Homelessness National Disgrace

The human chaos that we see, read and anguish about every day or in other words the homelessness crisis that plagues our streets and minds in one way or another, one week its about closing washrooms to the homeless for whatever reason the next week it’s outrage about homeless people peeing or defecating in the street or performing other such functions that would normally be done in a bathroom in public. Under the present circumstances there is no happy ending for any of us because homeless or not people require certain facilities to satisfy basic body functions, to keep clean, to be out of the elements, to have food in our stomachs, the basics of life at the very least.

The people of BC and maybe Canada have to decide whether the status quo is acceptable or not acceptable for Canadians to be living in the street for whatever reason, sure there probably are some of the homeless who would be there no matter what and there are undoubtedly some who should be in jail but they are a small minority, no one should be living in the wet freezing cold because they were born with a physical or mental handicap, no Canadian should be forced to survive the elements because they are unemployed or even underemployed, no woman or juvenile should be forced to live without shelter because she will be abused at home. 

Canadians should feel shame and feel uncomfortable to see how the homeless live amongst us, I would bet if you saw the same thing in another country you would be disgusted and feel empathy for the poor and destitute of another country.

BC started on this slippery slope to rampant homelessness in 1983 in what a rabid Conservative would call the “Golden Era” under the rabid anti-socialist Bill Bennett otherwise known as Mini-Wac, in 1983 under the banner RESTRAINT, Bennett slashed social services and closed down most of the facilities that took care of the mentally and physically handicapped while simultaneously holding a party for the world, EXPO 86. 


His Golden Era excesses finally generated a general strike in BC. 


The stage was set and we see the result of his anti-people polices every time we leave our homes and see the lost souls living amongst us, and yes it is disturbing, but the trick is to blame the right people not blame the victims. 
The solution to this major social problem is certainly not to ship the homeless back to Vancouver which was a bad policy decision made in an attempt to hide previous bad policy decisions, or just moving them to someone elses back yard is certainly not the answer to anyones problem, and certainly inciting hatred against an identifiable group is most certainly not legal nor the answer, like it or not this is BCs and even Canada’s problem not Vancouver's problem, it has to be seriously dealt with by every level of government and not just swept under the rug or glossed over for some undeserved cynical political photo op.

These people are after all Canadians and deserve at least a basic part of the Canadian dream, is a roof over your head out of the cold, rain, wind and food in your stomach to much to ask and how about some caring supervision, access to medical treatment and counselling is that to much to ask for, or expect in Canada one of the richest countries in the world, I don’t think so?

Wayne Clark
Maple Ridge

WHO do you TRUST

It is a dangerous world out there for you and your credit card, with people having the ability to scan your credit cards and passwords by not even touching you, and illegal card scanners placed on ATM machines gleaning all your personal credit information, never mind the hazards of giving your credit information over the phone or internet to some crook. 
You can protect yourself to one degree or another but still I have been seriously compromised once and caught a couple of mistaken charges on my card over the years but up until now if someone had of told me I couldn’t trust the government enough to give them my credit card information I would have said they were undeservedly paranoid, 
NOT ANYMORE. 

The other day I registered online at TReO for my decal for the new Port Mann bridge, gave a credit card number to pay any tolls I might rack up and thought that would be the end of that. Monday I got a phone call from a friend who had signed up on line also and his credit card company phoned him saying his credit card had been compromised by TReO and was told that 271 people that had registered by phone using their credit cards had their cards compromised and both the RCMP and the Transportation Privacy Commissioner are presently investigating.  Just to be safe I cancelled the credit card I had used to register, I then called TReO and was told that 271 people that had registered by phone had their credit cards compromised, the employee also claimed the security breach only involved one employee and that the RCMP were investigating, since then there have been 275 complaints from other people that signed up on line, I am not sure just what that means. 

I find this particularly disturbing that you can no longer even trust the government with your credit card information, possibly this is the end result of having a government that does not believe in government and is doing everything in it’s power to get rid of government employees, the BC Liberal privatize at any cost agenda.  

TRio is a private company doing government business whose employees no doubt make little better than minimum wages which without a doubt makes for a lot of disgruntled workers and obviously makes for poor performance similar to other privatized government functions such as hospital cleaning and other such dismal failures, 84 dead and counting.  

Time to get a government who actually believes in government and actually endeavors to make government agents and agencies both efficient and cost effective, and does not just screw up government functions so it can justify privatizing them.

Time to pay the piper

Re: All the letters The News Oct/10/2012

This is good, this is very good, this is exactly the conversation we should have had two decades ago when we started down the slippery slop to where we see ourselves today. 
The people of BC and maybe Canada have to decide whether the status quo is acceptable or not acceptable for Canadians to be living in the street for whatever reason, sure there probably are some of the homeless who would be there no matter what and there are undoubtedly some who should be in jail but they are a small minority, no one should be living in the wet freezing cold because they were born with a physical or mental handicap, no Canadian should be forced to survive the elements because they are unemployed or even underemployed, no woman or juvenile should be forced to live without shelter because she will be abused at home. 

Canadians should feel shame and feel uncomfortable to see how the homeless live amongst us, I would bet if you saw the same thing in another country you would be disgusted and feel empathy for the poor and destitute of another country.

BC started on this slippery slope to rampant homelessness in 1983 in what a rabid Conservative would call the “Golden Era” under the rabid anti-socialist Bill Bennett otherwise known as Mini-Wac, in 1983 under the banner RESTRAINT, Bennett slashed social services and closed down most of the facilities that took care of the mentally and physically handicapped while simultaneously holding a party for the world, 
EXPO 86. 
His Golden Era excesses finally generated a general strike in BC. 

The solution to this major social problem is certainly not to ship the homeless back to Vancouver which was a bad policy decision made in an attempt to hide previous bad policy decisions, or for that matter moving them to someone else's back yard, 
inciting hatred against an identifiable group is most certainly not legal nor the answer, like it or not this is BCs and even Canada’s problem not Vancouver's problem, it has to be seriously dealt with by every level of government and not just swept under the rug or glossed over for some undeserved cynical political photo op.

These people are after all Canadians and deserve at least a part of the Canadian dream, is a roof over your head out of the cold, rain and wind and food in your stomach to much to ask and how about some caring supervision, access to medical treatment and counselling is that to much to ask for, or expect in Canada one of the richest countries in the world,
I DON'T THINK SO ?

TReOOHH

Re: The News Oct.12/2012 Collecting tolls is a matter of trust

Mr. Turner it would seem your instincts are firing on all eight cylinders about trusting TReO. 
The other day I registered online at TReO for my decal for the new Port Mann bridge, gave a credit card number to pay any tolls I might rack up and thought that would be the end of that. Monday I got a phone call from a friend who had signed up on line also and his credit card company phoned him saying his credit card had been compromised by TReO and was told that 271 people that had registered by phone using their credit cards had their cards compromised and both the RCMP and the Transportation Privacy Commissioner are presently investigating.  Just to be safe I cancelled the credit card I had used to register, I then called TReO and was told that 271 people that had registered by phone had their credit cards compromised, the employee also claimed the security breach only involved one employee and that the RCMP were investigating, since then there have been 275 complaints from other people that signed up on line, I am not sure just what that means. 

I find this particularly disturbing that you can no longer even trust the government with your credit card information, possibly this is the end result of having a government that does not believe in government and is doing everything in it’s power to get rid of government employees, the BC Liberal privatize at any cost agenda.  TRio is a private company doing government business whose employees no doubt make little better than minimum wages which without a doubt makes for a lot of disgruntled workers and obviously makes for poor performance similar to other privatized government functions such as hospital cleaning etc. etc. 

Time to get a government who actually believes in government and actually endeavors to make government agents and agencies both efficient and cost effective, and does not just screw up government functions so it can justify privatizing them.

Human Compassion

Letters The NEWS Sept 26-28th

Here’s a thought D. Ferguson and Sandy MacDougall and anyone else wanting to get rid of this so called human detritus, why don’t we build large compounds hundreds of miles from civilization and enclose them with barbed wire and we could tattoo numbers on them so we can better keep track of them if they happen to escape. Granted this is nothing new and has been tried before by Hitler and Stalin but we could give the CARE CENTRES less ominous names than Gulags and Death camps because those names have such a negative context.

Seriously if you want to blame someone for this horrible situation do not blame Bob Goos or the Salvation Army Caring place or any other organization that is only trying to help an ever worsening human tragedy that we see or close our eyes too every day. 

There are many reasons for people being homeless forty percent of the homeless are either mentally or physically handicapped the unemployment rate is 7 percent so the real number is closer to 14 percent, about 20 percent are working but don’t make enough to eat and have a roof over their heads also, the average family is 3 weeks away from bankruptcy and if the worst happens the simple fact is that if you aren’t lucky enough to have a family or friends that you can live with until you can turn things around you end up on the street and but for the grace of god there go I. 

In the 1980s there was probably 600 homeless in greater Vancouver and most of them were in Vancouver, by the beginning of the 90s they were everywhere Kerrisdale, Burnaby, Coquitlam and yes Maple Ridge.

In the mid 1980s the BC government was shutting down mental and care homes all over BC, places such as Essondale and smaller facilities all over the province with the promise to open smaller less institution like facilities, a promise they never kept, so all over BC they would take people out of these care homes, take them to the bus depot give them $20 dollars and send them to Vancouver, where they ended up living in the streets or on my bus. I can tell many sad stories about these poor unfortunates who should have been under someones care other than a bus driver, needless to say I have seen many things I would rather not over the years.

A healthy soul can extend itself, put itself in the place of another persons experiences, from that comes wisdom and compassion.

 

If you want to blame someone for this untenable tragedy blame the governments who failed to live up to their promises of positive change and yes blame yourself for letting them get away with their lies, deceptions, and yes outright malfeasance. 

As always It is always about money, but a civilization is judged by how they take care of the sick the old in other words the helpless, less unfortunate of any population and so far we have certainly have not lived up to a very high standard.

Reasonable response

Re: The News August 28/2012 Don’t get offended, just think about helping 

N. Schroder great insightful reasonable human response to an age old profession as well as moral dilemma. I read your letter and other letters and opinions in the paper and can only feel sad at the mostly uncaring selfish hateful and venomous denigrations directed at the unfortunate of this world, only this week I have read letters with hateful derogatory terms such as “ filthy prostitute” “human rubbish, human derritus” Cretins” levelled at the poor unfortunates that make up BCs poor and homeless. 

This denigrated disadvantaged group is undoubtedly almost totally blameless as to their desperate circumstances, I seriously doubt that any one wakes up one morning and says I think being a homeless person or a prostitute will be my chosen career choice. These people are homeless or turn to prostitution mostly because off circumstances beyond their control, and once in that position it is very difficult to escape from without a lot of help, try dressing for a job interview when you are living in the street, unable to wash or shave for maybe weeks and with no mailing address.

I find this unbridled hatred disturbing, with the culprits not trying to understand the underlying problem and not seeming to care why this is happening to these human beings, I don’t hear these people blaming the powers that be and particularly the politicians that have allowed, yes almost purposely caused this situation to grow and fester, in other words the anger is being vented on the wrong people the homeless are the victims here not the villains. 

Just in the last few months a young couple I am aware of had a baby and the husband lost his job the couple fortunately were able to move into her fathers home or they would be on the street, these are not the bad guys. 

In a country as wealthy as Canada this is not only totally immoral but criminal. 

Lastly to the individuals throwing around these hateful slurs, you might want to check out some old Adolph Hitler speeches and you will find he used the same hateful inflammatory rhetoric to justify his monstrous treatment of the Jews.

TIME for an ENEMA

It would seem that after Christy Clark promised a open and accountable government that she has opted to stick with the Gordon Campbell game plan of governing from dark secret rooms with unelected CEOs with vested interests, once again ensuring that all the opposition and most of the Liberal caucus and of course the public is excluded from the decision making process, the same chosen few power elites who hatched the BC Rail scam, HST, the bankrupting of BC Hydro, NERT, EPIC and all the other privatization at any cost we have witnessed over the last decade. 

Campbell broke many of his own laws such as running a deficit budget, not having a spring and fall session of the legislature racking up a record 253 days without our supposed democracy in session. 
So now Christy Clark is going to even outdo her mentor Gordon Campbell in the subjugation of BCs democratic system and it’s citizens, so much for open and accountable government.

Canada traditionally has a parliamentary democracy and one of the supposed safeguards of that system is a Lieutenant Governor, I sincerely believe it would be in this provinces best interests for you the Honourable Steven L. Point to use your powers as Lieutenant Governor of BC to dissolve this sham of a government and call an election as soon as possible. 
The reasons for this are many and all to obvious, we live in perilous times governments and countries rise and fall in less time than the next scheduled election in BC.
1 Christy Clark does not have a mandate to lead this government from the people of BC or it would seem from the members of the Liberal caucus.
2 Christy Clark and the Liberals do not have a mandate to complete Gordon Campbell's privatize at any cost agenda. 
3 Christy Clark and the Liberals definitely do not have a mandate to carry on a dictatorship in BC as they have for the last decade, no more of the peoples business conducted in secret with unelected individuals with vested interests, our democracy from here on has to be conducted in the legislature in the full light of day with all duly elected parties present, with all the questions, ideas, compromise, and finally consensus or what Clark apparently sees as sick but the rest of us recognize as democracy.

 It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. 

Winston Churchill 

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BC can not afford to function one more day without it’s traditional democratic system intact and the practice of ostracizing members of their caucus or the opposition has to stop, not only is this practice disrespectful and undemocratic but it totally disenfranchises all the people that particular MLA represents, It is clear you like to have nothing but yes men around you, but debate=friction is a crucial component of any democracy. 

The citizens of BC demand a proper election now and have a proper accounting to see how much trouble this province is really in without all the sleazy Enron style accounting practices they have been using to hide their mismanagement and incompetence.

We know Christy Clark does not like Victoria but until the capital is moved to Vancouver or Spuzzum that is where the government does it’s business and anyone unable to deal with that fact has no business running for provincial politics let alone Premier.

If the Lieutenant Governor can not do the job we all believe he has the power to do, then it is imperative that the people of BC find that fact out, we most desperately need an election and consequently a new effective government that works for the people of BC instead of the chosen few, and as importantly BC needs a workable recall system so that the voters of BC have a mechanism to make sure this travesty will never happen again.