Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 39

Those of you who follow the local news in my city will be aware that we are in the middle of a homelessness crisis. There have been many small, very tiny, often false steps being made to address and remedy the situation. The problem is never a lack of funds. If they want to build freeways, stadiums and more luxury condos than can be flipped in a year, then the money is always there. The money would also be there if more people would change their attitudes. The City of Vancouver is finally moving forward on some more assertive actions in solving our homelessness problem. Modular housing complexes are now being built in specific sites of the city. One is due to be opened in just a few days and will be welcoming, I think, around seventy-five or seventy-six new tenants. I just checked. It's seventy-eight tenants, all aged forty-five or over. I just had a look at the website for the stupidly-named Caring Citizens of Vancouver Society. It's a coalition of NIMBYs who don't want street homeless people living in their neighbourhood. Not safe for the children, they say. Bad for property values and we don't like poor people, especially in our face, is what they mean. This happens everywhere in my city, every time proposals are made to house the homeless and other poor and marginalized people in neighbourhoods other than the worst parts of the downtown core. Here is my response to a particularly ignorant comment posted by one of their members: "Felicia, the homelessness crisis was not caused by a few poor people making bad choices; it was brought on by government cutbacks in spending on social services and by soaring real estate and rents. And now we are seeing the results. People don’t become street-feral overnight. This happens over time, after years of being refused, rejected and judged as being worth nothing. Now we are facing the consequences. I’m sorry this is so uncomfortable for you, but you’re going to have to just get over it and put up with it, or move somewhere else. Or maybe do something to help instead of judging and complaining as you appear to be doing a lot of." I'm not going to post her bitter rant here, because I don't want to give oxygen to this kind of ignorance, but she does appear to be judging people with major mental health and cognitive challenges on the basis of her own ableism, which is something that ignorant and poorly-informed people, such as the members of Caring Citizens of Vancouver Society tend to do. They ramp up the fear, which feeds into the hate and away we go! It is one of the most tragic ironies of life, that those of us who have been the worst beat up are also going to be receiving the most hostile reception by the so-called well folk. I am glad to know that not everyone is like that. A number of high school students in the Marpole area, just down the street from the modular housing project, set up a Facebook page supporting the project and welcoming the new residents. Great way of sticking it to Mom and Dad. Those kids rock! There are also faith groups of Christians and Muslims organizing and volunteering to help support and welcome the newcomers. Say what you want, atheists, but isn't it odd how most of the folks who end up doing something for the poor and downtrodden also happen to believe in someone whom you insist does not exist. Oh, there are also kind atheists out there, too, and I know some of them, but just sayin'! If we are going to heal our lives, our communities, our cities, our nation, and our world, then we are going to have to get rid of the fear. Love and fear do not and cannot coexist. There is a better way, and if we have the courage to reach out to others in good faith from our situations of privilege then I think that will be a good starting point. I think we also need to understand that it isn't going to be easy, and there will be problems at times, but that is life, and I think that by trying to shelter their kids from the realities of the street in their sheltered bubbles, that these parents are doing their children a great disservice. By cloistering them from the reality of homelessness and poverty and all the other problems associated they are actually harming their children and could even more successfully raise them to become adults every bit as selfish and afraid as they are.