Reply to Kinsella column Province April 23, 2006

I am not sure whether you are a blithering idiot, a cold hearted bastard or merely so desperate for attention you will say anything outrageous so someone will notice you. I will have to leave that up to the unfortunate who know you.

No I am not a soft-touch, bleeding heart nor am I one of those you so blithely abandon and condemn to death. I am www.homelessinabbotsford.com, one of those you actually say should be helped as it was mental illness that resulted in my current state of unemployment and homelessness. Be clear on one point – if I had not already managed to begin the climb to mental health, the help of the current system would have condemned me to the streets, mental illness and perhaps self-medication through drugs. So unlike you and your fellow blowhards on both sides of this issue I have had the (unwanted) opportunity for a close personal experience with these issues and the people involved.

I could support your call for fining people who give money to panhandlers as long as the municipalities involved institute a program similar to that in Mission where instead of dollars vouchers for meals, laundry etc are given.

I have to disagree strongly on the treatment of addicts. M up close and personal experience with these people, the experiences in my own family with alcohol and what I have learned in pursuing my own mental health have let me see that addiction is not a ‘choice’ one makes. Nobody chooses to be an addict. I can drink one beer, for my brother there is no such thing as one beer. For him one drink is to many and a thousand is not enough. As frustrating and aggravating as I may find them and their behaviour I could no longer just abandon them. They may have made a mess out of their lives to this point but they are my fellow man. As an aside, based on personal observation: How do you propose to separate those who use drugs as recreation from those mentally ill (whom you want to help) who use the same drugs for self medication? When you get right down to it I do not want to be the kind of person who steps over someone lying in need of help in a skytrain station or abandons anyone in real need. I would even toss you a rope should I come across you hanging by your finger tips off a cliff.