Since the election, we’ve been promised change, but all I am hearing is talk about a battle between Surrey City Council and the Surrey Police Force. Now, far be it from me to defend cops, but here’s the thing…the RCMP are far worse than actual cops.
Will cops make this community safer? The answer is, only if they genuinely want to.
For Surrey BC to change we need the following:
- Community support workers that are also Trauma and PTSD informed
- Affordable Housing
- Community Support Liason workers to work between schools and police
- Certified Nurses that are trauma-informed
- A city council that is willing to hear the constituents of the city in question
- Low-income transit for long distances
- Affordable grocery stores for those living below the poverty line
- Counselling services for at-risk youth and victims of domestic or gang violence
- Community art programs so that buildings in this city are covered in art, instead of graffiti or green or gray paint.
- Educational supports for at-risk youth that are trauma-informed
We need people who want to be a part of the Surrey BC Community and I’ve said for years that this is not Brenda Locke or Surrey Connect.
Connect to me, is about making connections, and I can’t think of the last time I’ve seen Brenda doing that, without watching her destroy everything in her path.
I could complain about Brenda for hours, but the truth of it is that the most marginalized people in this community are suffering while the rest of us complain. This is why education in Surrey BC is so important.
It’s very easy for people to put “trauma-informed,” on their resume, but there’s no real way to qualify that experience without admitting that you yourself have been deeply traumatized because unless you have, very few of you – and I know this from personal experience and research – know what you’re talking about. HOWEVER “trauma-informed,” sounds great on a resume, so lots of people are using that phrase, without really knowing what it means.
Someone recently said on Twitter the most amazing thing and I think this is something that we should all think about on a regular:
“For some people, your trauma is exhausting, terrifying and even petrifying, for you it’s just another Tuesday.”
Unknown
My Tuesdays are often filled with tears, anxiety, depression, and misery that I mask behind someone who vaguely knows what the hell they are talking about.
“Preventing (homelessness) is almost impossible in this social, political, cultural context,” Lyn Daniels co-chair of the Surrey Urban Indigenous Leadership Committee (SUILC) said. “The housing is so unaffordable and there just isn’t enough.”
Global News
The solution to that is to stop inviting rich developers into this city without clear and honest intentions to build low-income housing, which should fall under the purview of Surrey City Council. This means that redevelopment licenses and grants, as well as permits, come from The City of Surrey, so they are 100% complicit with the fact that there is a -1% housing rate for low-income folks. They are 100% to blame.
There are many organizations who are interested in building low-income housing, but City Council is deliberately blocking the builds, in order to keep “those people,” out of our communities, and I’d just like to remind Surrey BC City council that “those people,” voted for you idiots.
You have a legal responsibility to act in the best interest of ALL people of Surrey, not just some of them.
“Those people,” are those who are considered “low income.” They are disabled, LGTBQ2S+, Black, Indigenous, Asian, and Jewish, folks who have nowhere in this province to go because there isn’t low-income housing anywhere. Which is a death sentence for those of us who live on the poverty spectrum. You are forcing people into into the streets, and killing them with drug addiction, which leads me to safe supply sites.
While the evidence base for safer supply services is still developing, early research findings are promising and show that these services are associated with:
Health Canada
- lower rates of overdose and individual overdose risk
- reductions in the use of fentanyl and other street-acquired substances
- reduced hospital admissions and emergency room visits
- improved connections to general medical care
- improved connections to housing and social supports
- improved connections to care and treatment for people who have not had support services in the past
- decreased criminal activity
- reduced infections
- overall improvements in health and social wellbeing
“In 2018, Icelanders received hopeful news when their government made homelessness a top priority. The city council of Reykjavík passed legislation calling for the building of 25 homes for the homeless population. These homes, with a minimum rent of 40,000 ISK or $363, emerged as a more financially accessible option than the typical Reykjavík home, while also being longer-term solutions in comparison to shelters. To many, this was a heartening call to action in the fight against homelessness in Iceland, as well as a moving example of a community coming together to protect their fellow citizens.“
Aradia Webb
The difference between places like Canada and places like Iceland is that Iceland, New Zealand, and even Ireland, are being proactive about the houselessness problem by acting in their best interest. of the folks who live there. All of them, not just the ones with money in their wallets.
One of the reasons that I’m doing this event, Survivor’s Connection, is because it gives real people the opportunity to speak about a life lived in poverty. So that they can’t ever hear the words “no one said anything,” without being able to respond with “I did.”
It’s important to record these stories of struggle so that those in office have what they need to at least have the option of being informed.
I know that Surrey BC can be as great if not greater a city than Vancouver. I know that one day we will have our own stadiums, I know that one day we’ll have our own casinos and we will be a thriving metropolis, but in order for that to happen, we have to remember that. most vulnerable of us, were and often are, the same people who built this city, to begin with.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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