A Closer Look: Jody Paterson

I'm co-ordinating Homelessness Action Week events this October on behalf of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, including our second annual Project Connect. Here's the press release that will be going out tomorrow - if you're interested in contributing to the week, please see the list of needs below. And if you can volunteer your time for Project Connect on Oct. 14, please let me know. Hope to see you there! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sept. 14, 2009 Service day for street community helps prep for winter cold A service fair next month for people living homeless and in poverty returns for another year with even more on offer for hundreds in the capital region preparing for a cold, wet winter on the streets. Almost 600 people attended Project Connect last year, an all-day event sponsored by the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness and its partners across the region. Organizers are preparing for even higher numbers for this year’s, to be held Oct. 14 at Ou...

Muddy waters hide true level of cuts in BC budget The devil’s in the details, as the saying goes. But good luck trying to find them in the revamped provincial budget if you’re looking to understand where the cuts to provincially funded services are going to hurt the most. What is clear is that somebody’s definitely going to be feeling pain. The revised 2009-10 budget reflects a major downturn in provincial revenue. Government has earmarked almost $2 billion in cuts over the next three years that will come from “administrative efficiencies” inside government, and an additional $1.5 billion in cuts to various community services receiving year-to-year grants. The government calls such grants “discretionary.” What they mean by that is that government is under no obligation to provide the money in the first place, or to keep it coming. Discretionary grants have become a very common but extremely unstable way of funding many kinds of community services. The $159 million or so the government...

Throne Speech foreshadows cuts to come Maybe you’ll be one of the lucky ones and barely feel a blip when the provincial government reveals its retooled budget next week. But in the capital city, in a region dependent on government jobs and provincial funding on all kinds of fronts, there can’t be many of those kind of people out there. My sense is that a lot more are awaiting Tuesday’s budget announcement with trepidation and fear, and this week’s throne speech certainly brought no comfort. Throne speeches are typically pretty vague with the details. They give the flavour of the budget to come, and set the tone. But they don’t actually say what’s going to happen, leaving those who desperately want to know more to read between the lines. The gist of the Aug. 25 throne speech is roughly this: “B.C. is in the grips of something so awful that we couldn’t have imagined it, and we’ve really had to make some tough decisions around spending. But you can trust us to look after what’s important...

Stereotypes getting in way of good care for seniors This is a column about my mom, and the crazy things that can happen when you take ill at 83. My mother is a retired nurse who has done everything right in terms of looking after her health all these years. Despite mobility challenges since being hit by a car in a crosswalk seven years ago, she’s still very much a “tough old broad,” as a friend once described her. But as our family has now come to see, in the eyes of our depersonalized and harried health-care system, she’s just Old Person No. 347,050 on a very long list. And from what she’s been hearing from her friends, that’s just how it is once you cross some invisible line into old age. She has no chronic health conditions. She isn’t on any long-term medication. Up until two months ago, she was travelling, cooking dinner for one friend or another virtually every night she was home, and was an active, engaged community volunteer. Then we went on a family holiday to Tofino in June. ...

Must share this absolutely hilarious link to a Global TV newscast that went wildly to the dogs.

The upside of mental illness - creative brilliance Nice to see mental illness finally getting some good press. The latest news is of a genetic link between creativity and mental illnesses, which seems to confirm once and for all what many other studies over the decades have also found. From the Oracle of Delphi to the great creative talents of today, this thing we call mental illness has been enriching our communities for a very long time. These days, it’s popular to wish for all mental illnesses to be treated and cured. But we’d be a poorer society in so many ways were we ever to achieve that questionable goal. Think of all the beautiful words, paintings, music and design we’d have missed out on over the centuries were it not for the brilliant work of creative people with mental illness. I met a young busker and his friend on the Inner Harbour a couple weeks back, and have been struggling with how to write up their very interesting story without falling into one of those man-with-schi...

We're NOT going to take it - are we? Ever been to one of those meetings where you’re thinking damn, if I have to take another five minutes of this, I’m going to run screaming from the room? BC Ferries has found an easy solution. They just pay their directors to go - $1,500 a pop if you’re there in person, $750 if you phone in. And that’s on top of the $48,000-$58,000 a year the directors are already getting just to be on the board - an amount that’s quite a bit more than the full-year working wage of an average Canadian. What the heck is going on? So much is weird in this world around the things we give value to that I sometimes fantasize about becoming one of those crazed tax resisters holed up in a (sunny) hideaway in some distant land. I mean, really, when IS the revolution? Something dehumanizing must happen to people when they reach the top of the food chain. Otherwise, how could it be that just sitting on a board of directors ends up being worth more than, say, a full year o...