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Be angry at the conditions that have created homelessness

Don’t blame those who are victims, who made “bad choices”
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Editor: The News

I can understand that people are frustrated and angry at the issues associated with homelessness in Maple Ridge.

However, I think it is vital that anger and frustration not be directed at homeless people themselves, but at the conditions that generate homelessness.

In general, people do not become homeless because they’ve made “bad choices.”

Rather, already-vulnerable people are pushed into homelessness because of choices we’ve collectively made about how our society is to be organized. Homelessness is a predictable outcome of a series of market and policy changes over the past few decades. These include cutbacks to social welfare and affordable housing, and the closure of mental hospitals. Housing has become more expensive.

Traditional blue-collar jobs have become part-time and low pay. Urban areas, including Vancouver, have become more polarized: there has been growth at the high and low end of the income range, and a decline in the middle.

Be furious about homelessness; don’t be angry at the homeless. Direct energy at fixing our economic and social systems, not at demonizing those who’ve been hurt by them.

Nicholas Blomley

Maple Ridge