The report I referenced previously is long, 98 pages and 2.6 megs, but it's
worth the read. Pages 42 to 50, and 69 particularly got my attention. In
these pages, people who are homeless get a chance to speak. 

Boni Champagne's comments about shelters, infantilization,
self-determination and autonomy so resonate with the way I feel, as the
possibility of homelessness touches my life. I've been within two weeks of
it and expect to be in that state again, soon after year's end. 

Powerful as this report is, however, it only adds to my despair that nothing
will be done. In the end, it's just one more research document.

The changes necessary to fix homelessness are too 'radical'. The first would
be to listen and heed what homeless people especially are saying - and then
ACT on it. But what happens, again and again, is that what they and we
others at risk say is heard only if it supports the poverty industry's
viewpoint. 

I have begun to question lately how we - people in poverty - should fight
this fight. Are our current methods the right ones? Will they get results?
Might it make more sense for us to disengage, be silent, refuse to
participate; to turn our backs, in other words, on the lot of them?

Ocean

----------------------------------
Chrystal Ocean, Coordinator.
Wellbeing through Inclusion Socially & Economically
http://www.wise-bc.org/
250-748-8093

Policies of Exclusion, Poverty & Health: Stories from the front
http://www.wise-bc.org/CVProject/book.html

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