Abbotsford shits on homeless people

The way to turn that around is to borrow a rototiller or tractor and plough and do the obvious next thing.

didn't Surrey do something like this a couple of years ago? or was it Langley? i remember hearing something  like this before and it didn't go over well. guess they thought it deserved a second try to see if peeps are ready to accept bad behaviour like this. for such a "christian" city one has to wonder......

Munipalities are a branch of the provincial government.  Christy Clark should and must demand the resignation of the city manager.  Apologizing for doing this is just not enough.  Somebody should go shit on his doorstep and see how he feels about it.

Also really points out the different strains of Christianity.  Any homeless support group or committee I have served on has been dominated by people of faith (my faith being Utilitarianism).  Yet when it comes to Abbotsford where every second car has a fish on it they do this stupidity.

To suggest ways in which things can be improved so that homelessness does not become hopelessness, here is an example of municipal homelessness strategy in New Westminster that is having some success. 

Quote:

Homelessness Action Strategy and Needs Assessment

New Westminster, similar to other municipalities in Metro Vancouver, experienced an increase in homelessness between the regional count conducted in 2005 and the regional count conducted in 2008.  In fact, the homeless population increased from 92 to 124 or by 35% for the time period in question.  Of the homeless who were counted in 2008, 72 or 58% were living on the street. 

In response, the City of New Westminster and BC Housing, with the assistance of direct service providers to the homeless, have collaborated on a number of housing initiatives to better serve the homeless population in New Westminster and to address business and resident concerns regarding street and visible homelessness and its associated impacts.

These housing initiatives, with an emphasis on longer-term transitional and permanent supportive housing, create a continuum of housing, which will provide the stability, support and time necessary for the homeless to achieve greater independence and self-sufficiency, enabling many to permanently exit homelessness.

• Homelessness Action Strategy (pdf).
• Homelessness Needs Assessment (pdf)
• Homelessness Numbers, Profile and Resources

 

Helping Hand Brochure

The City of New Westminster publishes a Helping Hand brochure.  This publication includes a listing of community services and supports.  More specifically, it includes information on emergency, transitional and supportive housing; transition and second stage housing for women; addiction and mental health services; drop-in and meal programs; education and job training opportunities; and government services.

• New Westminster Helping Hand

http://www.newwestcity.ca/business/planning_development/social_planning/...

I agree.  I wasn't proposing it as a strategy.  I was just venting because I found the act so repulsive.  Isn't a cornerstone of common law that a peron's home is his/her castle and shouldn't that apply to the homeless in some form?

There is not much protection for the homeless in any area of our law.  In Burnaby advocates tell me that the RCMP routinely rousts people from their sleeping spaces and often steal their belongings to "dispose" of.

Quote:

RIGHTS NOT PROTECTED

There is little doubt that violence against homeless people occurs at an alarming rate, but it is not always understood why this is the case. There is the obvious reality that homeless people spend a lot of time outside during the night in public spaces. However, there are other factors at play, particularly that homeless people are criminalized by virtue of their poverty and lack of secure housing.

There is also the fact that despite their visible marginalization, homeless people as a class are not protected by provincial or federal rights codes. These two factors, taken together, create conditions that make homeless people particularly vulnerable to targeted and opportunistic violence.

Criminalization of homeless people is embodied in provincial statutes and municipal bylaws, which regulate where people can or cannot sleep outside. In Vancouver, the set of three bylaws governing public property effectively prohibit homeless people from legally sleeping outdoors anywhere within the confines of the city. Violators are subject to civil fines and criminal charges.

But it's not only that act of sleeping outside that brings homeless individuals into conflict with the criminal law. As a group, homeless individuals are more likely to be charged with minor property offences, drug offences, and violations of bylaws compared to those with a fixed address. Homeless people regularly receive tickets for vending, jaywalking and setting up tents on public property.

Because it is often difficult for homeless people to negotiate the complex justice system, what begins as a municipal bylaw ticket often escalates into more serious charges resulting from missed appointments and court appearances.

http://www.pivotlegal.org/homeless_people_need_protection_under_the_law_not

Michelle wrote:

Pogo wrote:

Munipalities are a branch of the provincial government.  Christy Clark should and must demand the resignation of the city manager.  Apologizing for doing this is just not enough.  Somebody should go shit on his doorstep and see how he feels about it.

That sounds like an excellent protest idea!  Everyone should dump their cat litter in his yard.

This might give you a sense of satisfaction but it will not help the homeless. The mayor and allies either directly or indirectly will say that is what you get from this kind of people. While an NDP government might do something (it's questionable), Christy will blow it off as a municipal responsibility and do nothing. 

To me a much better way is to start asking why the Abbotsford homeless do not have adequate shelters? Is the Abbotsford municiapal administration a bunch of freeloaders trying to dump the costs of this on neighbouring communities? Do they really want this to be the image of a city of over 100,000? Where is your homeless plan to create shelters? Why don't you have one? Don't you realize that you are going to have an ongoing image problem if you don't have one and you're not going to start one? Do you realize that the media attention is only going to get worse if you do not start working on this? Why can't you do as much as some neighbouring communities? If you do nothing, do you realize you could start facing a boycott (tourism, etc.)?

When New Westminster had three homeless shelters and the neighbouring Tricities of Coquitlam, Port Moody, and Port Coquitlam had none, the local New Westminster paper started running front page articles about the Tricities bussing homeless to New Westminster, implying that the TriCities were freeloading on New Westminster. The mayor also commented on the situation. The Tricities got the message and now have a homeless plan and will be opening up a shelter next year. 

In other words find allies in the media, Abbotsford and neighbouring communities to keep the pressure up, so that it's easier to deal with the homeless problem than not.  A similar strategy can be used at the provincial level. 

kropotkin1951 wrote:

I have no idea. However if it is the police stealing the homeless's possessions they are already there but they don't respond to their complaints.

And yet, there's a probable chance that if I was robbed on the street and called the police right away, they might arrive in time to "file a report" without catching the person responsible?

When it comes to the "free market," I can't imagine any transaction that emulates that ideal more than someone washing my car window and letting me decide how much that is worth. Anecdotally, it seems that I see more people standing on boulevards holding up signs asking for money now than I did say 10 or 15 years ago (perhaps a function of living in a bigger city?) and it's not just young kids. And yet, it's the free market types that are pushing loudest for "agressive panhandling" laws (which is ridiculous in itself, because it's already illegal to violently ask someone for money, there's a legal, technical term for that called "robbery") or what have you. In other words, when it comes to people earning money outside the market economic system, instead of trying to honestly compete, the market system is driven to criminalize those outside of it.