December 26th, 2024

What exactly was compassionate about the camp cleanup?


By Lethbridge Herald on July 23, 2022.

 Editor:

The Herald’s July 15th account of the “compassionate cleanup” of the homeless encampment in the Civic Centre left me with more questions than answers. 

What exactly was compassionate about it?

Did we find homes for all of them? Or did we find them a new campsite with a better location? Or did we just hand them a bottle of water and turf them out on the hot pavement?

Did we send their tents and belongings to the landfill, or did we transport them and their belongings to their new home? Or did we just send in the troops in full body armour, swinging truncheons?

How was this “cleanup” compassionate? We could use a little more information.

Our concern for the homeless in Lethbridge in the past seems to have yielded nothing of substance. And judging from the mayor’s tentative remarks, that’s probably where it’s headed again.

Let’s actually do something to help them this time. Let’s find places for them to live. It’s a basic human right. 

The present situation reflects badly on our city.

Dave Sheppard

Lethbridge

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buckwheat

Down off the southwest corner of the cemetery, multiple sites off the 4th St., South walking path to the river bottom, another temporarily off scenic drive over Whoop Bridge. In other words, everywhere. That’s just the start.

pursuit diver

There have been encampments in several areas of the coulees for the last 3 years, so did you just start walking in the coulees on those off trails and see them, or see the ones that have been there off the main trails?
Did they bother you? Did they intimidate you like they did at the Civic Center? Did run at you for taking pictures screaming you cannot take pictures? Did they even acknowledge you were there?
I have walked in the coulees for years and know they have been there, both sides of the river at times, north and south sides. They used homemade lean-tos previously, before the non-profits starting handing out tents to them.

buckwheat

So what is your point. Are you torn between supporting the encampment at the Civic Centre or telling me off.

Last edited 2 years ago by buckwheat
Citi Zen

No compassion necessary. Those people don’t want our help, they are there by their own choice.

biff

has nothing to do with what you feel you understand they want, or not. many of the homeless are struggling with basic life skills, mental health, and have been ravaged by the incurable effects of fetal alcohol. with regard to the latter, there is no treatment, nor is there an ability for them to be consistently rational, nor can they gain any measure of applicable life skills.

Last edited 2 years ago by biff
Citi Zen

Which is why I support forced sterilization.

pursuit diver

And I saw two more new faces in town, both pregnant young women were also doing drugs and working the streets, so that means the cycle continues.
We are promoting their lifestyle by giving them everything they need to live on the streets and continue their self-destruction behaviour, which by the way comes at a high cost to the taxpayer as well. Lethbridge is spends millions annually on the addiction/homeless rippling effects to the community. Many of these people were recently shipped to us by other communities.

johnny57

How about sending them all back to the reserve where we know they have accommodations of one sort or another.
Now-now Johnny! Did you not know making them accountable for their own actions is racist?

Last edited 2 years ago by johnny57
biff

it is curious why the communities that spawned and raised many of those spilling into lethbridge have encouraged their migration and have not done far more to help and embrace those that are hurt and hurting. it is rather duplicitous to have a hate for whitey, and, whilst pronouncing native pride, happily bid farewell to and dump off what are deemed as issues into the lap of the people that are of non-colour.

Last edited 2 years ago by biff
UncleBuck

Just out of interest, I’ve noticed you like lumping people together (also, the homeless and drug user population in Lethbridge is more than twice as many “white” people than indigenous, not that you care) but back to lumping: did you know that white men make up the largest amount of pedophiles, rapists, and serial killers disproportionate to their population?

According to the FBI anyway. Perhaps, and I hope, you’re treated as such in order to learn about what being lumped together unjustly feels like. Reach out to your Indigenous brothers and friends rather than being small, bestial, animal, and ugly.

We white people have done some absolutely awful things, and I wish to say it could easily be changed. People like you prevent that change from happening.

I honestly hope the city is full of Indigenous people and you are surrounded. For every day of your life from now on.

Because I know they’ll make your life better.

biff

i appreciate your response. i apologise for coming off as ignorant – rereading my entry, i see how it can be interpreted as hateful. that is not my intention. the frustration i was intending most to highlight is the increasing divisiveness of people into numerous exclusive subgroups. along with that has become a particular vilification of light skinned folk, long called white(y), and now in effect reduced to people of noncolour – as all other skin hues are proudly united under the flag of “people of colour.” has this not further entrenched division, an us and them outlook that is daily imbued into our contemporary social fabric?
btw – you seem to have a particular perspective, likely shared by many that might be referred to as apologists, that seems to feel a need to single out and demonise white skin: do you honestly believe that no other “identifiable” groups are without their share of pedophiles, rapists, murderers?
my entry also wished to note that it does not at all make sense to forever and a day simply blame another group for one’s issues whilst further taking what seems a too passive approach with regard to addressing the issues that persist. and then, rather than create an at the roots plan/community approach for support and healing, there appears to be an indifference toward, if not an outright encouragement, that forces the most difficult on reserves to simply go and get lost. does that then not throw those most hurting and vulnerable right back into the hands of the society that one is blaming for one’s issues? is that not at all akin to, say, sending female victims of violence to a place administered by men?
frustration: how long does the blame game go on, where one is ever being the victim and pointing an ongoing blame elsewhere? in fact, has the planet not always been about oppressors and victims? has not every peoples, every race, conquered and/or attempted to conquer another? not at all suggesting that that is how it best needs to be. just pointing to the reality that it is not, nor has it not only been, only white folk that behave unacceptably.
get a good look at history – forever to date – peoples conquer for greed, ego, hate, power and wealth. even today, our “heroes” – the very reflection of what we look up to – are mostly a pathetic lot: many with particular and even peculiar talents, though mostly noted for superficial stuff; and then too many are but egotists, greed mongers, sociopaths, even psychopaths…primarily concerned with their fame, power, enrichment and self service.
i note all this because in today’s stupid rendering of history it seems only the light hued peoples have done and do as much; all the rest, the exclusive groups now calling themselves the people of colour, present as though those groups have only ever been god’s quiet and innocent children, victims all… at the bloodied hands of the people of noncolour. again, take a real and honest look at history, and even right now, present times, acknowledge there is violence, oppression, hate, suspicion, greed, self service and it is all alive and frothing in every race and culture at every time and virtually every place on this planet where humans reside… much as it always has been. only now, rather than acknowledge the reality and seek to address the madness, we have only come to create another scapegoat, the people of noncolour.
what makes the present practice of exclusionary divisions and subdivisions all the more nasty and nonsensical, in canada and in lethbridge, is the reality that few canadians are alive today that had anything at all to do with the decisions and outcomes associated with the racism and bigotry and trampling of cultures that came with colonialism? the apologists that buy into the shaming spewing over from the shamers are thus all the harder to comprehend. i am sure we each have at least something for which we are or have been ashamed; but, colonialism? i am most certainly disgusted by colonialism, and much else with regard to how humans behave one to the other, and toward the natural world. but is it accurate and just to believe all people today of noncolour are guilty of, and have to wear shame for, colonialism? nonsense.
ironically, here we are, all alive today, as we sit by and watch much the same old continue to transpire throughout the planet; only, it is ever the moreso wicked. we now have already long accepted the plundering, extincting and poisoning and homogenising of not just the planet’s sundry peoples and cultures – mostly into being digital and consumerist zombies – but we are now further doing as much to the natural systems that sustain our very existence. do we not too joyfully rejoice in globalism? do we not fail to see it for what it really is: a colonialism that is now ever the more damning? look more honestly still, and see that all that are buying are indeed almost all humans on the planet everywhere that can get their hands on the money they so feel they need so as to consume all that they desire.
let me state all that ever the more pithily: if we were to eliminate every person of noncolour, or even simply subjugate them all, will that put an end to any of hate, envy, ego, murder, rape, pedophilia, wars, power and greed mongering, the poisoning, desecration, and destruction of the planet’s flora, fauna and natural systems….?
so that i make this much clear: everyone has a right to be in lethbridge. let us acknowledge, as well, that lethbridge has long already had its underbelly. perhaps, this is what makes the recent spillover of so many more peoples in need all the more difficult to deal with, as we are now over saturated by people in need.
that said, no one has the right to infringe on the rights of another. i am not concerned with skin colour, race, religion – it is all mostly exploited and, in effect, an illusion. wherever we all came from, is it not the same place? should it not be expected that we may return to such a space? do people truly believe that we are at our essence merely the race and skin colour and religion and ethnicity into which we are born and conditioned?
be and experience what you feel you need in order to grow and evolve. but, do not do any of that in the context of special privilege and exclusivity and superiority, nor at the expense of the rights of another.

Last edited 2 years ago by biff
pursuit diver

“….I honestly hope the city is full of Indigenous people and you are surrounded. For every day of your life from now on….”
You need to get some help! We ‘white’ people as you call us pay over $17 billion annually to support the First Nations/Inuit who are taking full benefits, which is about 750,000 of the total 1.3 million. If in fact it filled with indigenous it would soon look like their reserves, dilapidated, unkempt, with water and water treatment issues, massive pot holes in the roads, buildings that should be condemned because they were not kept in repair, corporations relocating to other centers where they can find workers and work with local government and many other negative impacts that would make this city a dump, with wild dogs running around and poverty throughout!
The Kainai Nation has large sections of land that it could have their young people work farming, but they lease it out to non-First Nations who make good money from it while employing their own employees. Instead, their young people end up on our streets, unemployed and addicts after they are banished or asked to leave. No one wants to take responsibility, instead they want to blame everyone else for their plight!
Reconciliation is not going to work under threat! As tourism comes to Lethbridge and sees the display of addicts/homeless on our streets it is going to reflect on the First Nations, not the city! It the Blackfoot Confederation would understand that they cannot force Reconciliation on us and start being responsibilitiy for their issues that have been sent to our streets, our relationship would be much better.
The taxpayer pays them more per capita than most provincially operating budgets, yet people like you also make racist false comments such as “….did you know that white men make up the largest amount of pedophiles, rapists, and serial killers disproportionate to their population?….”
Once again you do not have your facts correct and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls investigations found that there was a disproportionate ratio on reserves of addiction, dometic violence, rapes, child sex abuse and many of the crimes of missing woment were indigenous on indigenous. The lifestyle of many is what is killing them and they will not take responsibility for their own actions. You are a racists and your hateful, false attack should not be removed from this platform.
You also stated that “…the homeless and drug user population in Lethbridge is more than twice as many “white” people than indigenous …” You really have to get your eyes checked! Not much has changed with your spreading of disinformation from the illegal LOPS tent. And there were effects made by indigenous radicals, to have more non-indigenous shipped here by shelters in other cities, treating them like cattles, pawns for their own agendas. Were you part of that? Get your facts straight!
The taxpayer has also just seen the PM pay out over $150 billion in additional payments to the First Nations in the last 3 years for Reconciliation and emergency housing and water treatment funding.
It appears that we cannot do anything right, so maybe it is time to end the Indian Act along with the Treaty money and the indigenous learn to survive on their own instead of demand more and more and more!

Last edited 2 years ago by pursuit diver
Southern Albertan

Again, perhaps it would be a good idea to look to our Medicine Hat folks just down the road a ways, how they successfully dealt with their homelessness issue. Included in their plan was the consideration of their “Community Demographics,’ including “aboriginal people, immigration, recent immigrants, visible minorities, education, employment, income, and income distribution.” Medicine Hat achieved functional zero chronic homelessness. Here is some more of Medicine Hat’s info:
“Community Based Homelessness Initiatives”
http://www.mhchs.ca/homelessness-inititiatives/
This might also be a good read for ideas:
“The Shocking Simple, Surprisingly Cost-Effective Way to End Homelessness. Why aren’t more cities using it?”
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah/
While these solutions may not be 100% perfect, it still, takes effort, and planning to at least improve the situation. Does Lethbridge have a plan? Working on a plan?

Last edited 2 years ago by Southern Albertan
IMO

Thanks for posting both articles which provide models which could be adopted/adapted to meet the specific needs of this City. Adopting Lloyd Pendleton’s “champion method” would be a good place to start.

JimO

Hummmmmm Medicine Hat still has homeless people.

Citi Zen

That’s because Medicine Hat shipped all of them to Lethbridge.

Dennis Bremner

Actually Medicine Hat is somewhat of a Joke within the Downtown Crowd. It has been known for over 4 years now that as soon as an addict becomes a problem in Medicine Hat they load the person up with some cash and send them to Lethbridge. At one point I had first hand comments that someone claiming to be part of MSTH was shuttling all the addicts from Medicine Hat to Lethbridge.
So what Medicine Hat actually did was keep all the Non users or occassional users and solved that problem which on the scale of difficult or easy, its below “too easy”!

buckwheat

Take five Pedro and beat it.