What's Your Definition of Poverty?

 Living on Salt Spring Island has given me some minor insight into how it might feel to live in a developing country, always being judged or being felt sorry for by citizens of financially wealthier countries.

We feel sorry for them, peering in as outsiders and yet, perhaps, their lives are rich with family connections we've long ago lost and gratitude in simplicity that so many can’t find.

I'm not saying that being financially poor is all that desirable, but we so often forget how many other forms of poverty exist when our metering stick is only related to bank accounts.

I've been thinking about living here lately and not having much money and how that leads, by sheer necessity, to living a more environmentally-conscious existence.

You can't afford to buy new clothes so you shop at thrift stores and in that way you're recycling perfectly good items/clothing anyway. Your wardrobe can be small here so you need fewer items. Thrift stores have cool stuff.

Aware of how much gas is costing, I try to limit my visits to town re-arranging my visits to coincide with other activities or ensuring I do everything I need to do at once, as much as possible 

The market on Saturday's provides immense opportunities for socializing with other islanders and with visitors.

Creative pursuits require a turning inward and my mind is alive with the content and possibilities.

It's so easy to get to where I need to go not having to worry about traffic, parking, getting on the freeway to get downtown and therefore, I partake in as many, if not more, activities.

It’s true, I won’t be jetting off to Hawaii or Mexico or Tahita (because I can’t afford a plane ticket) but I won’t be contributing to global warming in that way either.

I can go to the library for books and videos or when I drop off my recycling, I can pop into the little hut where everyone drops off books and magazines and get some for free.

This week I spent a lot of time writing queries, completing two articles for a magazine and because I get up so early, usually around 6:30 am, and I’m almost always at my computer by 7:00 am, by 2:00 pm, I’ve put in a 7 hour day. If there’s work that needs to be done, I can usually focus on it.

In the afternoon on two of those days, I went for a walk and spotted four eagles on the beach at low tide and watched them in awe for quite a while. I lucked out and managed to get a decent shot of the one above as it flew off the tree right above me. While there, I had an enlightening conversation with a man I’d never met, also an islander, named John. We talked about the election and what’s been going on in the U.S. and there was no ranting to be heard.  On a second afternoon, I went to a favourite barn and ran into a friend, also taking photographs and managed to get into the zone, that place where you’re not longer getting in your own way and immersed in the moment. 

I was invited to dinner by two different friends. I took in a jazz concert at ArtSpring, sold some photographs at the Saturday Market and now will get to hear Alexandra Morton speak about salmon in a talk she's giving tonight at Fulford Hall.

If I had a garden, I’m not sure where that would fit into my dailiness.  If I really want a garden, it’s possible to have one. Other islanders offer their land in an exchange for some labour.

It’s true, my financial resources are extremely limited, and yet, I am busy and engaged and like most people on the island that I know, can barely keep up with everything they are working on.
 
Is that poverty? I don’t think so.

Poverty: Is it really their fault?

 There is no such thing as poverty in nature

 I wanted to write something about my experience working at the island's employment centre now that I've decided to move on, but, for whatever reason, I always have trouble writing about those things in my life that have affected me deeply. Then, yesterday, I saw the story in The Victoria Times Colonist about the Salvation Army's Dignity Project. A project that referred to the results of a poll conducted by Ipsos Reid in January 2011 on 1,025 Canadians in order to gather their perceptions on  people who are financially poor.  

I read the absolutely astounding figure (how can that be accurate?) that 50% of the people polled believe that a family of 4 should be able to live off $30,000 a year.  About one in 11 people in Canada lives in poverty and that number, according to Statistics Canada, has remained stable in the past decade. Picture children. In B.C. and Canada, they are a large number of the poor. This poll made me angry because, once again, the complexity of the human condition, through a poll, is reduced to unhelpful simplicity. 

Almost 25% of those polled said that poor people are in that position because "they are lazy" and they have "lower moral values" than those who are not poor. 

But, having worked at the employment centre on Salt Spring Island, what I mostly came to understand, or deduce, were circumstances that began so much earlier in a person's life to shape their current challenging realities. What I saw was the very reason why the philosophy behind The Centre for Child Honouring needs to exist.

Perhaps you`ve heard the statement `Hurt people hurt people. And, hurt families hurt each member. The results of that hurt can haunt people for life. The results show up in a lack of self esteem that leads to addictions. I saw mental health conditions that dampened potential.  Occasionally, very rarely, I saw laziness. 


Judging people who are poor does not  allow room for understanding about what it's like to be raised by alcoholics or drug addicts. It has no room for learning disabilities or sexual abuse endured as a child. There's no time to care about what it must be like to be a First Nations person in Canada or to have survived residential school, to live with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or to have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome through no fault of your own. So much for overcoming disabling bouts of depression as a result of circumstances that may have led to it in the first place.

Myths about poverty do not take into consideration what life might be like if both your parents died when you were an infant. Stereotypes about the poor being  lazy do not account for all those people known as `the working poor` who have more than one nearly minimum-wage job. There is no acknowlegement about the reality of people who are driven to create - artists, writers, musicians, poets, actors - often poor because of how little their talents are valued in a world where money seems to have become the exclusive form of currency.

The moral superiority and false security that stems from having more than enough money does not believe in the existence of `bad luck`. It doesn`t dare allow for the realities of  illness and accidents, especially without insurance. There is no accounting for how the actions from our past lives may play a part in current realities regardless of your moral fortitude.

When did our value as human beings become so entangled with how much money an external force decided we were worth?  I`ve known what it`s like to have very little money. I know it now. I have also known what it`s like to live off a salary as a single person that some families of four can only imagine. Neither circumstance changed who I am at the core of my being.

One of the things that the job at the employment centre showed me about myself that I`m really glad to know is that I do have the ability to look beyond someone`s current circumstances, however wretched, and see their spirit.

Yes, for sure, I would lose my patience. There were days of judgment and annoyance and disbelief and dislike and exasperation but always, I could usually overcome my surface reaction and see the heart and soul behind behaviours that were, in the moment, blocking a clear view of every unique self that walked through the door. My co-worker could do the same. I believe it may be one of the most important requirement to work there or perhaps to work with people in general.  

All these poll results say to me is that too many of us are still so extremely judgmental, especially of that which we most fear.

Salt Spring's Paupers In Paradise

Someone came into the office today and said, "I've found a place to live. It's a garden shed. One step towards the first world," he said with a wry laugh.

But, in fact, he was happy. He even looked happier. "It's all relative," I thought realizing how wrong that thought was in this instance when it comes to people having some place to live that has electricity and a bathroom and a kitchen.

He had a place to put his stuff which, from what I've seen, consists of what he can put in a large knapsack and a sleeping bag.
"Is it a dirt floor?" I ask.
"No, it's raised," he said.
"Do you have a bed?"
"I have a sleeping bag," he said.
"Maybe I could get you a housewarming gift," I said, half seriously which might seem a bit cold and crass but I've been seeing this guy every day for almost 2 years in the office so I can talk to him like that and he gets my humour.

"What would you like? Do you have a flashlight?
"How about a padlock?" he said.

Just a few hours earlier the day started off with a different story.

"Did you know there's a castle on the island?" said the taxi driver with the Class 1 licence who has to leave soon because he isn't making enough money driving cab in spite of working 70 hour weeks.

"I just picked the guy up from Salt Spring Air. Drove him straight up Mount Belcher. He's from Ireland. A doctor. 10,000 square feet."

"Does it look like a castle?" I said.
"It's amazing. I was standing on the deck and you can see Mount Baker and the Lions and everything," he said.

"Does he live there all by himself?," I ask, not able to contain the disdain in my voice.
"What does he need 10,000 square feet for?"  The kitchen's 3,000 square feet he said and I wondered if that figure could possibly be accurate.

"Well, at least it was nice of him to let you  go inside and take a look," I said as a concessionary afterthought.

Someone really needs to organize a home and garden tour of the amazing homes and gardens on this island, sell tickets and make a lot of money to raise money for social housing. But, even if they did, the Islands Trust might not permit it and even they did permit it, they might still be discussing it a decade from now even though the housing crisis has been around for longer than a decade past. Islanders for self government are barking out the wrong message. It's not islanders for self government. It should be Islanders for the ethical treatment of people.

Even the social housing here costs way too much  if the figures I've heard are accurate. A two bedroom at Murakami Gardens (a 3-story apartment block) that's designated as social housing costs $845 per month. Who can afford that when they're broke and making $10 an hour?

When long-time resident Richard Murakami donated land in the middle of Ganges, he was being generous and his heart was in the right place, but from what I've heard, the outcome has been a bit of a failure. Murakami Gardens costs too much. There are too many problems because of the behaviours of the people who end up living there and in general, the concept has gone seriously sideways in reality.

I had someone come in and tell me a story a month or two ago.
She was out with a friend. He dropped her off down the block instead of in front of Murakami Gardens where she lives.
She said, What are you doing? Why aren't you dropping me off in front of my place?"
"I'm not going near 'the projects'" he said.

"The Projects? What are you talking about? Are you referring to where I live as 'the projects,' she said. "I couldn't believe he said that."

 "It's disgusting! I have a 14 year old daughter. There's people openly doing drugs. You hear people yelling. The cops come at least once a week."

"When my 14 year old daughter comes in the main door she stops and listens to see if anyone is in the hall and then she runs to our door. That's not what Richard Murakami had in mind. It's a disgrace that his idea and good intent with his name on it has turned into what it is. I have to get out of there. I can't stand it. They're not strict enough. They keep giving people 2nd and 3rd chances when they should just be out the door."

While people with houses are sitting in their marble countertopped kitchens sipping their Lattes and putting their sirloin on their gas grills, too many people are living in absolute squalor exhausted from surviving day by day, tired of moving in hopes of finding a decent landlord and a place that doesn't have excessive mould or mildew beaten down from the day job that pays somewhere between $8.00 and $15.00 per hour, typically part-time.

I'm sure there are people who think, too bad. It's costly to live in Paradise. And, that's true except at some point they'll be the only one's here. Then, who'll be left to serve them dinner at Hastings House, do the dishes, clean their houses, pick up their garbage, groom their precious pooches and dare I say it, wipe their 85-year-old tattooed asses when they forget why it is they accummulated all that stuff that wouldn't fit into the single box of a room they live in and can't find their way back to from the dining area?

How Do You Define Poverty?

Today is Blog Action Day where a whole bunch of bloggers write on the same topic and this year's topic happens to be poverty.

In some ways it seems pretty inane like a lot of what gets written about on my blog daily. Who cares? Just a bunch of words about poverty. How is that going to matter? Really?

The idea is to write about anything that matters to you or means something to you in relation to poverty. And, some people are doing some very concrete things to contribute cash to specific causes. I'm not. I'm a little short on cash at the moment. But, do I feel poor? No. Not at all.

So what I wanted to write about right now that rings true to me is about how we have become so short-sighted and in the grasp of an economic system that doesn't appear to work for anyone but the richest of the richest (and not even them right now - or perhaps especially not them right now) that we've forgotten that it's possible to define poverty in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with money.

And I guess if you think about Maslow's Hierarchy of Need then it's not possible to think about the word poverty without thinking about money first because until you have food and shelter sorted out then you can't even begin to think about other areas of your life. Your days are about survival. And, as a result your human spirit is robbed on a daily basis of any form of joy because it is usurped by worry and need and you haven't got a hope of hell of being the best person you could be. You are as far from self-actualization as it gets.

But poverty can be so many things: It can be addiction. A lack of love. Fear. A lack of friendships. A lack of compassion. A lack of belief in self. An inability to forgive. It can be a life completely out of balance and focused on one area at the expense of all others. It can be homophobia. Racism. Mysogyny. Physical illness. It can be ignorance.

But, because we live in a world of tangibles, I'll say it again because I've said it before. If you live in North America and you currently are not in the habit of donating either your time or a portion of money to some specific cause that matters to you then you need to really ask yourself why not? Why are you living your life from a place of scarcity thinking that you don't have enough?

If you were really honest with yourself you would know that the belief that you don't have enough is a lie that has arisen because you have become short sighted in how you define wealth. Because, let's face it, in the end, we're all on a journey that will force us to give up even the clothes on our backs. It's called death.

Less is more!