A tale of two cities: homelessness and belonging in Maple Ridge, BC and Oakland, CA
Why aren’t we including people who are experiencing homelessness in the conversation about solving the problem?
I was in Oakland, California this week for a conference called Othering and Belonging. It’s hosted by the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society at The University of California at Berkeley. I was sponsored to the conference by the Institute because of my masters work on changing public perceptions of homelessness in Maple Ridge, BC.
While I have been away, news has come to me about the mayor’s comments about the homeless in Maple Ridge, BC. In a custom-made 34-minute video (I trust not at taxpayer expense), the mayor villifies the homeless, with comments like, “People are coming here to carry on doing drugs and basically raping and pillaging all of our community and businesses, and that’s got to stop.” It doesn’t serve community-building in Maple Ridge to quote further from this interview. It is peppered with half- and non-truths and paternalistic language that doesn't make matters any better.
We as a community are uniquely challenged by a local government that seeds mistruth and fans the flames of hate of the homeless. It is one thing to deal with the problem on an even playing field, where everyone has accurate facts to make their own decisions. However, when a local government deliberately endorses mistruths, fear and stigma will create a community that is deeply divided, as is the case in Maple Ridge.
I happened upon front page news in Oakland this morning in the East Bay Times. Under the headline, “How much to house the homeless? $12.7 billion” the article unpacks some of the details on the challenges of finding ways to house 28,200 “homeless residents” over nine counties in the Bay Area, which is the fifth-largest concentration of people living with homelessness in the U.S. The article talks about the need for more accurate statistics, sponsoring a state bill that would require each of the Bay area counties to develop concrete plans, assessing individual residents’ needs in a more coordinated way, and launching homelessness task forces on funding and technology to better understand the issues and apply services. Homelessness is not new to this region. A lot of work has already been done, but all of what is mentioned in the East Bay Times appears to be work that the counties and state still need to do before they even start to generate actual on-the-ground solutions. Currently, with 28 different programs spread through seven different agencies to service those experiencing homelessness, it sounds like a hot mess.
In neither situation is there any mention of asking the people experiencing homelessness about how they might do things. I am cognizant of the fact that some people dealing with addictions and mental illness might not actually know what they need, but my own original research in Maple Ridge demonstrated that both of these groups were able to articulately express some of the ways in which they might see things working better. They don’t have all of the answers but neither, apparently, does anyone else.
The thing about involving the “subjects” of social change in making that change, is that they are more likely to get behind it. No one wants to be the lab rat.
The Bay Area appears to be throwing studies and money and time at this, without any guarantee that anything will be approved or move forward in an effective or timely way. The City of Maple Ridge is throwing furniture, kitchen sinks and any other manner of heavy object in front of the door that would open to doing anything other than what it wants to do in that city.
Perhaps it is time for both areas to think of those experiencing homelessness as people who are citizens in their communities. And while we’re at it, let’s be kind to each other, eh? (or “huh?”, if you’re in Oakland). :-)
