Thanks to a Caregiver

Dr Gary Bloch will be in Vancouver this week speaking at an event organized by the B.C. Poverty Reduction Commission. He believes poverty is intrinsically related to one's health. He's right of course and he's trying to raise the awareness of the establishment (other doctors, care providers, government members etc etc) that maybe some thing might be done here to make a positive change for us extremely poor folk. So thanks to Dr Bloch. Meanwhile, here's my two cents worth.

Attention:

Dr Gary Bloch,

St. Michael's Health Centre
80 Bond Street
Toronto
Ontario
M5B 1X2

From:

R Harry Langen,
harry.langen@gmail.com
deadsearevelation.com

September 23rd, 2014

Dear Dr Bloch:

Was intrigued and encouraged to read about your concern for the desperately poor people of Canada. You may count me as one. You are right to acknowledge that good health and a livable income are intrinsically connected. I can cite myriad examples. Housing that isn’t hopelessly bug infested and is equipped with a separate bathroom and little kitchen fridge to store and prepare decent food is a rare find. As you well know, unhygienic living conditions and good health do not go hand in hand. To the extremely poor, medications must all be free; not just certain ones. For example: itch medicines are not covered by the ministry in B.C. This means that if you have a horrible, itchy rash it’s only going to get more insufferably worse. People who are not on disability are docked any funds they might make outside their paltry welfare cheque. This is nothing short of draconian.

Rather than extend this letter by 10 pages listing other insults to the poor suffice to say that once you’re on your financial knees it is extremely difficult to get up again; and almost impossible if you have health issues, mental or physical. Learning how to dog-paddle in a toilet bowl might be useful. 

A disproportionate number of the mental issues here in Vancouver find their root cause in drug use. Ever since the onslaught of $2 hoots (crack), people of all ages have been felled; like a forest of souls being clearcut. When you add street drugs or alcohol to the creepy diet of someone who is suffering schizophrenia for example, you are effectively sentencing them to a life of horror.

When the police arrest mentally ill people for being intoxicated in public they have been no less than brutal and mocking. So much for ‘sensitivity training.’ I have advocated for them at sentencing hearings and finally the judge will get the drift that they are simply not capable of functioning normally in this society (a society I consider and have witnessed to be thoroughly corrupt). The system successfully criminalizes them twice which goes to their lack of self esteem; and eventually clinical depression.

Whether you can agitate effectively to make any changes in our society is open to question but that you desire to do this, to champion our plight, makes you a hero in my book. Allow me to make a few suggestions that you might want to include in your discourses with the powers-that-be.

Absolutely guarantee that all homeless people be immediately housed and that the $375 a month be paid directly to landlords who aren’t thieves. (A national study was done recently about how to resolve the “homeless crisis” and after two years and millions of dollars paying the hands-off bureaucrats for their wisdom they came up with their grand solution: Find them a home.”

The police need to enforce the law. The state of east Hastings with its constant 24 hour solicitation of crack etc (the chant around here is “Rock, powder, down…)” needs to change drastically. We have parades of these solicitors out front of the Carnegie Library on Main Street and along east Hastings for two blocks. Within spitting distance of the main police station. These dope peddlers are dangerous people and they are fronting for gangs like the Hells Angels. The cops’ excuse: They just get released again. Too many in court. No room in jail etc etc. That is not their business. Their business is to enforce the law. Let the system clean up itself after the law is enforced.

Now with the solicitors out of the way, let’s give these mentally challenged (thanks Crack) a chance at success by housing them; and where there are no structures in which to house them, then tent them as a temporary resolution. If the natives can do it at Oppenheimer why can’t the city/province/federal governments manage it?

When you have people in homes with some dignity and off the dope, you will soon have increased your labour pool. Train them in the simplest tasks; give them the integrity of employment and Hello world! They’d be thrilled with their first paycheck and all their old excuses would, as my mother was apt to say, “Dry up and mildew away.”

Anyway, it’s a crisis here. The wealthy new property owners are conveniently oblivious and uncaring as they leave their new and outrageously expensive homes vacant; and the politicians only seem to ring this alarm bell around campaign time. Lip service of the most cruel kind.

So if you’re ever in the market to find members of the extremely poor community to contribute some realistic ideas and possible resolutions while sitting on one of those nicely paid committees, keep my name front and centre, huh?

Thanks for showing some real care…

R Harry Langen