good perception yourself Bailey

This place, First United Church, and the staff who work there, accept anyone to their shelter regardless of income or situation. This is the unconditional love, compassion and loyalty so needed, in order to even try to attempt to bring resolution, or solution, to broken lives.

A complete contrast to the “conditional compassion” continually demonstrated by this government.

The people who reside in, or just attend First United, need assistance to repair their lives, not condescension from the government or the minister responsible.

It is interesting to note while this minister likes to penny pinch in public the only people this government attacks and withdraws services from are the very people who are never in the position of having the ability to fight back.

Apparently according to this government, the people who live, attend, or work at First United are expendable.

As a matter of fact, according to this government, all British Columbians are expendable, as we watch our environment destroyed, and see programs implemented that damage the quality of our lives here in this province.

We never see this government take funding away from the fish farmers, the subsidies to gas and oil, the IPP’s, stupid lawsuits over poor governmental decision making….etc. etc.

Coleman has done a poor job of disguising his contempt for what British Columbians hold dear in their lives; compassion for all.

As far as Coleman is concerned EDITED FOR OFFENSIVE REMARK -- TYEE MODERATOR

Why Weight?

Pretty lame and a huge double standard to speak of compassion for all and then attack a public figure for their appearance. It weakens your argument.

Weight and unfit is the side effect Chris,

Of not caring for self. If a person cannot find the strength or wherewithal to care for one’s own health how could they ever completely understand how to care for another persons health and well being?

That is the context is which I wrote the statement. It was an observation. Perhaps poorly worded; the mods thought so.

That's NOT what (s)he said

P.R.

Your now expurgated comments made no connection to caring for others. You did say that Mr. Coleman would expire soon enough due to his lifestyle choices and as such, not to worry terribly about his impact on the situation. I have no love for the province's approach to dealing with homelessness, addiction, and poverty, nor it's inability to understand the inextricable link between all three, but gee whiz, don't treat me like an idiot that misunderstood your original comments. thx - CK

Fairness to pianosauri

In all fairness, while I didn't see the comment deleted by the moderator, I have also observed the stunning contempt in Minister Coleman's general demeanor in interviews. His body language and dismissive attitude is clear to read.

This is a man who seems to consider himself unconnected to the topics under discussion. He tends to lean back far in his chair, like one so bored he need not even remain upright. When asked questions that point to the failure of his ministry to even acknowledge the problem they exist to cure, he almost invariably answers some other question, one that incorporates the messages of the general spin.

He will suggest, but never outright state, that the homeless:

(a) choose of their own free will to be sick and destroyed and abandoned because they like it, so they should be left alone.

(b) are anyway the authors of their own misfortunes, ie 'if they only worked as hard as me they would also be rich and getting richer like I am'

(c) not really any business of the rest of us, this argument seems to be along the lines of 'Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?'

None of these things are true. British Columbians and Canadians generally agreed in a series of decisions since the World War to be highly taxed in order to provide a decent life for all who must live in this climate. To provide for the old and the sick and the disabled whatever their circumstances.

If the recent governments hadn't given away the enormous infrastructure that money built to a corporate group who continually rail that if people are allowed to provide for themselves through collective action corporations will not be able to loot their lives by creating artificial scarcities and then ratcheting up their fee for providing that same decent life commercially.

They have closed hospitals and sold the inmates to slumlords at so much a month, then fired the overseers who might have protected them from abuse. They have provided for unregulated profiteering on the part of landlords, realestate brokers banks and insurance companies.

They have sold highways and ferries, hospitals and the people who work in them, everything we bought and paid for with those taxes, and they have counted on the fact that recent immigrants to our shores will not realize the history, so will not object to seeing these services as private fiefdoms.

We can regret any ad hominam remarks that may have been made about this representative of our shame, but we can certainly understand the emotions that lay behind such remarks.

Pianosaurus Rex

"If a person cannot find the strength or wherewithal to care for one’s own health how could they ever completely understand how to care for another persons health and well being?"

Are you suggesting that we should have a debate as to whether fat people should be excluded from working within the health care system? Perhaps anoxerics and bulemics too? You seem to be suggesting that ideally some standards should be set. What is your ideal size for a nurse?

realisticman

ARe you really serious with that comment above?

crh

I'm interested in whether Pianosaurus Rex is really serious about HIS comment. Chris Keam says that Pianosaurus Rex said that "Mr. Coleman would expire soon enough due to his lifestyle choices...". He went on to question his competence. Ask him what he means.

The homeless and helpless are no problem, under the carpet

All we need a sufficiently-large broom and we can sweep them out of sight. It may sound cynical and sarcastic, and it is meant to be. We have been sweeping the human dust under the carpet for so long, why stop now, just when they are gettng used to it?

Who was it said, "The poor ye shall have with you always"?

The homeless and helpless are no problem, under the carpet

All we need a sufficiently-large broom and we can sweep them out of sight. It may sound cynical and sarcastic, and it is meant to be. We have been sweeping the human dust under the carpet for so long, why stop now, just when they are gettng used to it?

Who was it said, "The poor ye shall have with you always"?

response sservant

First is not "experimenting" and the other two you mention are not necessarily better. Obviously you have a bias, however, let us all be clear that your bias does not negate the need for and value of what First United does. (unless you are trying to get them closed??)

Who's in the wrong place

How does anyone close and lock the door on someone turning blue and shivering with cold?

How does anyone think it's OK to make money on helpless and homeless people by calling bug infested and unsafe premises a home?

You can think all day about logical and intellectual considerations, but the outcome is almost always unsatisfactory. In a well researched and meaningful book titled "How We Decide" by Jonah Lehrer it has been scientifically demonstrated that the more complicated the problem is to solve then our emotional and intuitive choices work the best. For simple solutions logic works just fine.

The research showed that people facing complicated choices made better choices by how they felt than by what they thought. And they were happier about those choices over time.

Recent medical research shows that our heart is made up of about 65% of neuron cells. This means our heart is an intelligence centre, but not at all like our frontal cortex.

You can test this out by trying to comprehend infinity, or what it means to love. Our mind struggles to grasp infinity in real terms and can only treat it as a concept, not an experience. Your heart understands love and it experiences the infinite nature of love, even though no words come to mind.

This is why it is so important that we do not just analyse a problem, we need to feel it also, and we need to listen to the wisdom of our hearts.

First United is doing just that when they turn no one away. This is not a logical choice in many ways, but it is infinite wisdom at work.

Think about it in terms of the works being produced. Will anyone care about Mr. Coleman in 10 or 20 years time? What will people acknowledge about First United in 10 or 20 years?

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

Rev. Ric Matthews revealed at yet another emergency staff meeting today that he had received his walking papers from the presbetry as did his "assistant" /Director of Operations, Gillian Rhodes, and Deputy Executive Rev. Sandra Severs. First off, I cannot begin to describe the amount of joy I feel knowing that that long-winded, snake charmer Matthews is no longer able to play God with the lives of so many including the very people he is claiming to help as well as his staff. I am not however, at a loss for words when describing the amount of corruption I have witnessed with management behind the scenes at First over the years. That house needs a good cleaning and laying off Ric, Gillian and Sandra is a good place to start. I have many questions regarding the reprimanding these three receive. My first question is about the amount of severance these 3 will receive from the United Church of Canada. My second question is how Severs and Matthews will continue to maintain ownership of the houses that have been bought for them by the United Church of Canada while potentially hundreds of homeless get booted to the curb as a result of Matthews and Severs reckless, shamless, and selfserving actions. I also wonder how both their spouses, Nina Matthews and Don Collette, maintain their relatively high salaried and frankly, most undeserved positions while many of those staff actually working on the frontline at First will likely be unemployed in the early New Year.

This Christmas season I pray that the United Church of Canada does not simply just shuffle Matthews and Severs to another clergy post and location, but instead performs and publicly shares a thorough and investigative report into all of their selfserving actions including the authoritarian and abusive work environment that Matthews has implemented and until now, maintained.

There, but for the grace of, god go I

It is very easy to be critical of the work of others who house the homeless, when your door is locked and the heat is turned up. We deride the Victorian workhouses, but are the dirty rat-infested single-occupancy rooming houses any better? Add to that the bedbugs and you have similar conditions to those that created the Black Death. There are people living a Third World existence in our city centres, neever mind on the reserves.

There, but for the grace of, god go I

It is very easy to be critical of the work of others who house the homeless, when your door is locked and the heat is turned up. We deride the Victorian workhouses, but are the dirty rat-infested single-occupancy rooming houses any better? Add to that the bedbugs and you have similar conditions to those that created the Black Death. There are people living a Third World existence in our city centres, neever mind on the reserves.

F.U.C. Survivor

Wow! I've just been cruising some of the media to understand this situation a little better, and you are EVERYWHERE! But not quite so vicious as you are here...:) You're a disgruntled former employee, correct?