Rhino’s Ramblings - Frozen Fingers And Honest Questions
By Robert Thomas Opinion/Commentary
The weather this past week can best be described as cold.
Or rather should I say extremely cold.
After a non-winter of 2023 the temperatures plunged massively from daytime highs of just above freezing to now in the high -30 C.
If you’re lucky - It’s cold.
It’s also cold - extremely cold in fact for those who find themselves homeless.
Over the last 18 - 24 months we have seemingly been bombarded about the “homeless crisis” which has engulfed the once Friendly City.
It’s something - if you believe the activists - that has made Moose Jaw notorious. It’s on a run away trajectory into the hundreds in some people’s minds.
And alas the entire debate has made MJ Independent public enemy number one in the mind of numerous activists - OK many on the left of the political spectrum - in the community.
It’s not something I am really going to lose any sleep over as if we are on the public enemies list so to are hundreds of others in the community.
So what is our greatest sin?
Simple - we ask too many questions.
Or should I say we ask the questions which should be asked and others prefer not to ask for fear of rocking the boat.
Questions which needed to be and never were asked by far too many.
A local media enamoured, stupefied or worse yet active participants in the story they cover.
The good old days in too many Moose Jaw newsrooms.
As I’m told by a senior reporter I know in the Regina media “the Moose Jaw media lie.”
But really what put the MJ Independent on the activists’ shit list. Simple we questioned them.
A simple question - “Who are or what makes up SquareOne?”
Never was answered.
It’s a question we asked the group’s chair Della Ferguson by email months and months ago but we never were given a clear answer.
We were fed back a list of the good things SquareOne has done but never were we ever told who specifically comprised the group.
Who was behind it.
It’s a question we put to Mayor Clive Tolley in a post Council presser and he could not tell us exactly who was part of SquareOne.
The Mayor did say they were local people with good intentions but once again the answers we wanted to know were not provided.
It made me wonder who was behind such a motherhood event.
The other question we asked was about the homeless numbers bandied about.
How could there be 107 people homeless in Moose Jaw when Prince Albert only had 99? How is that demographically possible?
This one really landed us in hot water because I suppose how dare we question “the facts”.
But given who provided the figure is in public disgrace - the now defunct Moose Jaw Pride’s manager - is it not time to get correct figures so as to more effectively target any public funding?
We thought so but others didn’t.
Those two questions put MJ Independent on the shit list of more than a few left wing groups in the city.
We became persona non grata so to speak when it comes to press releases on a whole multitude of issues.
Issues which spend heaps of public tax money that I have to cut a cheque for before the end of April.
You know how dare we, as media, question a sacred cow so carefully constructed by conjecture and widely placed myth that it has to be true.
How dare we as well I suppose by using our own tailored measuring system - night workers, night hawks, our own count and a more than a couple of emergency workers - to state the number of homeless in Moose Jaw was most likely 25 - 30 people.
That it was not 107 as given Prince Albert was reporting 99 homeless. Demographically it didn’t make sense. And still doesn’t.
We had the answer over a year ahead of the Point In Time count conducted by SquareOne.
It led to the next statement that simply throwing money at the problem was not or never will solve the problem of homelessness.
Unless you’re part of the bureaucracy.
Use to having money thrown at you as part of the cause de jour. Government grant farmers I called them in an earlier column.
You live off of grants on a continual basis over decades but really is it just lip service on yet another issue?
What is the plan to eradicate homelessness in Moose Jaw?
In many ways the initial give us money cry and we will solve the local homeless crisis is not really that much different than the cry which has gone on nationwide.
It is something Canada’s auditor general noticed in her report just over a year ago.
The federal government was pouring more and more money into the national homelessness crisis but had not measured the effect that money had had.
Was the money helping? Nobody knew.
And worst yet homelessness had actually increased over the same time the federal government was pouring hundreds of millions into to fix.
On a national scale simply throwing money at homelessness was not working. In fact it was an abysmal failure.
Given the national failure is there any evidence the same strategy would work here in Moose Jaw?
For SquareOne the result was a massive failure.
It can be argued their sticking to false and unconfirmed figures cost the homeless a year of the help they desperately need.
Government funding comes from facts and empirical evidence - not made up numbers.
Presently there is no government funding for a proposed heating/cooling centre and women’s shelter.
People who are homeless and who might benefit are left out in the cold. Literally.
And by the looks of things is if the Province ever does provide funding to hopefully eliminate homelessness it won’t be flowing through NGOs. Or at least SquareOne.
Be prepared for an announcement at the end of the month involving the Province and the John Howard Society at the former SaskTel building. SquareOne is cut out of the deck.
Sadly the whole thing has gone political.
It’s turned into a Government versus the Opposition issue and the entire dynamic has changed.
This is no longer about humanity and caring it’s gone political with the homeless and addicted left out on the cold streets.
There are committees and working groups looking at the problem but they are anonymous of course.
None of which is ever going to build public trust in an issue which has divided the community.
We’ve started to publicly witness the true feelings of the Downtown business community and they are not very happy with the homeless and the associated addicts hanging out near their stores.
It’s a cry that the crimes associated with the homeless and addictions is changing the Downtown and not for the betterment of their businesses. Or the City if you want the truth.
They’ve shown up and spoken before Council and it is not a coddling hand they’re seeking but an iron gauntlet to come down on crime.
The time for compassion is gone as Council is being asked to devote resources to move these people along.
Poverty, despair and hopelessness is up against fear, anger and shock so to speak as the problem seemingly gets worse.
And what is the government’s response.
In one word it is mute.
Last week I called the office of my local MLA Tim McLeod to ask him a simple question and that is if someone finds themself homeless where can they turn in the bitter cold?
After being assured the Minister would respond by his assistant there was no response.
It almost seems that’s another wrong question to ask as media.
I was asking the question to help clear up accusations there was no place for those freezing to turn to.
It really has become a world of accusations and secrecy where the people who need help are left out in the cold.
On Sunday I learnt of a man who has no heat in his home and ended up in the emergency department of the local hospital this weekend.
I was told that after being looked at the gentleman was released in the middle of the night but instead stayed in the cafeteria area of the Wigmore Hospital. He had no warm place to go.
His fingers were “swollen up like sausages” is how his condition was described to me.
Of course the activists were called and the response was “call the police.”
That in the end is what is so sad here we have groups almost literally locked in combat out to win the hearts and minds of the general public but they have no answers.
Two years have been wasted.