Lazy holidays in the hills

So I am housesitting in Oyama, which would be fine but D isn't with me, therefore I am not putting my full heart into this. The view is exquisite, overlooking two looks and a vineyard in the middle of winter...I feel like I am in one of Bob's paintings, with happy little trees and swishing lakes, etc...

I brought work with me, thinking I would do some of it, since I am essentially stuck here, no car and no way of driving said car. In addition, it snowed heavily the last two days, and even four wheel drives are having issues getting out here, I am truly stuck!! So, one would think I would have time to give to work...ha! I think I developed a serious aversion to it, I am hedging I won't do any of it, because really I have been a good dutiful student and assistant up to this point and I need a break...there I said it. I am taking a break.

The holidays were nice and warm. I got a HUGE crockpot...which I wanted. I really wanted a crockpot so bad for years and years and I finally have one..I really hope it doesn't sit on my counter dormant..it is kinda big and since I only cook for two people I am not sure what will happen. I know I don't have to fill the thing up, but I do...I am sure I must have some ethnic background in me that believes in large amounts of food must be cooked or the world will cease to exist as we know it!! Too bad my freezer wasn't bigger, because I would be down with making a few different things, packaging it up and freezing it for school or work...would make my life that much easier.

I also got the most exquisite one-on-one time with D. He really puts alone time onto another level where we get to be silent, giggly, chatty and happy all at once...I wonder if he knows that I like listening to his voice through his chest.

Okay, now that I have shared, and it was all boring except to me...of I go to do more of NOTHING...ah so NICE!!!

Love you all!

My part

Okay, so Christmas is definitely barrelling down on most of the world's population. The presence of it can be certainly felt here in the Okanagan. Although, I wouldn't call the presence a pleasant one. All I see right now is A LOT of purchasing, scrambling for the right gift, everyone trying to one up the other person. Don't get me wrong, I love gifts, it is so fun to open up a gift and see what the person who gave it to you, thinks of you. Of course I am into the psychology of it all.

This year is also a little more different me. For a long time now, I have been wanting to volunteer, especially with soup kitchens or charity kitchens, I finally got my opportunity and with an organization that I can feel good about helping with. The Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society is an extremely busy place. The programs that run out this place, that assist people in the community with needs, is plentiful. In fact they are so busy that it is often difficult to actually meet with anyone. One has to be prepared to head down there and say "I can help".

I just finished with the Childrens Christmas, which was not much of an eye-opener, although it did clarify some really huge stereotypes I am often confronted with. The aboriginal children were beautiful, hair combed, dresses and pants ironed and clean, always ready with a please and thankyou and stayed close to their parents. The white children didn't fair so well...there was one young boy where my heart went out to him, but I also got a glimpse of a future serial killer...the child scared me and his parents weren't even with him, instead two very disinterested young women accompanied him.

I got to help with making paper bag riendeers...turned out to be not the best idea because there was ALOT of intricate cutting that needed to be done and the kids only had 25mins at each craft table...some tears, some frustration, some complaints and two very frazzled volunteers who could only do what they could do after six hours and over a 150 children. It was great though, for the most part the children were happy to be creative and see Santa, and the parents did their best to help and join in the experience.

This coming weekend I get to be part of "Feed the People". Basically tables are set up and people can come off of the street between 10-3 and get a plate of food. The fare will be traditional christmas trimmings and turkey and potatoes and the whole lot. I think this one will break my heart and give me hope at the same time. The volunteers and the staff are 100% committed to helping in any way they can and my last couple of ventures out volunteering with them has really given me warmth and happiness...also it has saddened me as I hear about the numbers of donations going down, but the number of people in need going up. The people at Ki-Low-Na Friendship Society take in and help whomever they can, with whatever they have and I wonder if more can't be done. Kelowna is a HUGE community with a lot of people who have money, resources and time...but only a fraction of them are seen on Leon...a small fraction.

And again I go back to my research, the need for my kind of research, and hopefully what I am doing will produce something that can be forward looking...and if not, I will be produced and I will continue and maybe with my infectious personality I can start swaying the tide!

Dream big my friends, DREAM BIG!

Right to Adequate Houses

http://www.chbc.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=13538 This link is very important. Especially to me, because it speaks to why my interests and research is so very important. The Okanagan is a lovely place, it is picturesque and mildly seasonal. However, like most communities across the country and around the world the Okanagan has its fair share of social 'problems'.
I remember reading recently that the government felt that poverty was way to expensive to fix. I wouldn't argue with that if I was approaching poverty the same way the government does. Certainly, it is expensive, and so were the ways that most of our people became homeless..."just a paycheque away".
Bruce Porter has written an article in 2004, where he makes a really good argument for the ammendment to the Charter, where housing would be included. This is an idea I support 100%, if not more. I mentioned this idea to a colleague and he responded with, "what do you do if they wreck their home?". I blinked at him and thought about the other freedoms we have under the Charter...speech...religion....and we abuse those and somehow the public finds ways to put people in thier place for that abuse. But what struck me even harder is how willing people are ready to jump to an excuse or reason why the solution to the 'problem' is problematic. Which, when I think on ALL the literature I have read, is why we may have such an exacerbated 'problem' now. Along the line, our country has had a large amount of people who are community minded come up with incredibly viable solutions that will, not only help those who are need, but create a stronger sense of community. Yet, these people have been quashed by excuses and reasons.
I recognize the resistance comes from a history where our country has been moving into the idea "every person for himself", the woman somehow is implied in there. I would argue the individual idea went REALLY wrong. All these countries wanting Independence, and from that hard desire to be an independent nation, inspired an even harder desire to be independent as people. FLAWED.
So, I am in a class with a woman from Ghanna. She is flabbergasted that there is a need for my kind of research. In her country, homelessness doesn't manifest in the same way as it does here, why? Because of aunts, uncles, moms, dads, close friends, bosses....the way she talks about her country is that there is a strong support network within the communities and if the families have to relocate (which says is rare) then the place they are going to usually has a connection for them so that they aren't on the street.
I know have a couple of friends who have first hand experienced the wealth of community. I have even tasted that sweet nectar myself. So I know that when they read this, they will understand what I am talking about. But what about the 30 million people who make up Canada? Do they know what they are missing? And if they did would they be willing to work toward creating a community in their communities??
Here is where the idea of community becomes incredibly fantastic...if we built a community that actually lived by the mandate of what community means, it means there would be no more soup kitchens, no more homeless shelters, no more overcrowded jails, LESSENED crime, lessened occurances of drug addictions, depreciated amounts of poverty and the list goes on...
I am optimistic...maybe not in my life time, but I know it can happen.
And here is the kicker, it would cost the government less money to facilitate a community, to create housing as a right, than it would to solve poverty on the whole...and then maybe shelters wouldn't have to turn away over a hundred women and children during the winter, and maybe men's shelters wouldn't have to create safe places for women to sleep...and just maybe we could put more attention into an issue that we couldn't see because we were being too busy being independent.

Identity, Membership and Affordable housing

Well, I just finished 18 pages of typing about discourse in policy research discussions around affordable housing. And I can safely say I am pissed off...not about the amount of pages I had to write (although that could be the fuel), but about how policy makers make really grand assumptions and EVEN WORSE how that is played out in the local environment.
I actually read a paper that said homeownership produced better and more stable citizens!!! The author of the painfull piece of marginalizing crap actually generated numbers (which he kept saying he didn't have actual stats and still managed to come up with numbers) on how children from rental situations are more likely to be criminal offenders!!
And while this paper was the most blatant piece of writing I had ever seen, the other policy discussions weren't that far behind in their marginalizing discussions about affordable rental housing.
While reading the papers I thought of my own situation. I have never been a homeowner, I have never lived in a home that was owned by my family. I have, all my life, been part of the low-income rental scene. I began to reflect on the ways people talk to me when the find out I am a renter. Always, the discussion comes up about ownership, investment, long term....I generally sit and listen and take it in...but now, after reading a plethora of identity papers around housing and how people in poverty situations become marginalized by notions about home and housing...well now my ears are sensitive. Yes, I am a renter. As a renter, I still pay taxes, I still have to work long hours, I do not wreck property that isn't mine and if I do, I offer to fix it, I have never been charged or sent to jail, while I have dabbled in drug abuse it has never been anything but recreational, and while I may move from place to place, I am a stable person. Yes, I am paying someone else's mortgage, but why should I be persecuted and judged for helping someone else out? (okay I know that is flawed, but work with me)...I am not saying homeowndership is a bad thing (it is freaking expensive and means ALOT of responsibility, which I think I have enough of right now), but neither is being a renter.
So, I follow Bruce Porter, a fellow who adamantly asserts that the Charter needs to be ammended to include housing as a right!! Just like freedom of speech or freedom of religion, everyone in Canada should have the right to a home that is safe, warm and adequate to their needs. Then everyone can back off about why I don't own a home, and my identity can be less about being a renter and more about being ME!!