To The Editor,
Homelessness is a huge problem not only for those who live without shelter but also for everyone whose neighbourhood, parks and public places have become sad sites as well as unsafe and filthy with garbage, needles and feces. While most of us find it unacceptable, it is allowed to continue and grow with no end in sight.
Yet we know it won’t get any better on its own for most homeless people in BC have severe drug addictions or/and suffer from mental illness, which are the main causes of their homelessness. Therefore simply providing “homes” is at best an incomplete solution since the crimes that pay for drugs would continue as would the suffering and the overdoses.
Drug addicts who live in the streets didn’t intend to end up that way but once caught in that destructive cycle, cannot change their lifestyle unless they are forced to do so, usually through sickness or death. They can’t, for they are trapped in a lifestyle that makes any thought of a better future impossible. Yet all we can seem to come up with is to make it “safer” for them to continue with that life. Society can do better. We can compel a lifestyle change that will solve their problems as well as ours.
If forcing such a change sounds cruel or too much like socialism to you, I ask you why you don’t find it more cruel to let people who got addicted to drugs, often thanks to prescription drugs, continue to live as they do and risk dying with every dose, why you don’t think it’s cruel for people to fear walking in their neighbourhood without being robbed, or take their children at the park without fearing for their safety.
So what can we do? First we would need to get homeless people away physically from their current environment, and engage them in something that feeds their minds and bodies and values their contribution while leading them to perceive a future entirely different than the one they currently envisage. Their drug habits should be weaned slowly and humanely by providing them with progressively smaller doses of free safe drugs so they eventually are physically free of the addiction.
Getting free of the mental addiction is usually as difficult if not more, which is why they would need to participate in a full time team project that teaches valuable skills through daily physical labour and provides education on subjects of interest to each participant. The projects could range from creating a mixed farm where the produce and the animal products are transformed on site and used by the group or even sold in a local restaurant. No restaurant? Teach them how to build one and how to run it. Make sure there are animals around, dogs, cats, goats, a couple of milk cows, horses, chickens, Their company provides interest, affection, and a calmness that is unattainable in the city.
Or biology majors could lead a project on how to restore wetlands (while they learn about wetlands) or plant indigenous shrubs and trees in all our riparian areas or create a food forest by planting fruit and nut trees within city parks. The possibilities are endless.
After 2 years they would come out with usable skills, a healthier body and mind, and a goal as to what they will do for the rest of their life. Of course such a course of action would cost, but would save far more to society than to continue with worsening drug addictions, deaths, crimes and unlivable cities. And, it would save lives.
Too costly you say? A cost/benefit analysis would easily prove the opposite. If we take into account the cost avoidances such as program would provide it becomes not only cost effective but actually economical.
Huguette Allen,
Lumby, BC
