Important event November 23rd

The week ahead is National Housing Week, a time for people to become more aware of the lack of supportive, non-market housing available to those living on the margins of our society due to 30 years of government inaction in providing such housing.

As a ministry team member for Inner City Pastoral Ministry, I'm only too aware of many people who live on the streets of downtown Edmonton because they can't afford a home of their own. Shelter beds will never be an answer to the problem as I've noted many times in these moodlings. Unfortunately, the family of Alberta's Minister for Housing and Seniors started the first shelter in Edmonton, and he is so proud of that legacy, he can't see how terrible shelters are for the health and well-being of community members who are already living with trauma. He ignores the need for permanent homes for the homeless. Nor is our premier interested in solving the problem beyond hiring police and clean up crews to continually displace the tents and tarps of homeless people who have nowhere else to live.

If you share my concern about the lack of housing, which is a nation-wide problem, please consider supporting events going on across the country for National Housing Day -- the easiest way to find one is to use your internet browser, type in the name of your community along with National Housing Day 2024, and see what comes up. 

Here in Edmonton, I'll save you the trouble of looking -- join me at the Alberta Legislature North Plaza at 1 p.m. Please, spread the word and bring friends! The program will be short and family friendly. The poster below holds all the key information. Hope to see you there!

An update on homelessness

I've been really disheartened lately, and I'm not the only one. Here's why.

Since encampments for the homeless have been eradicated from downtown Edmonton, the homeless population has spread out through ravines and neighbourhoods, looking for places where they can live in peace. (Emergency shelters are not peaceful.)

FENCES AIN'T GONNA FIX HOMELESSNESS
-- a sign on the fencing erected where the last encampment was demolished in January

There is no peace for homeless people, because as soon as they find a corner where they can settle in what feels like safety with their loved ones, bylaw officers and clean up crews show up to displace them yet again and try to force them back into shelters. 

On Tuesday morning, officials were clearing the streets near the Bissell Centre by harrassing people who were sleeping on the sidewalks (they prefer that to the shelters, which says a lot). And a friend of mine reported seeing police tearing a blanket away from a fellow trying to stay warm in a transit shelter near the mall closest to where I live. I guess blankets are considered "temporary shelters" now, though had I been there, I would have been tempted to gently remind the officers that taking blankets away from people amounts to theft.

The Edmonton Police Service motto is Integrity, Courage and Community. I wonder how many of the officers are disheartened by what they are being forced to do to dismantle small communities of people who have no reliable places to live?

Other things have been taken away from the homeless, too. The Bissell Centre's drop-in space -- where many homeless people who are forced to leave shelters for the day were able to spend time doing laundry, taking a shower, receiving help, or having a meal -- has been cut to the bare bone. Forty-five staff members lost their jobs, and six hundred meals served there each day have vanished. 

The space that used to hold two hundred folks at any given time of day now serves only thirty at a time because there aren't enough staff to keep things running for people in need. The line up outside never ends, and people at the end of the line don't make it through the doors because hours have been reduced too.

Things are only getting worse and worse. The tents in the area have mostly disappeared in accordance with the city and province's "out of sight, out of mind" efforts to deal with homelessness by dismantling encampments, but the need is greater than ever. 

Pastor Quinn and I set up our table with socks, underwear, toiletries and snacks on Tuesday with four bags of supplies to pass out -- and everything was gone within fifteen minutes. Our two hundred Sunday lunches offered by faith groups who support Inner City Pastoral Ministry used to be given away in about forty-five minutes, but now it's more like fifteen, twenty if we're lucky. 

And what really breaks my heart is how many people are dying. In 2017, there were thirty deaths related to homelessness in Edmonton. Last year, we had a memorial service for one hundred and fifty-six people who died of causes connected to homelessness. Once again this year, the Edmonton Coalition On Housing and Homelessness is planning a service -- for at least three hundred, likely more. From thirty to three hundred in only seven years! It's absolutely horrifying.

All of this is hard to witness, but it's necessary to do so. The lives of these people who live on Edmonton's streets are just as important as my life. Ignoring them does all of humanity a disservice. We will never be whole until all are cared for.

If you are able, please join us for the annual Homeless Memorial on June 6, 1 pm, at the foot of the CN Tower across from City Hall. The lives of more than 300 people will be honoured, and perhaps it will be the start of a grass roots movement for change.

We can only hope.

This Is Where We Live

I've been learning a lot lately about the affordable housing crisis in Canada. After the Great Wars, we had a series of governments that made investments in social and affordable housing, but since the 80s, almost nothing has been done. As a result, a lot of the subsidized housing for people living on the poverty line has become run down and less than suitable for habitation even as rental fees increase. 

Our governments throw around a lot of big numbers when it comes to talking about their investments in affordable housing, but what many people don't realize is that those are often past years' numbers on repeat, while housing needs continue to increase year by year. The rising number of homeless people on our streets is indicative of our governments' failure to actually invest in housing for those living on the margins over the last 30+ years. It seems they prefer to throw money at temporary shelters in the winter! 

What governments forget is that people with permanent roofs over their heads don't require the vast amounts of taxpayer funds that homeless folks do when it comes to shelters, mental health and addictions treatment, basic medical care, and wrap-around services.

If a society's success is based on how well it treats its most vulnerable citizens, a walk around our downtown core indicates that ours is far from successful. 

Local filmmaker Eric Rice has put together what promises to be a powerful little movie of re-enacted interviews with people living on the streets here in Edmonton. It's showing at the Garneau Theatre on the National Housing Day of Action, Tuesday, November 22 at 7 p.m. It will be followed with a panel discussion. Tickets are $10 in advance, at This-Is-Where-We-Live.eventbrite.com, with funds supporting the work of the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness (ECOHH).

If you're in the Edmonton area, I hope to see you there. And if you want to help me promote this event, leave a comment in the box below. Thanks!