat of onerous tax rate increases in future do not represent a burden or “tough times”.

The truly repugnant and extremely disturbing statements are “Taxpayers dollars are spent on every imaginable luxury” and “we freely spend on superfluous items”. Does Ms Ganske find these practices outrageous? No, she just calls for “taking care of our municipal workers” on behalf of herself and her fellow employees. There is no suggestion of reforming these unacceptable behaviours; rather Ms Ganske appears only to be concerned with getting a piece of the pork barrel at the expense of the poor, over taxed citizens of the city.

I do certainly agree that Ms Ganske is correct to suggest that “It is time to stop taking a good thing for granted”. Ms Ganske obviously has lost any appreciation for the job security and wasteful city employee wage levels.

It would be satisfying to suggest replacing the current staff so that they could experience time in the real world and perhaps learn something about hard work and delivering value for money in EARNING ones wages. Regretfully this is an impractical idea. Nonetheless her statements make it clear that what is desperately needed at City Hall is not more squandering of taxpayer money but a massive Attitude Adjustment for the entire bureaucratic structure. Clearly the employee change this city has a dire need for is new management to set a clear example and embark on a new path; to demand and spread, from the top to the bottom of our city civil servants, a new attitude of service, a strong work ethic, imaginative planning and development, consideration of the needs of all citizens and solid, frugal financial management of taxpayer dollars.

This is the face of the Abbotsford police that the homeless see and have to deal with every day.

www.somethingcool.ca/wss172.htm

Think about it.

A story on the Homeless and Summer.


http://www.somethingcool.ca/feature171.htm

I want to say thanks to the folks from South Abbotsford Church, who on June 10th served up a BBQ of hamburgers and hot dogs for the homeless and hungry. Afterwards they distributed personal care packages full of needed personal grooming items and some goodies. They provided so much food that even voracious appetites, sharpened by hunger, were sated. There was even some leftovers to send away with the hungry families and children in attendance. I extend a special thank you to young Miss Rachel whose star filled card put a smile on my face.

A tip of the hat as well as thanks to the folks who decided that a Sunday pancake breakfast in Jubilee Park was a good time and place for their culinary contribution to Love Abbotsford. Lots of coffee and flapjacks made for a great Sunday brunch.

Hmmm. A question posed to those who successfully organized Love Abbotsford. Could this organization be used to give rise to some form of rotation, the purpose of which would be to provide good hot food to the homeless and hungry, spaced out over the cold wet winter months when a good repast would be so helpful to survival. Something for consideration.