Speaking of Houses and Homes...

Ironic that the day after I write about wanting a home God hits me with this...
I went to an amazing seminar on "Homelessness in the Greater Vancouver Region" tonight. Dr. Jim Frankish was the speaker, a psycologist and professor from UBC, what an amazing man. If you ever get the chance to hear him speak ... GO!! I want to share with you some of the quotes and stats we heard, I dont begin to do justice to the volumes of research, time and care this man and many others have spent on the subject but here is a snipet of the wisdom. I dont claim to agree with it all but it causes you to think, none the less....

~"People should not be blamed for failing to act on resources they don't have... help people to become more reliant on the resources they DO have.."
~40-45% of Canadians fall into the bottom 2 levels of literacy.
~ Supportive housing led to a per-person cost reduction of $16,282 in health care costs but a $995 gain in housing costs.
~Since 2002 the population of homeless people counted rose 800 persons.
~ the concept of "harm reduction"... "people will not stop doing the bad things so why not try to reduce the harm with programs like the needle exchange, Naomi Project or wet housing?"
~"you better think about where you are going or you might end up somewhere else" Yogi Beara (spelling?)
~"If we want more evidence based practice we need mor practice based evidence" Larry Green

... food for thought...