Is this where BC might be heading? Think about it. Since the BC Liberal elites and their friends, the developers etc. have been able to drive ever-increasing prices for real estate. Even modest, older homes are going for almost a million dollars in Vancouver now. Some news reports tell us that some families are spending up to 70% of their income earnings on mortgages. I think most people really underestimate how fast the slide to the bottom can be. Many of us are literally one bad accident, or illness away from defaulting on a mortgage payment, or not being able to pay our rent.
Many of us also know that the strategic destruction of the social safety net and barriers to accessing income assistance, Employment Insurance, medical services and a lack of affordable housing mean that all of us are sitting on an epidemic of homelessness. This is impacting multiple generations now, including Generation X and Y. One of the largest unknown poor populations is that of senior women. I feel a great deal of concern about where these Elders are once they get evicted so landlords can boost their rents. Who is taking care of them, especially those who can't afford to pay upwards of $5000 a month to live in a retirement home, even a crappy one where they might be at-risk. These days, through privatizing services to the developmentally disabled the province isn't even providing respite, or residential care for many who need it. What are the numbers? Community Living BC doesn't keep waitlists for those awaiting any service, so we don't know.
If it does not give you chills and a very bad feeling of foreboding in your belly to read that the state will now be requiring homeless to wear armbands then you have not read up on your World War II history enough. This is what it brings to mind for me:
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out-- because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists and I did not speak out-- because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out-- because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me-- and there was no one left to speak out for me.
~ A poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller, Berlin, 1939. He spent 8 1/2 years in a concentration camp.
We are in serious trouble as a society, as a province and a country. I don't know what kind of a wake up call people need that the oligarchy in charge does not recognize, let alone act in our collective best interests. You're not alright Jack, get off your back. We are all connected and we better start realizing that and start getting involved in our communities and as citizens or we're going to be putting on coloured wrist bands and raising children in tent cities, having people with disabilities and our Elders spend their dying days there as well.
Our province and country used to offer something so much better to our citizens than the Americans and it was part of our pride. Can we say that now? Usually the trends hit the States before us. We've already had tent cities in Vancouver. The state removed them. Where did those people go? As far as I'm concerned, governments, certain corporate interests and transnationals are committing collusion in the interests of genocide right here in our own cities, province and country. Think that's far fetched, take a walk in the Downtown Eastside and prove me wrong. Denying all citizens their human rights is a condition of genocide. Wholesale negligence and destruction of the social safety net is a condition of genocide. Exclusion from participation in society and access to the basic conditions necessary for life is a condition of genocide. That is what the BC and Canadian governments are providing to our most vulnerable citizens. And they have more plans for the future.
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Tent city highlights US homes crisis
BBC News. March 14, 2008.
By Rajesh Mirchandani.
The meltdown in the US mortgage market has led to record foreclosures and forced thousands from their homes. In few places is it worse than southern California, where the BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani reports on an extreme consequence of the downturn, but one that some observers fear could grow.
The population of Tent City has grown rapidly in less than a year
Forty miles east of Los Angeles, on a patch of waste ground, is the place they call Tent City.
Sandwiched between the local airport and the railway line, this really is the wrong side of the tracks.
We are on the outskirts of Ontario, a functionally pleasant commuter-city in southern California.
Last summer, local officials established this camp as a temporary base for the city's homeless population, then around two dozen.
But word spread and now some 300 people live here. It has an air of scruffy permanence, and indeed, city officials say there are no current plans to close it down.
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Tent City evicting homeless who are not from Ontario: In an effort to limit the size of the refuge and improve conditions, officials will force out residents who can't prove they once lived in the city.
By David Kelly, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer March 14, 2008
Citing health and safety concerns, the city of Ontario next week will dramatically reduce the size of a homeless encampment known as Tent City by expelling those residents who cannot prove clear ties to the city.Starting Monday, anyone who can't provide documents showing they once lived in Ontario will be given a bus or taxi ride back to where they came from.
The homeless will be fitted with color-coded bands around their arms or wrists that will designate their status....
Under the new regulations, Tent City will hold no more than 170 people. Anyone entering will be processed and given a permit to stay up to 90 days. No pets will be allowed and police will be permanently stationed inside. The area will also be fenced.
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