Remember FolkFest?
For many years, Victorians enjoyed a mid-summer festival celebrating the diversity of culture. In its early days, a small stage enabled local ethic groups to show off their talents, there was a fabulous food area where local cooks shared their cultural cuisine and, as the festival grew in popularity and size, increasing numbers of local vendors flogging their wares - artistic, musical, practical.
One summer, shortly after I'd graduated from UVic, and right livelihood* employment seemed increasingly unlikely, I invested a chunk of change in a hammock made on one of the gulf islands. A young wilderness-loving sales guy assured me that this was the way to go, and told me stories of hanging from the canopies of ancient forests in his hennessey hammock. The hammock cost me $150 hard earned dollars. It's light, compact, and fairly rainproof. I bought it with wilderness camping in mind, and I've slept in it there, but mostly I bought it as security measure. The day may arrive, I thought, when I can no longer suffer the slings and arrows of this outrageous society, when I give up trying to fit myself into a world that values commodities and material wealth above all else, when I am unable to pay the unfair increases in rent. On that day, I thought, I'll take my hammock and I'll somehow survive.
I've got an emergency backpack ready to go. Don't you? Anything could happen - a fire in the night, the earth might throw up one of those storms of devastation, or the economic system that depends on greed and self-interest might collapse ..... oh wait, that's already happening. We've seen how emergency services rescue the wealthy first when an entire city's wiped out. I've got a backpack with a change of clothes, some dried food (that reminds me, it's about time to rotate that into consumption and replace it), a spare toothbrush, a small wad of cash, and my trusty hammock attached. I'm ready to go in an instant.
Thanks to a recent supreme court ruling, I can take that backpack and survive. Maybe not for long (we do live on an island, and anything could happen), but maybe for long enough until the storm passes. Thanks to a bunch of homeless people who insist that we all ought not be punished for our attempts to secure our own right to life, liberty, and security of person, as Canada's charter of rights and freedoms acknowledges, the police can't rightfully arrest me if I need to sleep outside for a while.
Victoria's current Mayor and Council don't think that's fair. After years of waiting, upon hearing Madam Justice Carol Ross's decision, Victoria Mayor and Council immediately held a vote to appeal. They were so determined to overturn that judge's decision that they made absolutely no plans to acknowledge it if it wasn't in their favour. They did everything they could to keep the case out of the courts and then, with a supreme court decision that upholds our right to protect ourselves, they voted unanimously to appeal the verdict.
And now it's job review time. Why should we re-hire any of them?
Last night the grassroots Committee to End All Homelessness and the Together Against Poverty Society hosted an all-candidates discussion and offered first dibs at the microphones to the street community so we could ask them pointedly. And ask them we did ....
Dean Fortin and Geoff Young claim there's no money to manage a tent city like Portland's Dignity Village. They say it'd cost $800,000 to a million a year. One wonders how much they've already invested in trying to stop justice ..... how much they're willing to spend on the appeal.
They were asked how much will be spent on Ellice Park's new proposed shelter space, and they pretended not to know. Dean deferred the question to Councillor Charlayne Thornton-Joe, saying it's not about knowing the answer so much as it is about asking the right person. That's true, except when you already know the answer. I was told it was made public how much is going into Ellice Park, but not because of City Council. At the meeting when they held the final vote, Rob Fleming (formerly City Councillor, now MLA), told the audience there's something they need to know about Ellice Park. Apparently the provincial authorities offered up an enormous amount of money (the details escape me, check back later) on the stipulation that the City build specifically a shelter (not subsidized or low income housing, not a tent city) and that they build it on city property. The City, rather than making this information public and suggesting we all lobby the provincial goverment for something more reasonable, accepted this offer and t
hen took a piece of designated park land out of park status .... and now they're pretending not to know how much money's being invested in it.Maybe that's why Charlayne Thornton-Joe eventually left the meeting in tears .... maybe she finally realized she can't pull the wool over our eyes anymore. Her little introductory speech about how education is the number one ingredient to combatting poverty might have worked the first time she was elected, she might even have impressed people with it the second time around, but the third time?
The current mayor and council have done a lot of talk, research, and studies. They created a Committee to end Homelessness and hired a bunch of rather highly paid bureaucrats to do more talk, research, and studies. And, according to one audience member last night (the room was packed full), they spen about 60% of their meeting time on rezoning issues. The current mayor's an architect -- is it any wonder we've got lots more new buildings for the wealthy, and absolutely nothing for the poor?
Their arguments against a tent city, one that is established in cooperation with municipal authorities (like Portland's Dignity Village), are full of misinformation. Dean Fortin says tent cities always increase the amount of drugs and prostitution. He pointed out that Cridge Park (the former site of Tent City) was fraught with drug dealers and underage sex. Yes, it was. And the homeless people I know were also frustrated with that. A few good people set up residence and next thing you know the riff raff's moving in next door. Was it the campers' responsibility to make citizen's arrests on their unwanted neighbours? Can't Victoria Police visit such gatherings and sort the wheat from the chaff? That they neglected to do so, that they chose instead to shut down the entire affair and condemn all the campers to the same fate, and now years later that city officials choose only to focus on that unwanted element suggests they got exactly what they wanted. They wanted tent city to fail so that they can stand in their self important way and claim 'ALL TENT CITIES ATTRACT DRUG DEALERS.'
Last night Rose Henry (candidate for Council) told me that four more homeless people died this past week. Mayor and Council's final solution. Do absolutely nothing and hope they'll go away. And they will, they'll die, we'll all die, but every day a failed economic system creates more. It's time for some real action.
Mayoral candidate Rob Reid seems to be re-thinking his former position adamently opposed to tent cities. Kristen Woodruff, Saul Anderson, and Georgia Jones are all in favour of a tent city. But it was Steve Filipovic, who I've known as a Green activist for many years going back to the G8 summit in Calgary, who spoke most eloquently about it. Steve wants to empower the street community rather than provide for them in a patronizing, paternalistic manner. Steve seems to understand that homeless people are each individuals. Why not allow them to gather in small communities, Steve suggested? The City can assist by offering up small parcels of land and providing necessary services like porta potties and recycling/garbage collection, but ultimately people gotta find their own friends and build their own communities and make their own rules and live their own lives and look after each other.
Portland's Dignity village is a wonderful example of what can happen when political will combines with creative solutions. Dignity Village has no drugs no violence rules. I've heard that if you're kicked out, the amount of time you stay away depends on how you left. All residents of Dignity Village must contribute a certain amount of time to the collective upkeep of the place. They've established themselves as a charity so they can write grants and fundraise and contribute to their own existence. They're a shining example of what is possible.
We might wish we could ignore the increasing numbers of homeless, we would rather not see shanty towns, but the reality is the economic system is collapsing. Hopefully something better will grow from the ashes, something humane and compassionate, but in the meantime we have to look after each other. It's the Canadian way. Personally, I'd rather live in a shanty town than a doorway. We need to swallow our pride, accept the reality of the crisis, and consider viable and humane options. Let's not be fake Americans, or real Americans, insisting on the rugged individualism of misinterpreted Darwinism .... let's be real Canadians and say the world socialism out loud and be proud of it.
Through Charlayne's tears (and I've seen those tears before), during some tough questioning, she invited us to go see her research on Dignity Village, to look at the websites she's visited connecting her to tent cities all over the world. But she, and all the other Councillors, and the Mayor, did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING beyond research to prepare for Madam Justice Carol Ross' ruling. It'd be so easy to give up a small parcel of land for a tent city, the precedent's already been set, but we just haven't seen the political will. And we heard that again and again from street community representative after street community representative. Mayor and Council can talk 'till they're blue in the face about what they want to do for the homeless, what they've researched and studied, but last night a room full of street representatives told us all about what they've actually done.
To her credit, Councillor Sonya Chandler has put forward a motion that City Council will be reviewing this morning --- it's about re-thinking their decision to appeal the judge's ruling that says it's not illegal to sleep outside. But it leaves one wondering whether Sonya would have regretted her initial response if her job review hadn't been pending.
I publish the Victoria Street Newz, and I have done for four and a half years. I've invited councillors to write a column, or ask someone to write a column, keeping us posted on their activities. To date I haven't had a single submission. I guess they're at least smart enough to realize we're not all that interested in re-zoning.
It's job review time for our local elected officials. Victoria is missing its annual Folk Festival, and it doesn't yet have designated space for a tent or dignity village.
Don't miss the next Mayoral Candidates' Meeting on Homelessness, Youth, and Justice - a cast of colourful characters have put their names forward and if the next meeting is anything like last night's, it's definitely more entertaining than television!:
November 3, 2008, 7:00 PM @ JAMES BAY NEW HORIZONS, 234 MENZIES ST.
* Right-livelihood is defined in Buddhist texts. The Wikipedia interpretation suggests we "ought not engage in trades or occupations which, either directly or indirectly, result in harm for other living beings."
