City changes it’s homelessness strategy, and no one notices

While attending the inauguration of the Victoria City Council this month, I noticed that one of my predictions about the city’s 10 Year goal of ending homelessness had come true. Without issuing a press release or making any public statements, the mayor has shifted the language that he uses when talking about his goals. Where once the plan was to end homelessness, the goal now is to end ‘street homelessness’. From the mayor’s address: “We will re-dedicate ourselves to ending street homelessness in Victoria once and for all.”

I saw this coming because it happens in every city that declares it will end homelessness in ten years.

I’ve done quite a bit of reading about 10 Year Plans to End Homelessness, but have yet to write the article I’ve been planning, simply because the topic frustrates me so much that my stress levels get way too high.

A Grassroots Poverty Reduction Strategy

by Chris Johnson

At the risk of offending people, I’ll come out and say that if you believe that the government is on track to end homelessness or poverty, you are sorely deluded.

Federal and provincial poverty reduction plans are crucial to lobby for, but what is also needed is a strategy for how we, the public or ‘civil society’ are going to deal with these issues. Pressuring the government to do what they should be doing is but one aspect of a possible grassroots strategy, but there are a plethora of things that we need to take direct action on.

Finally, an end in sight for food banks (as we know them)

Food banks and soup kitchens are always big news during this ‘season of giving’. This is when the biggest food drives of the year usually happen, and we are surrounded by appeals to help the hungry and homeless by donating some ‘non-perishable food items’.

It’s hard to find fault with this, unless you are a serious scrooge, right? Not necessarily.

As important as it is to support the charities, non-profits and community groups that doing this crucial work, it’s equally important to put the concept of hunger, food banks and soup kitchens into proper context, and to examine the shortfalls of our current collective response to hunger and poverty.

An Inside Look at Soup Kitchens

by Chris Johnson

I’ve spent time on both sides of the soup kitchen counter, both as a cook at the Calgary Drop-In, and as a client of many soup kitchens across Turtle Island.

My favourite by far was a tiny little place in Meridian, Mississippi called the Love Kitchen, where I had my first taste of home-cooked ‘soul food’; bar-b-q pork, collard greens, grits and biscuits. The servings were huge, and the people working there insisted that we take not one, but two containers each to-go. Southern hospitality was in full effect, and it was a wonderfully warm atmosphere.

Making Food Charity Obsolete

by Chris Johnson

“Justice, Not Charity!” was the message of a group of people who protested outside a food bank fundraiser at the CBC this weekend. While the media and some of the fundraiser attendees seemed confused as to why people would ‘protest people helping the poor’, the message was quite clear to some of us. Charity is great, but we also need to create the conditions in which charity becomes obsolete.

Let’s Start a Saturday Pay-What-You-Can Dinner

the bicycle-powered food vending cart I am designing. (click on photo to enlarge)

Just got back from the Saturday pancake breakfast that happens every week at rotating church hall locations. There were over 150 people there when I left, and they were expecting another 150 or so. It was 3 pancakes, two slices of ham, a cup of coffee, a cup of juice, a banana and a muffin and an orange slice. (I am keeping the banana and muffin and orange slice for lunch)
There is no Saturday dinner, and only one lunch, at Aniwim House, which I’ve never been to, but I walk by it everyday, including today, without even knowing it was there. (I just saw the picture of it on their website.) I’m not sure how many lunches they serve.
So anyway, like I was saying, there is no Saturday dinner. So here’s what I’m thinking.
I estimate we can cook a healthy, local food based, vegan dinner for around $3 per person. If 300 people showed up, that would be around $900. Plus the rental of a hall for 3 hours, plus cooking time, so 6 hours. Perhaps we can get a deal, but lets say our budget would be somewhere over $1000 per week. Where do we get that kind of money. Forget being able to do this all with donations. There are donations to be had, but you can’t count on it.

Poverty in The media, part one: the words Poor and Poverty deconstructed.

I just inherited a thick, heavy 1950 Funk and Wagnals dictionary, and decided to look up the word poverty.

“1. Lacking the means of a comfortable subsistence; possessing little or no property or income; indigent; opposed to rich.

4. lacking in good qualities, or the qualities that render a thing valuable, or sufficient for it’s purpose; ill; bad.”

For the word poor there are further specific meanings provided for definition #4, such as deficient in vigor, unhealthy, uncomfortable, feeble, devoid of merit, unsatisfactory, lacking in strength or efficiency, weak, sterile, scanty, wanting in spirit, cowardly. Definition #6 is deserving of pity, and #7 is miserable.

Homeless in Eugene region growing and “hurting,” say new reports – Eugene Outdoor Living | Examiner.com

Homeless in Eugene region growing and “hurting,” say new reports – Eugene Outdoor Living | Examiner.com.

Vancouver looks to pay city workers ‘living wage’

Vancouver City Councillor David Cadman wants to make sure all city workers, including part-time concession stand workers and swimming pool staff, are making enough to live in Vancouver.

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Anti-poverty activist continues fight to return to work in East Downtown Toronto

TORONTO - Five months after being fired, Gaetan Heroux still hasn’t given up hope of regaining his job as an ID worker at Neighbourhood Link and returning to his office on Sherbourne Street in Toronto’s Downtown East End.

Heroux was terminated last December after refusing to relocate to Scarborough, a move his supporters felt was punishment for standing up for Street Health workers embroiled in a bitter struggle to unionize their workplace and negotiate a first contract.

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