As Abbotsford Today reported Wednesday, she was told that there are two funds that were eventually set up and that over a million dollars is sitting in those two funds.

The study, published with the help of Ron VanWyk of the Mennonite Central Committee, and Glenn Hope from the United Way of the Fraser Valley, has many valuable insights into the ways many of Abbotsford’s social problems could be solved. As expected, Guthrie was told the study did set aside some money but nothing has ever happened.

Why?

Why does so much that ASDAC recommends, advises and pleads for get ignored?

Downtown developer Bob Bos.. Photo from BC Dailybuzz.com

It would appear no one at either the City or City Council bothered to read the study. Other communities have and have made good use of it. The City of Abbotsford is acting as though the study was either never written or never shared with them

VanWyk asked some pretty pointed questions of ASDAC Chair John Sutherland about things such as the Camp Closure Protocol, which set some rules to be followed when dismantling homeless camps on public or private property which included providing residents with 48 hours notice and keeping their belongings in a secure location so they could be picked up at a later date.

Whoever is found responsible for the now infamous Abbotsford Chicken Manure Homeless Incident certainly decided those ideas were either not worth following or was given specific orders not to follow them.

Whether anyone cares or not, the world now has a clear and concise impression of Abbotsford, BC, which no amount of investment in Abbotsford Tourism or expanding TRADEX is going to change.

The world is simply not that interested in the Matsqui Trail or Mill Lake, beautiful as they are.

While this may be hard for those like Councillors Dave Loewen, Patty Ross or others who act as though managing a multimillion dollar budget in a City of 130,000 people is like a high school student council debate, to hear – this legacy will hurt us in ways nobody who has shaped our policy towards the poor has considered.

It’s not just bad for business. It is an ugly stain on the community which will take a generation to erase.

Thanks John.

As we found out on Wednesday, throwing chicken feces at the homeless was not an isolated incident. It is part of a pattern of terrorizing and frightening the poor so they will go elsewhere in which our City and its private police force have been engaged for at least six or seven years, perhaps more.

Pastor Christoph Reiners, feeder of the poor.

Who has been in charge of ASDAC over the years during which attempts have been made by a large number of individuals and organizations to change the way Abbotsford treats its homeless and vulnerable citizens from the ‘displace and disperse‘ policy of the City and the APD to the decision by Councillor John Smith and downtown developer Bob Bos to tell Pastor Christoph Reiners of the Peace Lutheran Church to stop feeding the homeless?

Yup, that was the first time we got national attention, back in 2008 when the Globe and Mail reported on Councillor and Chair of our Abbotsford Social Development Advisory Committee (ASDAC) telling a preacher to stop feeding the poor.

How little things have changed.

Is Mike de Jong about to announce that he has cut off the funding for the Warm Zone?

Why does it take media attention from those other than the two chain-owned flyer distribution companies which operate as newspapers in this city to force Abbotsford to look itself in the mirror and ask itself what the hell it is doing?

More to the point – who is doing these despicable things with our money and on our behalf?

John Smith may no longer be the Chair of ASDAC but he certainly seems to have left his mark with his method of dealing with the care community and their devoted and heartfelt attempts to deal with Abbotsford’s social problems.

Why have none of the recommendations of ASDAC ever become reality in Abbotsford? Ask John. He’s the guy who has taken all of the suggestions ASDAC has made and summed them up for Abbotsford Council apparently to no avail.

And yet, John can be quite convincing. In fact he can be quite the bully when he wants something to happen like Plan A, the Discovery Trail, his Friendship Garden.

Dave Krahn’s Mill Tower – the only other property on Galdys Avenue other than the Sally Ann which might benefit from the poisoning of homeless people.

It isn’t hard to imagine the feigned sadness with which John returned to the committee explaining the financial difficulties, caused by, interestingly enough, his own vanity projects like Plan A, the Discovery Trail, the Friendship Garden … have somehow made it impossible for Abbotsford to do much more than simply funnel all of the provincial funds to the Salvation Army and blame the collateral damage on senior levels of government.

What, you may ask, is the community supposed to do about those citizens which John Smith and the Salvation Army aren’t interested in helping?

‘Displace and disperse. It is, sadly, as simple as that.

And those who prefer to just chase the homeless with dogs and chicken feces explain themselves to citizens by claiming government costs have to be curtailed.

Whether or not Dave Krahn was given any explicit or implicit reason to believe the smelly people occupying the municipal land down the street from his new office tower would be removed and convinced not to come back, the impression is left, thanks to Bob Bos and his influence on the feeding of the poor, that, in Abbotsford, the influence for those with money to make more money is more important that the Christian value of helping those who need our compassion and our help, whoever they may be.

So we spend a quarter of a million dollars a year beating, poisoning, and dehumanizing poor people instead of helping them with the money we’ve collected and set aside for them?

‘Don’t expect me to pay for these low-lifes who won’t work for a living’ some of us shout as though spending our money beating them and covering them in chicken shit is a better investment than helping them get cleaned up, retrained and re-educated so they can actually hope to go to a job interview.

Economic Development Manager Jay Teichroeb

How can the Economic Development Department have gotten away with some of the financially and morally questionable decisions and policies it has adopted over the last seven years, from the way it spends taxpayers’ money guaranteeing the profits of rich business people to the way it allows the homeless to be treated, if it didn’t have the tacit support of either one powerful or several less powerful councillors?

It’s on the public record. City Council and the administration have known for nearly a decade what the solutions to homelessness look like. Our unusually high Hep C and HIV levels, drug addiction, teen pregnancy, high drug use in our high schools and the large and growing number of social

Salvation Army’s PR Spokesperson Deb Lowell

problems with which the City simply refuses to deal would all be reduced if the City would allow the government funding to be divvied up more equitably and if the City were to make the commitment most other communities have made to solving the problems instead spending hundreds of thousands of dollars as year doing absolutely nothing about them.

As Vince Dimanno points out in his column this week, both Langley and Chilliwack have taken an entirely different approach. Both communities spread the money around because they recognize that social issues like substance abuse, addiction, teen pregnancy, homelessness and teen suicide are not single solution issues.

Both Chilliwack and Langley allow everyone to help rather than just the Sally Ann, and, as a result are solving, or at least diminishing, their social problems while those in Abbotsford are growing worse.

John Sutherland

According to John Sutherland, the person responsible has been identified and the City will be taking the appropriate personnel actions.

Whoever that turns out to be, the question of who allowed the behaviour to fester and develop over the last six or seven years is not a member of the administration but a member or members of council.

Those who call themselves community leaders have not just sat idly by and watched the problem get worse, they have systematically enforced a draconian, inhumane and utterly repulsive policy of trying to rid this City of its homeless, drug addicted and dirty poor through attrition and demeaning, disgusting and grotesque public policy.

As Ron VanWyk said at the ASDAC meeting last Wednesday, this policy is reminiscent of the worst abuses under the Apartheid regime with which VanWyk is all too familiar.

Harsh words.

Well said.

Now there are 22 property owners on the west side
who have been given Abbotsford Council’s approval to take 225 acres out of
the ALR because the land is “not good enough to farm”. This is where I
farmed for 17 years and fed at least 20 families with free range pork,
beef and poultry.

Mayor Bruce Banman and most of the same Councillors as
in 2005 and the Abbotsford Chamber of Commerce who is currently
celebrating our community’s $1.8 billion /year Agriculture economy
obviously have not done their homework.

Once again too many decision makers knowing the cost of
everything and the value of nothing. The ALC must reject this exclusion
application and show that food security trumps
developers’ profits!

This City of Abbotsford staff report that promises the same jobs and tax
revenue as the City in the Country Plan and was done by the same staff
that pushed through the 2005 ALR exclusions – an absolute failure in job
creation and increased tax revenues.

The Financial Information Act Report requires that every elected official must disclose the total dollar amount spent in each year. However, there is no requirement to provide any detail, which means the taxpayer has no way of knowing what the money was spent on or how much.

In an effort to be open, transparent and accountable to the taxpayer’s of Abbotsford for the money I spent during 2012, please find a detailed breakdown of the $3,932.10 that I spent as follows;

• Local Government Leadership Academy. This is a conference for newly elected Mayors and Councillors. This conference was held at the Delta River Inn, February 22 – 24, 2012. Hotel cost – $317.58 (room and taxes only), Parking $28.00, Mileage $79.50. Total Cost $425.08.
• Lower Mainland Local Government Association. This conference was held at the Hilton Whistler Hotel, May 9 – 11, 2012. Registration $291.20. Hotel Cost 377.00 (room and taxes only). Mileage – $199.39. Parking $40.32. Total Cost $907.91.
• Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM). This conference was held at the Victoria Conference Centre /Empress Hotel, September 24 – 28, 2012. Conference Registration – $828.80. Hotel Cost $733.84 (room and taxes only). Flights from Abbotsford/Victoria & return – $310.88. Taxi from Airport to Hotel – $55.50. Conference Meals – $58.05. Total cost – $1,987.07.
• Miscellaneous City Events – Five (5) Abbotsford Chamber Lunches – $169.12, Abbotsford Economic Symposium – $159, Two Gala’s (Run for Water & Making News Making History) – $156.72, Abbotsford Sports Hall of Fame – $60. Urban Development Institute (Fraser Valley Lunch) – $67.20. Total Cost – $612.04.

Total taxpayer monies spent during calendar 2012 – $3,932.10

If any resident of Abbotsford would like to review the backup for any or all of the expenses, please let me know and I will make those available

All of you. Even the great people that have spoken up in letters in the local newspapers. It is your fault too.

Let me explain…

As the Mayor has so ironically stated in his recent press conference on the chicken manure incident, Abbotsford is full of some of the most generous people in Canada. Except their generosity is not for local causes.

You…the collective you, as in the community of Abbotsford…will spend unlimited money sending missionaries to build homes for people in other countries…but those dirty, lazy homeless people here just need to go out and get a job.

You…again the collective you, will stage charity events like the Run for Water, but sit quietly at home as your own water bill is tripled punishing poor working families right here.

You…would have a fit if the Government took supplies like clean needles away from Type 2 Diabetics and yet try to give a drug addict a clean needle and apparently it is the end of civilization.

It is only a person that has never had to struggle for their next meal, never wondered where they will sleep tonight, never had to deal with mental illness, nor suffered under the genetic predisposition for addiction that can be as cruel as we have been to our homeless and needy.

You’ve seen it said out loud and yet you don’t recognize it.

Let me remind you…

Our Police Chief at a public forum about 18 months ago – “My policy is displace and disperse … we only respond to complaints from citizens…we don’t seek the homeless out…”

Oh? So, our official police policy is to simply get them out of town? Sounds like it to me. There is no other plan right? C’mon guys…there is no other plan. As for citizen complaints, let’s break that down. Most of the time, homeless camps are setup on public land. Imagine if you went on a camping trip into the backwoods and a cop showed up and took your tent and cooking gear away and then spread chicken feces all over your campground.

Not the same thing you say? Why? Is it not the same thing because you are lucky enough to have a home to go back to? Is it not the same thing because you could prove to the officer that you have a home and a job? Is it not the same thing because you drove to that campsite in your Volvo and were dressed in your brand new hunter’s camo?

It is exactly the same thing and ‘you’ don’t get it.

You’ve also heard the phrases “high barrier” and “low barrier” when it comes to providing services to the homeless.

What? Why is there any barrier?

So, a homeless person has to be clean and sober in order to get the services that will help them get clean and sober? Yep…and folks…that is “low barrier” in this town. If you’re high or drunk but you need help you are on your own.

I already hear some of you saying…”They should be on their own. No one ever helped me. They need to pull their socks up, get a job and stop free-loading off the system”.

You are right.

…but they can’t do it from where they are. I don’t advocate giving away the farm to the poor. I advocate one simply philosophical idea.

When a homeless person or a drug addict is ready to rise up out of the conditions they find themselves in…when they reach out their hand, we should be there, as a community to take it. We should then commit to holding that hand until they are ready to let go and sustain themselves.

Nothing should stand in the way of taking that outreached hand. There should be no barriers, no conditions and the only expectation is mutual effort.

That philosophical idea is largely absent in Abbotsford. Some are trying but the big dollars and the big efforts have nothing to do with mutual effort.

Why am I blaming you for this?

Your silence.

• When City Councillors told Peace Lutheran Church to stop feeding the homeless in Jubilee Park… you were silent.
• When City Councillors voted against Harm Reduction… you were silent.
• When the Province of BC closed doors to the Adolescent Psych unit at Abbotsford hospital… you were silent.
• When the Province of BC cut the number of beds in half in the Adult Psych unit… you were silent.
• When the Mental Health Hotline lost a great portion of its funding and now cannot operate 24 hours a day…you were silent.
• Now it looks like Mike de Jong will renege on his promise to fund the Warm Zone again, despite announcing that funding before the election…and I bet you’ll be silent again.

Who cares right? These things don’t affect you. Who cares if the cops steal the homeless’ stuff. Just because they go out into the community and are forced to steal from your neighbours, why should you care?

A Type 2 Diabetic takes Insulin because of lifestyle choices that compound a genetic predisposition. They need a clean needle. Drug addicts are exactly the same, but …eeeewwwww….drug addicts are dirty. We can’t give them clean needles. They’ll just use more drugs. I mean giving Diabetics insulin means they just eat more donuts right? But diabetics can have a shower and so it’s OK to help them…but not those dirty drug addicts.

Just because they end up in the Emergency Room when they should be in the Psych ward at half the price doesn’t effect you right? Or how about we just put them in jail and spend $100,000 a year on them instead of only about $40,000 to give them real long-lasting services. Naw…that would be the right thing to do. Just don’t do it here in Abbotsford.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Langley and Chilliwack both committed to real change and have built facilities that house, feed, educate, mentor and empower the people that need help to do what we want them to do. They get people back into housing and back to work and back to a contributing life.

Those communities are spreading love while we spread chicken shit.

Now for the unkindest cut of all.

Some say that if we build great facilities to help the homeless and drug addicts that they will all come here.

I have two things to say about that…the first is GREAT! If we’re the most generous people in Canada then bring it on!  Reality, however, is different. Langley’s new facility can sleep 250 people. So why aren’t our homeless going there? Don’t forget folks…homeless people are poor. Perhaps you don’t understand what that means. No car, no bus pass, no food, no way.

These people are our citizens with as much right to services delivered here as those people on other continents we seem so quick to raise money for.

Break your silence!

Tell your City Councillors and your MLA’s that you want a made-in-Abbotsford solution. Tell them that you want to start spreading the love instead of the chicken crap. Speak out and prove that you are the community you claim to be.

Embarrass your home town on the word stage by committing a despicable and outrageous act against the poor with public money while collecting a public wage and the people who pay your salary have to wait to find out what happened.

OK George …

Since neither the City nor the Salvation Army seem interested in discussing this incident with their friends and neighbours – those which, in both cases, pay their generous salaries, we are left to figure out what happened on our own.

Cui Bono
Who stood to benefit by attacking the homeless with chicken feces. Since it was public land, one might conclude that the citizens of Abbotsford, who own the land, might have suddenly decided that a barren stretch of land by the train tracks was of enormous public interest, enough so that the poor who were living there in fear should be poisoned.

Historically speaking that isn’t the way public land is dealt with so we might have to look elsewhere.

Who Else Might Benefit?
The other two organizations with something to gain by attacking the homeless with chicken feces were the Salvation Army, whose building is directly across the street, and the Mill Tower owned by Dave Krahn and partners, the new office tower which is just down the street.

What did either organization stand to gain by the actions of City staff?

Salvation Army’s PR Spokesperson Deb Lowell

Despite PR spokeswoman Deb Lowell’s protests to the contrary at Wednesday’s ASDAC meeting the Salvation Army makes no bones about the fact that it only helps some of the poor and homeless. The group which had come to rest across the street from their building, after being chased around town in an ongoing, endless and senseless harrassment by City staff and police, is made up of those the Sally Ann prefers not to help.

Deb really doesn’t want to push back too hard on this point given the Sally Ann’s very public PR issues in various jurisdictions where they have been taken to task for not helping Muslims, or more recently (June 10. 2013) their contention that members of the Lesbian, Gay and Transgendered communities should be put to death.

These are not minor misunderstandings which have no real impact on life in Abbpotsford, they are perhaps the biggest single reason we have such an intractable homeless problem. In Abbotsford, all of the funding for homelessness goes to one organization – the one which is the least inclusive.

So women, those with substance abuse problems, those who are unwilling to, as Lowell puts it – get on a plan – all of the homeless people who do not fit the Sally Ann’s definition of those deserving of help, are left at the mercy of the City of Abbotsford’s Economic Development Department which seems more intent on convincing the homeless to move away from businesses and developers than dealing with them as human beings.

Unwelcome
Members of the group have said they have not been made welcome at the Sally Ann and have been told in no uncertain terms that their presence across the street is not appreciated. Is it possible the Sally Ann either suggested, participated in or knowingly turned a blind eye to this disgusting incident?

We’ve asked both the local and provincial levels of the Sally Ann for comment and, as usual, in matters of public concern (PR), have heard nothing back. We also asked the City but, being the good employees of the public they are, they apparently don’t feel obliged to explain themselves or tell the truth to those who pay them.

Dave Krahn’s Mill Tower

Councillors like Dave Loewen went on a virtual Twitter binge several weeks ago joyfully promoting the building (at the expense of other Abbotsford properties) and the City’s Economic Development Department, eager to have some good news or success to offer after eight years with Jay Teichroeb at the helm, seems to have been pulling out all the stops to promote Krahn’s asset.

Councillor Dave Loewen who started a Twitter campaign to help promote Mill Towers

The only other possible explanation is that the railway expressed its concern to the City about the detrimental impact the homeless were having on their rails. Other than that there are no landowners in the immediate area. Other, of course, than the Abbostford Downtown Business Association (ADBA).

Economic Development Manager Jay Teichroeb

What Now?

John Sutherland

Sutherland is no fool. He is also, unlike so many who sit in leadership positions in our community, a leader. While he assuaged the fears of those who, like Deb Lowell, fear that blame must be attributed before we can move on, he nonetheless insisted, as the ASDAC meeting progressed, on truth, depth, meaning and progress which can be measured.

Sutherland is a man of quality. While he understands and allows for the preservation of the dignity of those who have tried and failed to serve our community he is nonetheless insistent on truth as the only means to a way forward.

More than anything. at Wednesday’s meeting, he seemed to be calling upon all those involved in this sordid business – for we have all been dragged down into it – to concentrate on how best to crawl out of this place in which we have been thrust by people who have not had our best interests at heart.

Even less so those of the men and women who have been forced to live in conditions the rest of us devote a great deal of our existence to avoiding.

Living in one’s car on the side of the street is where it starts.

Being covered in chicken shit is where it apparently ends in Abbotsford.

We now all agree … this must end.

People in our community are being treated as subhuman individuals, That is something none of us should condone. Much less our civil servants.

If we are going to put this issue behind us we have to know who that individual is and why they did what they did. Not so he or she can be pilloried but so that there can be a real cost for all who follow in their footsteps that certain things are simply unacceptable when dealing with out fellow human beings and citizens.

It also about time that the funding for dealing with our social issues be divvied up more equitably among organizations other than the Sally Ann which, despite her protest to the contrary, has proven unequal to the task of dealing with homelessness in Abbotsford.

Cover Art: The Sacrifice of Abraham ; Andrea del SARTO; 1527-28;

5 And 2 Ministries
Jesse Wegenast, from 5 and 2 Ministries told ASDAC members and about 30 members of the public, “This incident [the chicken manure incident] is not isolated. If we are not going to talk about it then we can talk about the incident just two weeks ago when their tents were slashed with knives and bear sprayed.”

Wegenast was speaking by invitation to ASDAC members assembled at a special and hastily called meeting to deal with the enormous publicity resulting from a story first published on Abbotsford Today by homeless advocate and Today columnist James Breckenridge about the incident during which city staff spread chicken manure over the piece of property opposite the Salvation Army on Gladys Avenue in order to have the homeless people gathered there move away.

“The City’s plan appears to be to make life hell for those who have no place to go,” Wegenast told the committee, adding, “What is a person supposed to do when all of their worldly possessions have been poisoned by the City or the APD?”

“We see it everyday,” he said.

Ward Draper, also of 5 and 2 Ministries, added to Wegenast’s words saying, “I just can’t understand the cost the City is prepared to devote to a strategy that has done nothing other than create misery. They are not driving the homeless to other cities nor into treatment.”

Draper said he estimates the City of Abbotsford spends over a quarter of a million dollars a year destroying homeless people’s camps and belongings to absolutely no practical effect whatsoever.

During these camp take downs Wegenast said that he had personally witnessed dirty, used intravenous needles, from the safe containers in which they are placed after use, dumped into the rest of the trash – people’s clothes and belongings – creating a public health risk and ignoring proper disposal protocols.

Abbotsford Community Services
Rod Santiago, Executive Director of Abbotsford Community Services (ACS) made an impassioned plea for his organizations’ Supportive Housing Project which he is hoping will gain approval by City Council and provincial authorities later this year.

An open house is tentatively scheduled for July 10.

Santiago told a familiar story to many in the care community in Abbotsford about ‘Homeless Joe’ who became a fixture on the homeless scene in Abbotsford. After months of trust building which began with a simply cup of coffee extended by ‘Glenda’ the man was finally able to remember his name and has made tremendous progress despite still suffering from alcohol and substance abuse issues.

Santiago told the committee that homelessness is a complex issue that involves establishing trust and being able to deliver on that trust.

The Abbotsford Downtown Business Association (ADBA) was said to be divided over the issue of having a housing project for the poor so close to their businesses and Santiago said that, despite concerns, a good dialogue has begun on the issue.

Councillor Bill MacGregor interjected saying that, perhaps a different location might be a better choice.

Salvation Army
Looking haggard and tired, Salvation Army PR spokeswoman Deb Lowell gave a presentation on the number of interactions with what she referred to variously as “our folks” or “our clients” over the last five years and the hard work the Sally Ann devotes to reaching out in the community.

When she was asked about the Sally Ann’s stated unwillingness to deal with homeless men with drug or alcohol issues Lowell hedged and said they will help those people unless they represent a safety risk. Asked about the six or seven days homeless men are allowed to stay at the Sally Ann she described the long term objectives of the Christian organization as one of getting everybody on a plan.

When ASDAC Chair John Sutherland asked Lowell about the fact that the Sally Ann is known as a high barrier institution, meaning people have a hard time being accepted or receiving help from the organization because of their insistence on abstinence, Lowell quickly responded saying, “We’re low barrier,” and explained that the Sally Ann will sometimes even accept those who are under the influence as long as they can safely interact with staff and the other clients.

Sutherland summarized Lowell’s presentation saying that the Army, despite over 120 years of tremendous service was not up to the task of providing long term solutions on its own, to which Lowell, retorted, “We want long term solutions. That’s what we’re all about moving forward.”

Sutherland explained he hadn’t meant the Sally Ann wasn’t up to the task it has undertaken just that homelessness was a much complex issue than one organization could not solve on its own.

Citizens’ Questions
Many questions were asked by members of the public mostly centering on how things could have gotten so out of control in Abbotsford or so dysfunctional as to lead to such an awful incident as the Abbotsford Chicken Manure Homeless Incident.

Most concerns had to do with the incident; the evidence of other similar tactics; the apparent lack of accountability on the part of the City and its employees and a frustration with the fact that, although everybody seemed to agree something was wrong, no one seemed prepared to either take real responsibility or take action.

Sutherland assured the Committee that the person responsible has been identified and that the City will be taking the appropriate personnel actions and tried to refocus the meeting on positive actions which will help ensure the same thing never happens again.

Sheryl Guthrie asked what had happened to The Affordable and
Accessible Housing Study in the Upper Fraser Valley: Issues and Opportunities, published in 2006, which had specifically suggested that a fund be created to solve some of these issues. She was told that there are two funds that were eventually set up and that over a million dollars is sitting in those two funds.

“So we’ve got the money set aside and we’ve clearly got a problem. Don’t you think it might be a good idea to spend that money solving the problem?” she asked.

Camp Closure Protocal
Before the meeting ended a few motions were made and passed.

Ron VanWyk, Director, Employment & Community Development for the Mennonite Central Committee, moved that ASDAC officially and publicly condemn the manure incident. After some discussion the motion was passed unanimously. The committee also decided to reactivate a defunct housing committee of ASDAC in order to review the City’s Camp Closure Protocol and see if it needs rewriting or whether it simply needs to be followed by the City.

Other comments included the argument that ASDAC should be consulted by the City or the APD before actions are contemplated such as the Chicken Manure Incident and a need to discover why the Camp Closure Protocol appears to no longer be being followed by the City.

The Camp Closure Protocol was arrived at by the ASDAC and agreed to by the City of Abbotsford and involved such protocols a the provision of 48 hours notice to homeless camp dwellers before they were being evicted; the safe storage of their belongings and other carefully worked out measures to keep such incidents from occurring.

—

Editor’s Note:
Some of the major unanswered questions after the meeting include:

1. Who is responsible for the City abandoning the Camp Closure Protocol?
2. Who is the City employee who is being held responsible for the Chicken Manure Incident?
3. How did the City get so far removed from the good intentions of ASDAC and why does City Council seem to have its ears closed when it comes to the advice of its citizens on issues such as homelessness, addiction, poverty and the other social issues with which Abbotsford’s neighbours in the Valley seem to be able to deal with while Abbotsford’s social problems simply keep getting worse?

Attention now shifts back to municipal politicians who are keeping tight-lipped about an issue that has perhaps caused more controversy and given the community a bigger black eye on the world stage than even such nationally recognized issues as our unwillingness to provide health care services to addicts, our massive money losing hockey arena, the horrible state of our finances or any of the other issues which have gained Abbotsford national notoriety in the last six years.

Can we, as a community, rise to Ernie Klassen’s challenge:

Many former Abbotsford residents are anxiously awaiting answers via the media or social media. Abbotsford has had many ‘reputations’ over the years. Why not create a new one now that once again could get world wide attention of a positive perspective.

Abbotsford has a lot to offer if channeled correctly. The churches, the business community, the media, the citizens could all get together and create a internationally renowned positive community if they tried.

Ernie Klassen

• Harper’s Magazine (Weekly Review)
• Sun Media

06/06/13
From Walter Neufeld on Facebook. Abbotsford’s public display of chicken shit governance spread worldwide.

Walter Neufeld shared the fact the Independent newspaper in the UK has now covered the Abbotsford Chicken Manure Homeless Incident taking the coverage, so far, from local to provincial to international for a City badly in need of a break when it comes to its reputation.

Abbotsford City Council: Public display of Chicken Shit governance spread worldwide
[excerpt]

A local authority in Canada has apologised after dumping chicken droppings in an attempt to drive away homeless people.

According to CBC, the ploy – near Gladys Street, in Abbotsford – came to light when homeless activist James Breckenridge wrote a column about it on the Abbotsford Today website titled “This stinks.”

Breckenridge told The Tyee website: “Besides the dumbness of using chicken material in light of bird flu and then the big avian kill we had here not that many years ago, this camp is beside one of (the) major thoroughfares: there’s a set of railroad tracks and this is a path that most people use to cut across it.

“So you’ve got all this material being gone through by all these people and tracked all over the place in the city.”
[source]

Provincial national and international coverage so far

• World News and Wire
• Alex Tsakumis Show CKPM 98.7FM
• The Tyee
• The Province
• CBC News
• Canoe.ca
• The Independent

Photo by: Jack Piatt on theobservalist.com

After Abbotsford received worldwide coverage of the Abbotsford Chicken Manure Homeless Incident both the City of Abbotsford and the Salvation Army seem to have decided that, like most public relations disasters, the secret to dealing with this incident is to “Move forward”. There was a lot of ‘moving forward’ going on in the exclusive interview City Manager George Murray and Sally Ann PR woman Deb Lowell provided to the Abbotsford News on Friday.

Moving forward and away from this incident as quickly as possible is the last thing this community needs. We need to sit here for a moment, for as long as it takes, in order to find out how this happened, who made it happen, who allowed it to happen and how we are going to, once and for all, find a way to help our poor, disadvantaged, hungry, homeless and addicted – all of them – without being so mean-spirited, divisive and unfair about the way we choose those who deserve our help.

We will publish any and all responses we receive.

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Dear Mayor Banman and Council; Deb Lowell, Abbotsford Salvation Army; David Woodland, Divisional Social Services Secretary at The Salvation Army

We are asking the following questions publicly of both the Salvation Army and the City of Abbotsford in order to help the community have an open and honest discussion of the issues surrounding homelessness in Abbotsford and in order to come up with an understanding of how the Abbotsford Chicken Manure Homeless Incident occurred and how to avoid anything similar in the future.

Your participation in telling this story is greatly appreciated.

1. Who gave the order to spread chicken feces on the land opposite the Salvation Army where homeless people were gathered?

2. Was there a meeting, at any time prior to the incident, at which both the Salvation Army and the City of Abbotsford were represented and the idea of spreading chicken feces was discussed?

3. Did the Salvation Army participate in, actively discuss and/or approve of the decision to spread chicken feces on the property?

4. From what company did the City purchase the chicken feces used to chase the homeless from in front of the Salvation Army?

5. Has the Salvation Army or the City of Abbotsford provided any indication to the homeless people who are not registered in the Salvation Army’s programs or able to afford to rent or purchase real estate where it is they are supposed to move to?

6. Who do the homeless complain to about the removal of their belongings when their sleeping quarters are disturbed and they are dispersed?

7. Can the homeless get their belongings back or are they disposed of in some fashion?

8. Who, at the City of Abbotsford and at the Salvation Army, is responsible for the decision to treat the poor in this manner?

9. Is anybody at the Salvation Army or the City of Abbotsford tasked with arriving at a better solution or are the City’s and the Army’s efforts being directed solely at public relations, and, as representatives from both were quoted last week, moving forward and putting this incident behind us?

Addendum: We have added the following question to this public declaration of our questions in order to protect any City employee or Salvation Army employee who might be put in a comprising position if they were to tell the truth.

10. Has either the Salvation Army, or the City of Abbotsford, or any of their representatives threatened employees of either organization with dismissal if they speak to the media?