Questions that beg answers of
inquiring minds

Many people are a month or so away from homelessness and nothing will save them but a 'miracle'. I can testify personally to this after over a year of 24/7 job hunting in Abbotsford which yielded zero results. (I'm highly qualified and experienced in corporate communications and office administration and ran my own successful business for almost 8 years; too qualified, was the excuse trotted out if they bothered to respond at all, but not qualified enough for other things. I am a 63 year old woman and health concerns preclude manual labor.)

I, too, am staring homelessness in the face. I am trying to move to Vancouver (where I know no one) but where there are more job opportunities and I think possibly more support. Abbotsford, a closed society, is no place for the desperate. To say it's scary is an understatement.

I, for one, haven't a clue how to manage being homeless, in Abbotsford or elsewhere. I have a small pension of $280/mo., enough to feed me and buy necessary toiletries, etc., but not enough for rent, hydro, phone, internet -- the necessities of life which allow you to look for work intelligently and to actually report for work, once hired, looking and acting like a professional. And you won't be allowed in a supermarket if you're dirty and stinking because you couldn't do laundry or bathe, so where do you turn ...

I certainly cannot be only one in THAT predicament, so I think words of wisdom on how to be 'successfully' homeless would be well received by many.

The ranks of the homeless are going to swell exponentially. It is unfortunate that so many are mental patients and/or addicted to drugs or alcohol, because they have little to no hope and make the whole situation even more terrifying for those of us who are not.

The rest, those of us who would like to work and live decently, need somehow to band together and cooperate with each other, watching each other's backs, so to speak, and forming a mini-community somehow, each bringing something to the table others lack, and perhaps somehow getting people in the group working and living in decent housing. Just a thought and probably an impossibility.

There would be only opposition from the powers that be in Abbotsford however, so better to find out what's available in more progressive cities like Vancouver or Kamloops.