THE BIGGEST BARRIER TO BETTER, SAFER STREETS

If you read my column with any regularity, you might be starting to
see a theme emerging these past couple of months. As my mother has
noted more than once, "All you ever write about is homelessness!"

That pretty much sums it up. I hope to use my weekly platform to
write about street issues almost exclusively for the next while, and
the good folks at the Times Colonist welcome the idea.

Homelessness is one of the great tragedies of modern times. To tackle
it successfully requires understanding where it comes from. I think I
can play a small role in setting things right by telling the stories
of the people out there.

I like to think the stories are having an effect. One woman saw her
own daughter in the sad tale of my young friend Chantal. Another
fellow read the story of Blaine and felt sufficiently moved to buy
him a bus pass for the next three months (which, let me tell you,
cheered Blaine up immensely).

But what I'm picking up in some of the reader feedback is confusion
about what I'm trying to accomplish with the pieces. So allow me to
set the record straight, particularly around any assumptions that my
focus will be solely on "good" homeless people who don't deserve to
be on the streets.

In my opinion, nobody deserves to be on the streets. So I'm not about
to sort people into "good" and "bad" categories of homelessness
before deciding whether to write about them. The last thing I want to
do is be yet another person sitting in judgment of people who have
been judged quite enough.

The big sticking point for readers tends to be drug use. People with
severe addiction are seen as "choosing" homelessness because they
chose to use drugs.

Living on the streets is their punishment (and ours as well in the
end, although we sure have a hard time getting that).

So when I write about somebody like Blaine, he elicits sympathy
because he doesn't use drugs or alcohol. Readers liked Chantal, too,
because she had fetal alcohol spectrum disorder caused by her mother
drinking during pregnancy, and could therefore be deemed blameless
for her many problems.

But writing about Guy Grolway and his addiction to crack cocaine
brought me several admonishments from readers not to be "taken in" by
his kind -- that is, people who chose to use drugs and therefore
deserve whatever happens to them.

Moving beyond that simplistic view of addiction is essential if we're
ever going to get a handle on what's happening on our streets. If
there's one fundamental thing that has to change if we're to solve
the problems of homelessness, it's the way we think about addiction.

I haven't met an addict yet who wanted to be addicted. That others
believe these poor, sick souls are choosing to remain addicted adds
insult to injury, particularly given that such uninformed thinking
too often governs the way we provide care for people with addictions.

You might not share my opinion on that. But here's the thing: It's
not just my opinion. With more than a half-century of research and
study under our belts, we know full well that addiction is what
happens when you mix genetic predisposition, childhood circumstance,
loss, pain and readily available drugs.

So why do we spare any time for the argument that it's a moral failing?

We're going to have to let this "choice" business go if we're to
tackle the issues of the street, because it's tripping us up at every
turn. The reason we've got 1,500 people on our streets in the first
place is because we judged them unworthy of our help the first time
round due to their "bad choices." Just about the worst thing we can
do is repeat that colossal mistake.

Getting out from under an addiction is the struggle of a lifetime.
The people trying to make that tough journey need prompt and
sustained help, not another pointless guilt trip about bad choices
and just deserts.

That kind of thinking was exactly what got us into this mess.

And what a Pyrrhic victory we've won. Sure, a hard lesson has been
taught to all those "bad" drug users denied help, but the cost to us
has been streets filled with broken people, petty crime, garbage and
despair. Add up the health-care and policing costs, the crime, the
mess and the lost potential of 1,500 people, and we're throwing away
$75 million a year just to maintain the disaster on our streets.

I hope you'll keep reading my stories, but please let the judgment
go. The only way to fix a problem is to see it for what it is.