Pubdate: Sun, 25 Oct 2009 Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC) Copyright: 2009 Times Colonist Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481 Author: Tyytler Macdonald, Times Colonist Note: Tyytler MacDonald lived homeless on Victoria's streets for several months but at this moment has a roof over her head and a lot of gratitude for good friends. A LETTER FROM THE STREETS FOR PM HARPER Canada Abandoning A Whole Class Of Citizens To Homelessness, Poverty Hi, Mr. Harper. You've been on my mind lately, especially on the nights when there has been nowhere for me to sleep but on the streets. They say Marie Antoinette declared "Let them eat cake!" when she heard of Louis's plan to starve Paris into submission. Hungry and desperate, clamouring for the bread promised by their king, Parisians stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789. Does it surprise you, Stevie, that what was promised by the highest person in the land failed to reach the people on the ground? Perhaps Marie's statement was simply the musings of an uneducated woman. Perhaps she thought cake would take less flour. More likely she knew the end was near and that she would pay for the most mindless and insipid governance of her time. Best to keep that in mind, Stevie. Public opinion is driven more by perception than fact. We love the strength of the individual, the hero who pulls himself up by the bootstrap. People living homeless don't get that whole bootstrap thing. We often don't have shoes, so straps are a luxury we don't even think about. Well, homeless I might be, but I'm a Canadian, too. Mr. Prime Minister, you seem to have forgotten that. It must be a wonderful life for the Canadians who actually live in a democratic society. Complacent and calm amid their good fortune, they settle in for a night of television with no awareness of the organized and systemic violence being perpetuated against their fellow citizens out here on the streets. I'm sure the problems of Canada occupy you late into the night, Stevie. I know how you feel -- I lie awake at night, too. How can I not when I'm surrounded by men who think that if they offer me crack, meth or whatever else they might have that I will then spend the night sharing their urine-scented sheets? And if I'm hungry enough, who knows? On the street, a person lives with a constant trepidation that eventually becomes a certain recklessness. I mean, why not say "Yes" to drugs? If you're hungry and have nothing left to lose and your stomach hurts, why not? The bridge to nowhere is waiting anyway. I never thought of myself as a homeless person until early one morning when a perfectly pleasant-looking man passed me as I sat on the ground by the downtown library. With no warning, he whipped his head around and screamed at me: "F---ing addict!" I was perplexed and looked around for the needles I presumed he'd seen around me. But then I realized what had happened. He'd seen the shadow behind me, the shadow chasing me. I felt ashamed. That's the first step to true homelessness -- shame. Well, shame on you, too, Stevie. Unbelievably it's no longer hard to become poor in one of the richest countries on Earth. It just takes a couple of missed paycheques, an unkind bank, a government that hates its own people. How do I live on a disability pension of less than $900 a month? You're the prime minister -- you tell me. Surely you know how much rent costs, and transportation. Surely you know the price of fruit and vegetables. I must confess that in that last example, the prices escape me. Like so many people in my situation, I went so many years without being able to afford fruit and vegetables that I eventually lost my taste for them. Admit it, Stevie. Nine hundred bucks a month is way below the poverty line, and you know it. A girl just can't get ahead unless she gives some, it seems. Bootstrap? How about a chokehold? I'm supposed to house, clothe and feed myself on $900 a month, and do it all legally. Well, I can't. I'm too tired, too hungry and too cold. You're obviously too high up, too disrespectful and too small to understand. It's the denial that kills us all eventually. We die spiritually or we die from "respiratory failure." That one usually happens in the winter. How can you live with that? You are exercising a deliberate blindness. You're like the father who sells his children into slavery. Scared, beaten by brutes, starved into silence. Pimped out for a plate of food and a dry place to sleep. It's a bitter legacy. How is it that a person with enough savvy and smarts to become the leader of our beautiful country deliberately set up an entire class of people to be this poverty-stricken? We've not only lost our homes, but our ability to buy life's most basic essentials. History will judge you. Is this really what you want the world to remember of you? Embrace this opportunity you fought so hard for. Embrace us. Let's do lunch, Stevie. Forget the cake -- I just want the bread. And Stevie? That shadow, the one that's tracking me? Just remember, it's coming for you, too. Tyytler MacDonald lived homeless on Victoria's streets for several months but at this moment has a roof over her head and a lot of gratitude for good friends. - --- MAP posted-by: Jo-D