Only trying to collect the tiny downpayment
I am writing about housing. Affordable, supported housing. Housing for folk who need help to maintain it. Financial help for those who cannot earn; bill paying help for those who cannot manage; consequence planning help for those who cannot put A and B together; counselling help for those who cannot see the light of day; trauma recovery help for those abused in life; addictions management help for those with wounds too deep to bear. Supported, affordable housing.
Shelters in the interim, but only interim shelters. To end homelessness, people must be housed.
Shelters only take people off the streets. Out of tents, bushes, carports, crawlspaces, sheds, tarps and benches. They keep people warm and dry in the winter, help them into treatment programs and make connections with community resources. They do not, however, create the caring, loving, welcoming community we wish for our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, cousins and friends, no matter the state of their mental health or physical abilities.
Housing, safe, affordable, stable, supported housing, can help someone stabilize their life. Help them give back to their community. Give them a hand up instead of a hand out, or — more usually — the back of a hand.
Housing, even safe, affordable, supported housing costs far less than the alternatives. Prisons, courts, hospitals, home insurance, policing, shelters…housing is not only a more cost effective option, it tells a tale about neighbourhoods and communities. Here’s one where the lost are found. There’s one where only the well founded are not lost.
Which community would you choose for your family? For your infirm, pension-robbed self?
Right now our community is at the affordable housing sweet-spot. The political parties governing us have decided they must provide it to any community that steps up to take it. For a limited time, short term, once in a lifetime offer. We bring the tiny down payment. They do the rest. There’s a catch (of course there’s a catch) if we don’t come up with the money down, they withhold the housing and blame it on us. On the failure of the local community to step up to the plate and be recognized when the time came to be counted.
Please consider where you will be counted, when the time comes.
Keith Simmonds
Duncan