from the ground up - The Tyee

Excerpts from the ensuing discussion in The Tyee’s comment section:is it best to keep theposted by “frank2” on April 14, 2010is it best to keep the homeless housed on the streetsand in shelters -- rather than allowing some to tryaffordable full-time accommodations? Why not trysome new options? We might learn something. Maybeeven find low cost ways of dealing with the problem.Great idea!posted by “greengreen” on April 14, 2010I think this is fantastic! I would live in any of thestructures shown. Really, we have people living on thestreets because the city and province can’t coordinate,get their shit together, and solve the problem! Howabsolutely pathetic! When the roof on BC Place got aslight tear last year, It took no time at all to come upwith a solution. Cost was no problem. When Falconcouldn’t get a taxi, f---, there was a bill of rights forpassengers-problem solved immediately.The homeless problem has been going on for at least15 years and will be with us for the forseeable future.These accounts have shown a very workable, affordablesolution. Stop the bulllshit-get on with it.life. Then I got help. More importantly people havegot to want to change and that is not always that easyto do. The second part of this is our current government.I have been saying this for a very long time andthat’s British Columbia’s Social Services are not ableto handle the real human deficit.If it could we wouldhave a system in place that really works 99% of thetime. Because of my disability I was lucky enoughto get PWD and CPPD . I am one of those peoplewho our society considers “The Deserving Poor”, asopposed to the “Undeserving Poor”, this is how oursafety net really works, hence the various catagoriesfrom social services, IE: Expected To Work, $610.00,PPMB (Or Level 1) $667.00 and PWD $906.00 permonth. These are the real numbers for a month. Iwould like to see this entire ministry do a completeoverhaul of it’s own policies etc. I can also tell youthis, I will not be voting for the BC Liberals in thenext election. In my case a graduated program workedreally well. Could we not try this out in the future. Wewould have a much much smaller homeless populationand a lot of people could take there own livesback?Empowering Peopleposted by “jim1966” on April 18, 2010I don’t think that the BC Liberals are listening. Howcome our society values $350.00 per month instead ofthe value of everyone’s lives?. I live in a BC Housingbuilding. I am lucky because I had a social workerwho gave a crap and a doctor that did not want meto die on the streets. There are always 2 sides to anissue and this is one of them. We all want people tobe safe, fed and have a quality of life that Canadianshave come to enjoy. Problem is though is our “view”of the poor, the addicted and the mentally ill. Howcan we build or refurbish anything when the taxpayerknows that within a few short years it all be trashedor wrecked anyways. I had to prove that I was worththe effort and take some responsibility for my own17