I read this story this morning which both pleased and enraged me. In Abbotsford, British COlumbia, a local pastor has begun feeding the homeless and the hungry in a local park, which is an act of compassion and altruism.
Rather than commend this man for his helping actions, local business owners and city councilors are trying to shut him down. What a cruel and unnessecary action! How heartless do you have to be to prefer people to starve rather than be healthy and fed?
These business owners need to look beyond their own self-interested lives to see the suffering around them in their community and participate in its solution, rather than trying to exacerbate the problem.
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5 comments:
I hear what you're saying, and I agree that we need to have compassion. However, you need to live here and see what goes on. If you open a free food line, homeless come from miles around. We are THE most compassionate province in Canada, and unfortunately that gets taken advantage of by the rest of Canada. Due to our "niceness" and great weather, every day, dozens and dozens of new homeless arrive from the rest of Canada.
The REST of Canada needs to improve what it does for it's own homeless before it lets them all run off to the "promised land" of BC. Or, before their leaders ship them off here (as Alberta's Ralph Klein did in the 90s - great humanitarian that he is).
The homeless challenge here is a bottomless barrel. We can never provide enough shelters, meals, clothes, etc., for the throngs that keep arriving daily. We need to begin thinking "outside of the box". We need to help those who need assistance for addictions (most of them). We need mental aid for those who suffer from mental ailments (many of them). We need to send out of province "guests" back to their home province so their home provinces can provide the care (it's only fair that the rest of Canada help with what is mostly their problem - just ask the homeless where they're from)
Message to the rest of Canada: Take care of your own homeless. I know not every province can be as "giving" as BC, but at some point enough is enough.
We have homeless drug addicts breaking into cars to steal radios, change, etc. We have homeless people urinating in public. We have homeless wandering neighborhoods with pet pitbulls and rotties - claiming they're for "protection" (yeah, protection from the dope dealer they didn't pay), being a threat to children.
Most of the homeless here are addicted. Giving them food isn't going to fix that. We need to provide food with medical help. If they don't take the medical help, they shouldn't receive the food assistance. There are desperately poor and starving people in places like the Sudan, and Somalia who really need - and RESPECT - the help they're getting.
Once we have the addicts in treatment, then we can feed and shelter the rest of the BC-originating homeless. We can provide general addresses to them, so they can have an address to apply for assistance, and get jobs. We have a huge shortage of labor in our Interior and North. There's no shortage of jobs, but these people need our help to get addresses (no address, no job - we all know the refrain).
Sounds a bit extreme, but we need a change of style in attacking this problem. Throwing good money after bad is not the solution.
Back to the pastor. He has my respect - as long as he also helps them getting off the street. Simply handing out food is not enough. He needs to be rewarded for compassion, but there needs to be a concerted effort to help these people get off the street. Government help will be needed. We know that doing charity work - for church groups - that elevated piety, is akin to being "rich and famous" for regular people. Increased notoriety. We hope that's not the only reason people help feed the homeless (a lot of people do really care), but really caring means finding a cure for the problem...
Westerngrit's concerns are similar to those people express in other "nice" provinces across Canada. If only we could feed the poor and get them to disappear until next feeding time. Even the Salvation Army takes this kind of an attitude with its over-night stays -- up you get in the morning and disappear outside no matter how cold it is.
The problem is that it is not all that simple. I am a recovering alcoholic (18 yrs dry), a therapist, and a chaplain. I know that no one "chooses" some of these nuisance life styles in the same sense you chose to be a grit, or I chose to be a therapist.
But the old way of feed 'em, give 'em a place to stay overnight (easier when provincial welfare kicks in some cash), and then wish for a vanishing act no longer works. We need creative responses.
My own pastor has a vision for a 24/7, 365 day a year, church where we will welcome all kinds of people at all kinds of times, whatever their state. In the process we may develop some relationships that will lead to solid rehabilitation. The activities of this inner city church will emerge from the relationships we develop with folk, and what they teach us. One need as food prices rise is for community kitchens (no, not soup kitchens) where people can join together with their kids and their neighbours in the evenings, where there can be some cooking classes, where basic foods are available at cost, and even where some tutors are available to help kids with homework.
None of this stuff is easy, and it isn't fast. It takes willingness to build relationships, and to learn from others -- even from the addicts, hookers, and drunks. And it isn't a problem that government can solve alone, or by throwing money at established agencies that have a bureaucratic approach.
It means that ordinary people from the churches, and mosques, and synagogues, and gurudwaras, and mandirs of Canada need to get out on the street. If we all take a bit of responsibility for solving problems, they will get solved. And who knows, we may even begin to avoid public policies that always seem to benefit everyone but the poor. Like Garth Brooks sings, we can have "friends in low places." I have met some damn fine people that way. As did Jesus in his meanderings through the markets of the day.
The blessing in all of this is that we may rediscover community -- genuine community in our big cities, and learn how to love our neighbour in more meaningful ways.
Daly in Winnipeg
Actually my comments are exactly the opposite of "feeding them and getting them to disappear". I insist that we MUST find a cure to the problem, not keeping on servicing a "bandage" solution. Feeding and sheltering people is just one tiny part of the whole - and much more important aspect: Find the societal cause of the problem - the "me first" society, the poor family upbringing (parents too busy earning money to watch their kids - or simply a family that revolves around abuse, dependencies, and addiction), the violent and hostile images that are too often "celebrated" in our society (like 24hr war coverage, games and television that glorify violence and neglect, yet castigate those who show themes of love, etc.).
Perhaps I read your response wrong - or you mine - but I am all for a "rethinking" of how we fix these issues, and not just about a band aid solution.
Cheers!
Hey WG, thanks for the clarification. I think we are essentially in agreement. I apologize for misreading you as one of the people who are for "feeding and disappearing." I think you've done a good job of touching on some of the contributing causes. One cause that doesn't get the credit it should is the so-called 60s scoop when thousands of Aboriginal kids were often taken arbitrarily from their reserve homes, and adopted out to families in Canada and the US. I was on the street last night talking with some of the homeless, and there was this one guy who had been taken from his Manitoba rez and adopted to a family in the SW states. A lot of the kids who were relocated in this way have significant problems today, which I see in my work as a therapist. Many of them have never recovered from this awful experiment in social engineering. The last line of your first post says it all: "Really caring means finding a cure for the problem." Cheers, Daly
When people come together they form community. It is not the food itself that creates the solution to homelessness, the solution is in the act of bringing people together and creating the connections that are necessary to build community. The business owners do not want to see such community because when people organize it threatens the individualistic ideology that we are led to believe is the foundation of capitalism. But these business owners are mistaken. They do not understand that it is not to their own benefit to treat the homeless with such a lack of compassion. What they put out will come back to them in karma. We all need assistance at some point from the society around us.. at some point all of us will find ourselves in dire circumstances. If we can find it within ourselves to give to others then in our own lives our hearts will be open enough to feel and receive compassion from others for ourselves also.
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