View From the Homeless Streets

You expect the police to speed and drive badly on patrol, after all it is the public they issue traffic tickets to in “protecting the public from bad drivers”, not their fellow officers.

Apparently this double standard applies to the photographic arts as well when it comes to police versus public allowable behaviours.

It is, in the eyes of the Abbotsford Police Department (APD), perfectly fitting for the APD to surreptitiously snap clandestine pictures of citizens for no justifiable reason.

Personally, I hadn’t realized the Charter of Rights and Freedoms together with the privacy laws were not the Law or at least the laws enforced in Abbotsford.

It is not, in the eyes of the APD, perfectly fitting for citizens to photograph ADP officers as they work their duty tour. Should you be as bold as to video the APD, you will quickly find APD officers in your face demanding your camera as one abbotsford resident found out recently.

Notwithstanding the fact your right to video on duty APD officers would, outside the boundaries of Abbotsford, be protected under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Moreover, videoing on duty APD officers would appear to be totally legal under the privacy laws.

So these days in Abbotsford, the police can ignore the public’s Charter rights, disregard privacy laws and deny the public the right to exercise their rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Makes one pine for the good old days, when speeding and bad driving were the only double standard the APD exercised, eh?

I was leaving the Dragon Fort eatery the other day when I paused to observe an Abbotsford Police Department (APD) officer in an unmarked car stealthily wielding a camera. Looking around to see what or who was being so slyly photographed I recognized the subject of his attention as a new arrival in town.

There was something deeply unsettling about the image of an APD officer in an unmarked car surreptitiously taking photos of someone merely standing on the sidewalk.

One can understand police thinking in this matter: new face, tattooed and standing around in “that area” of the city. But understanding is not authorization agreement to or approval of this behaviour. The thought of the APD secretly photographing us is chilling, bringing to mind the behaviours of the secret police of the old communist state apparatuses and other despotic regimes.

One is left pondering the implications of this behaviour; wrestling with the morality of spying on citizens and wondering about the legality of secretly photographing any citizen.

Charter of Rights and Freedoms, privacy laws and requirements that the police obtain warrants would appear, from the behaviour of the APD, not to protect citizens from clandestine police spying in Abbotsford.

How many other pictures have the APD taken? Just how many secret police files on citizens does the APD maintain and exactly what is the purpose or use of these secret police files?

These questions and other problematic APD conduct underscores how essential it is we put in place and exercise citizen oversight and control of the APD before we find ourselves living in an Orwellian police state, living the novel 1984 with Big Brother watching our every move, seeking to control us and our thoughts.

While I agree with the essence of Mr. Bucholtz’s assertion that election reform is needed; I must dispute his premise that Single Transferable Vote is the reform the electorate should be demanding in making their votes count.

Mr. Bucholtz’s statement: “I am a strong believer in improving democracy, as opposed to just taking an apathetic approach to it” includes two problematic assumptions.

That STV is an improvement to democracy is debatable since STV and alternative reform proposals add complexity to elections. I am also uncomfortable with the assumption that nonparticipation and nonvoting are the result of apathy. It may well be that people currently feel no cadidate represents their views and positions.

I heard and hear far to may people who are not voting for policies but are holding their noses voting for “the least objectionable” outcome.

We should be pursuing a course of electoral reform to put the power back into the hands of the people, keeping reform simple. Thus I advocate adding one simple choice to every ballot cast at every level of governance in Canada – NONE OF THE ABOVE.

Democracy is defined as: government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system.

Power is only vested in the people in an electoral system that offers them a choice to exercise their vote for agents of their choosing. One could well argue that currently we are not a democracy since we are offered a limited number of bad choices made by others from which to choose our agents.

With one simple bold reform we can return the power back to the people, reclaiming it from politicians, political parties and the “powers that be”. In any electoral area where “none of the above” receives the most votes none of the candidates or parties are permitted to run in the next round of election.

The election process is repeated until such time as a candidate is judged and found to be worthy of exercising the voters will and power.

I will not claim this will be a neat process. In fact I truly hope that the votes held under this reform are incredibly messy and require several rounds of voting.

Fundamentally voters will be able to insist on being offered good candidates. The second (and any other needed) round should, with the elimination of party politics and politicians, be extremely lively offering opportunities and choices for a most eclectic offering of candidates.

We should also get the re-introduction of debate on issues, problem solving, policies, leadership and other positive outcomes. The new system should ensure the opportunity for many, if not a majority, of independents, new faces, new ideas, the evolution of new alliances and parties.

Yes it will be a little chaotic at first but as the author Alan Dean Foster wrote: “Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting.”

BE BOLD, embrace change, Carpe Diem.

Kevin Ellis was one of the unknown and faceless people that are only referred to as “homeless”. But when he died July 18th, he became a figurehead for the way those in his situation are treated. In this case, it seems he was treated poorly and shown the dark side of humanity in his final days. In the end, it seems he had only two allies – a fellow homeless man and a complete stranger.

So began an article published here on SCN (something cool news) July 31, 2006. Kevin Ellis was a homeless man suffering from a respiratory illness but was sent home from the Abbotsford Hospital and died a short time after. Indeed, only two people seemed to really pay attention to his passing – a woman who happened to see him while he was at the hospital and one of his fellow homeless friends, James Breckenridge.

We asked several of Abbottsford’s homeless last week if they feel that the local hospital was treating them better and most said no. One man told us that he had been in a car accident but when he went to the hospital, he was kicked out because he had drugs in his system. Another woman made a similar complaint, claiming a needed operation was never given because of her history of drug abuse.

While these complaints were not independently verified, they do paint a picture of Abbotsford’s streets that looks very similar to one painted a year ago. To get a more in-depth perspective on the issue, we asked James Breckenridge to comment on how things have changed in the year since Kevin Ellis’ death, if indeed they have changed at all.

Remembering Kevin Ellis – By James Breckenridge

In the year since Kevin has passed, things have definitely have not gotten better. They may have gotten somewhat worse due to the increased numbers of homeless, especially new faces, on the streets of Abbotsford.

More people = more visits = more incidents = more strain = less tolerance. I continue to hear about bad treatment from hospital staff and they continue to try to ship people to the shelter who are in an altered state of consciousness.

Kevin was in so much pain those last weeks, days of his life that he wanted to die. I know he spoke of this to me and other of his friends so I have no doubt that he welcomed death as an end to an intolerable level of physical, emotional and spiritual pain.

When I think of Kevin I hope he has found peace.

I am not sure if I am infuriated, incredibly saddened or some combination of both because the system, we as a society, as the human race failed Kevin in so many ways. From the abused child to the homeless addict devalued and treated as less than an animal by society, the medical system and the social welfare system.

Kevin was not a saint; he was a wounded human being who turned to drugs to escape the pain. Unfortunately there is no real escape from that kind of pain until you deal with the wounds and what it was that inflicted the pain. It is why I believe we need to change how we think of and deliver the support needed for the far to many others like Kevin to find peace in life rather than finding peace only in the oblivion of death.

Kevin’s death did not bring great change, was for society at large just the death of another disposable life, an unremarkable death of another drug addict. On the other hand there was the woman who had seen Kevin’s treatment at the hospital and wrote a letter to the local papers on what she had seen. There is no doubt that his treatment and death had an effect on her and we have no way of telling what or who her words in the paper affected.

Like a pebble dropped into a still body of water, sending ripples out, there is an affect but we cannot judge just what or who a given ripple may impinge on

**an unposted golden oldie

Usually I just pay no heed to Jeffrey Hanson-Carlson’s drivel with no more than a stray thought as to how much he must be paying the newspaper (www.abbotsfordtimes.com May 11/07) for the privilege of demonstrating to the community his total inanity and lack of understanding on issues.

However, the level of ignorance about the issue of homelessness he has established with his latest printed nonsense is so vast it demands correction and education; lest anyone be fooled into thinking he has any vestige of understanding of homelessness.

From the pompous comfort of his home Hanson-Carlson prattles on about “policy” and his moral superiority to Americans.

Minimum wage? Got no job, no prospects of job as homelessness raises major barriers to becoming employed. A $50 per hour wage level makes no difference to the jobless, prospect-less homeless person.

Health care? One of the major hidden costs of homelessness is the extra demands a person who is homeless places on the health care system. It follows that reducing homelessness reduces the demand on the health care system and is thus good health care policy.

Education? The level of ignorance of reality that is shown in that word is Jovian (planet Jupiter) in scope. A Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Saskatchewan, a Chartered Accountant designation after articling with Coopers & Lybrand. All that education did nothing to prevent my becoming homeless.

It was the support and opportunity championed by Mr. Mangano that presented me with the chance to move off the streets into housing.

I have been championing a course of action that my business background and personal experience with homelessness have led me to believe would result in reducing, even ending, homelessness. I welcomed Mr. Mangano’s visit because he brought this course of action to the attention of local, regional and provincial policy makers. Mr. Mangano’s visit provides an opportunity to stop the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result and to set out on a new course of action that will actually end homelessness.

I am not a fan of George Bush for the same reason I am not a fan of Hanson-Carlson – an inability of either of them to see reality as it is rather than the way they want it to be. But anyone who, thoughtfully, checked Mr. Mangano’s background in the field of addressing homelessness would know that he has the experience to speak with authority on the issue of homelessness – unlike some who choose to shoot of their mouths.

The best evidence for listening, really listening, to Mr. Mangano and giving careful consideration to his words lies in the results that have been and continue to be achieved by US cities under his czarship”. By using sound business practices these US cities have begun to achieve solid, measurable, verifiable reductions in their homeless populations. Some cities such as Portland Oregon have achieved incredible results – a 70% reduction - because of the political will to DO, not try.

The real treasure Mr. Mangano brought to our attention is the opportunity to practice “the art of legitimate larceny”. We do not have to reinvent the wheel. Rather we have the opportunity to examine the wide variety of “experiments” US cities have been running for the last few years and cherry pick the best practices for adaptation to our local homelessness reduction, getting right on with the job of ending homelessness.

Although I must concede that the proof that we can, through intelligent, results oriented investments and actions, reduce and even end homelessness is a pretty valuable jewel he also brought with him to Abbotsford.

This so-called no-name community advocate considers it a privilege to have had the opportunity to hear, meet and speak with Mr. Mangano. For what he brought with him to town and to us no-name advocates is support and opportunity to end homelessness, echoing the support and opportunity that permitted me to move from being homeless to a no-name advocate on homelessness.

Finally - should Hanson-Carlson have remember that there is a good reason we have two ears and only one mouth, however big and inappropriately open it may be, he would have heard Mr. Mangano repeatedly point out that he was not the “expert” we should be consulting on what is needed locally to end homelessness. Rather he repeatedly pointed out that the experts on what is needed to end homelessness in Abbotsford are those citizens who have been there and done that, moving from homeless to homed.

The little ditty they sing on that commercial about bankers always having their hands in your pocket came to mind as I read the sign at Abbotsford Recreation Center about fee increases.

And no, it was not the fact that they were charging we citizens more to use the facility on the same day they were cancelling or cutting back access and services.It is that I have lived in Abbotsford for nigh on two decades, lived through and paid many fee increases, which in all those prior years took effect on September 1.

Why was the effective date moved up this year?

The only explanation I can think of is that the city coffers have been drained so empty by Plan A, that even the modest extra cash flow from this early fee increase is desperately needed by the city.I am afraid to ask how long it will be before we face quarterly fee increases or inventive new fees.

With quarterly increases the city can claim: “See, we only put your fees up 2.5%!” or disingenuously ask “What are you implying, what do you mean that is over 10% increase for the entire year?

”Just think, if council was to do tax increases on a quarterly basis they could claim taxes only went up 4% this quarter year.And this is why that little ditty is running through my head.

♪♪ …hands in your pockets …♪♪♪♪