by chris johnsonThis is the second local article this week that discusses the fact that many homeless people do not want to use shelters. The weather out there is as crappy as it ever gets in this part of the world, and you can’t even beg some people to sleep inside on a mat.
Now, I don’t want to go slamming shelters. They serve a pupose, they save lives and I’m glad they are there. I do however want to continue pointing out that homelessness is a problem that requires a diversity of approaches.
As I talk to more and more people about the need for a tent city style encampment, I keep hearing from some people that there are empty shelter beds. The implication is that we as a society offer this very minimal of assistance, and if a person does not want to take it, they deserve what they get.
I’m tempted to say that the people who think shelters are enough don’t care, aren’t paying attention or are just plain out to lunch, but that would oversimplify the matter. I don’t care myself how they arrived at their opinion. I just know they are wrong. It’s no personal attack on such people. They’re just wrong. It happensto all of us from time to time. Hopefully we can convince them, or at least convince the ones who have the power to stop us from doing what needs to be done.
It’s articles like the following that I feel illustrate the point that many of us are trying to make. We need alternatives to the conventional shelter system, and tent or simple structure encampments are one of those alternatives.
Tonight we are having a meeting at Camas Books (Quadra and Kings) at 6pm, to put together a solid, thorough plan for creating this alternative. This will be the first of many meetings, as the task before us requires a lot of research, discussion, meetings with the community and government, writing, negotiating, etc, all before the first tent can even be unpacked.
We don’t have to wait that long to help the people who need the help tonight though. We now have the legal right to erect tents in public parks. While the limit of those rights has not been fully clarified yet, we can safely say that there is the possibility of creating a tent city that is erected at 7pm and dismantled at 7am. There is the possibility of us finding places in this town for people to store their belongings during the day. There are possibilities to enhance the work that is happening right now, and this could very well be part of our discussions.
The worst case scenario is that we are unable to have a tent city on any land in the CRD, public or private, in which case we keep planning until we have created the alternatives that we all know we need. I feel strongly that there is a need for a collectively-run project, governed by the people who use it, and not as dependant on the same funding structures as the projects that have come before us. With a looming economic crisis, the possibility of this disaster getting worse before it gets better is a very real possibility, and we can’t trust our elected leaders to help everyone weather this storm.
So this is about us coming together as a community to help ourselves, to build for our community the kinds of supports that are not being provided and have not even been put on the table as being provided. It’s not an attack on the way that anyone is currently approaching this crisis. It’s about creating for homeless people the kind of freedom and choice that most others take or granted.
See you this evening.
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published in the Times Colonialist Dec 15 08
Spaces available but some refuse to leave outdoors
As temperatures dropped, the number of homeless hitting emergency shelters rose during the weekend.
The homeless didn’t wait for snow to take advantage of shelter offered through Victoria’s Extreme Weather Protocol program.
On Thursday night, 222 people opted to sleep in the nine shelters available. Friday, that number inched up to 229 and when the snow finally hit the city on Saturday night, 232 homeless found their way to shelter.
With last night’s temperatures expected to dip to -8 C
(-18 with the windchill), protocol co-ordinator Jen Book expected more to take refuge.
Book has no fears anyone will be turned away — she can open as many as 396 spaces — but she gets nervous for those who stay outside. She walked the streets Saturday night with Red Cross volunteers, scouting out homeless people who were settling into the city’s alcoves and corners for the night.
“It boggles my mind, but a lot of people say, ‘I’m doing fine,’ ” Book said. “It amazes me when they’re half covered in snow and they say they’re good.”
She said some are well-equipped to handle the wintry conditions.
“They have sleeping bags, winter coats, hats, mitts. They set themselves up quite well,” Book said. “But it’s highly variable.”
Some choose to stay outside because they don’t want to give up their outdoor location, their shopping cart or leave their dog. On that last count, Book they don’t have to, noting that St. John the Divine allows dogs.
“The dogs have to sleep with their owners and the owners have to keep them under control,” Book said.
There were no reports of frostbite or other cold-weather-exposure problems among the people entering shelters Saturday night.
Volunteer drivers who ferry the homeless to shelters farther from the city core experienced white-knuckle driving on the slick roads.
“One of our van drivers almost got clipped by a bus last night,” Book said.
The Red Cross trains and manages the volunteers who search for the homeless, but Saturday, they had a few untrained volunteers. Book said several of the homeless people in shelters hit the streets to invite their friends to come in from the cold.
