Dear Editor,
As a person with a disability who has faced any combination of them at any given time of my life, and lives basically one false move from homelessness myself, I feel we should expand that definition to increase societal understanding.
Most people assume that a disability means physical or mental, and the next two, legal and financial, are less obvious, but there are so many more, starting with societal stigmas and prejudices.
Any combination of which can not only lead anyone into homelessness. But once you are in that loop, very few can escape because mental illness and addictions breed and thrive in that street camper scenario.
But any politician who tries to get my vote trying to “fix” the problem is either dreaming or delusional because their efforts are undermined by forces much larger than them.
For example: Why, when poppies and coca don’t grow anywhere in North America, are we so inundated with cocaine and heroin?
But at least we gave up criminalizing users, so maybe somebody further up the ivory tower realized the hypocrisy.
My final observation goes back to the 1960s, and the root of why the majority of homeless and voluntary suicides are men.
Ever since the equal rights amendment and divorce reform acts of 1968, marginally employable men have been displaced from the workforce, and those who couldn’t compete have lost their way, and now have a suicide rate four times higher than women.
But that isn’t because we attempt it any more often than women.
The rate is pretty much the same there, it is because we are better at it.
I guess some things never change, but I sure miss the ’60s.
Danny Halmo, Langley
