Vancouver and the homelessness "reality check"

It's funny, isn't it, what a difference a word makes.

In newscasting, for example, I've been caught out at least once because someone has inadvertently typed "not" instead of "now" -- as in "Police have not arrested a homicidal maniac ..."; there was also a time in the 1970s, when then Tory leader Joe Clark was visiting the Middle East, and in the process of reviewing some troops, stumbled and nearly cut his head on a soldier's bayonet: a wire-service copy writer inserted the word "off" after "cut his head", thereby making the incident seem a lot more serious -- and Clark a lot more clumsy -- than it or he really was.

And then there's the effect of subtly inserting a qualifier into a sentence or expression, thereby changing the whole meaning. This past week, CKWX Radio reported that the number of people living/sleeping on the street -- as opposed to in shelters in the city of Vancouver -- had doubled in the past year. Nevertheless, Mayor Gregor Robertson stated that he remained committed to ending street homelessness by 2015.

But let's rewind to 2008, when the mayor was newly elected. CBC News reported at the time that Robertson's top priority was to end "homelessness" by 2015. Not "street homelessness". And there's a difference. Ending homelessness means people are able to live in a place they can call their own, with a locking door and a lack of bedbugs and cockroaches. Ending street homelessness means people who are too poor to afford that are placed in shelters where they don't clutter up the streets and remind the good folk of the city how neglectful we can be of our fellow man.

Ending homelessness, as a former public health nurse writes in the Nanaimo Daily News, takes thoughtful planning, consultation about the needs of "street people" and finding a real solution to a problem that's a lot deeper than what we see on the surface.

Ending street homelessness is a numbers game that a politician can easily win by making "number of shelter beds" equal to "number of people without shelter beds". That one added word makes the difference between the promise of 2008 and the "commitment" of 2012.

But will that end the problem that leads people to be homeless in the first place? Will it get people off drugs? Will it get them jobs? Training? Treatment for their mental health issues? Deliverance from the demons they battle on an hourly basis? Do we force people into shelters, even though quite a few would rather be on the street?

I remember bristling when I first heard a politician say that people would rather be on the street than in a shelter. I forget who it was, but he was a cabinet minister in the then ruling Social Credit party in BC, and it was easy to write off the remark as a cop-out -- an abrogation of responsibility to the disadvantaged, promoted by an ally of Big Business and the "pick up your shovel" attitude towards welfare. But that was before I actually started hearing from people on the streets in Vancouver, who said they'd rather be outside than in a shelter, where they would be surrounded by people with mental issues and violent tendencies, as likely as not to have their belongings stolen while they slept. Outside, the air is fresh(er) and the street-wise person can find a place that's relatively secure.

Overarching all of this is the reality that we are not supposed to "end homelessness" as a part of society, any more than we can ever "end poverty now" (or at any time). God has given us a responsibility to reach out to troubled people and help them on an individual basis, but as an "institution", for want of a better word, poverty and homelessness are part of God's plan for our world.

So, though, is the desire to make things better for people. On the other hand, the desire to see it as an evil that must be eradicated is part of the enemy's plan to make God's plan look bad (you know: "how can a loving God allow ...?"); the desire to be seen as a "hero" or a "political champion" for making a commitment to eradicate it is a spin-off from the enemy's counter-plan.

This is why the homelessness count is a reality check, although not necessarily about the state of poverty in Vancouver: think of it as a reality check about grandiose political promises, which are later qualified, subtly, when the ongoing situation doesn't quite match the promise.