Greeetings.

There have been some very kind comments on this particular blog which appears to have touched the lives of a number of people. I hope it has helped some. If it has helped at least one person then it is all worth while. All it takes is one. I started working on this subject in 2007 just after returning from New Zealand. Even on Queen Street in downtown Auckland I did not see the devastation of humanity struck by mental illness, and having no access to health services, as I did in Calgary at that time. And, of course, we have free health care and excellent facilities to care for those who are mentally ill. Hell, we even have ways of "curing" mental illness under certain circumstances. I think we are the only country to actually find a cure, which is written about in the Federal Minister of Health's Report called "The Face of Mental Illness". The report describes more of a recovery process rather than a cure, probably because if you do suffer from mental illness, you've probably had it all your life so there is not exactly a cure but a recovery into a way of life you have not experienced before. A life of sanity and peace. And the depth of character and strength that comes from such a recovery is very special and reserved only for those who have passed through the crucible of tests that come with this deadly and often fatal disease.

So, after being away for a bit, I am returning. Things are a lot different now. Calgary has reduced its homeless population by 46%. That is nothing short of a miracle. They say Medicine Hat has eliminated its homelessness problem, but there is a huge difference between a town like Medicine Hat and a city like Calgary. Not to take anything away from Medicine Hat and the efforts of that town to resolve the plight of so many. Calgary has a lot more people and attracts the transient population. It's what makes Calgary, Calgary. And Calgary does have more money and should be able to provide services to those who are mentally ill and homeless. First off, just because you are homeless, does not mean you are mentally ill. But if you are mentally ill, you are going to end up being homeless. It goes with the territory. People shun mentally ill people. That includes relatives and friends. Mentally ill people are very lonely, which drives them to deeper depths of mental illness. And they can't keep a job and sometimes self-medicate and can't look after themselves and eventually end up on the street because the street is the only place which will welcome them. It becomes home. Mentally ill people are not bad people or in any way evil; they are sick; they have a disease. And there is overwhelming evidence that this disease is the result of trauma in early childhood.

I worked at the D.I., the Drop-In Centre, in Calgary for four  months in the winter, night shift, at the front door handling extreme intox -- extreme intoxication. I had to carry a lot of very drunk people to their beds. Shower them. Sometimes sew up knife wounds with a needle and thread. There were never enough bandages or first aid equipment and material. We had a de-fibrillating unit and used it a few times. We lost 12 people frozen to death in the snow within easy walking distance to the centre. As far as I know, everyone in there had been involved with the Children's Foster Program of the Alberta Government. Every one of them had a major trauma between themselves and their birth parents. They were on their own. They were homeless. Some of them, not that big a percentage, were mentally ill. And we had to fight tooth and nail with the provincial health authorities to provide medical services for those suffering mental illness. Eventually the staff at the centre called the bluff of the health authorities. You see, if someone was having a problem with the symptoms of mental illness, or we know of someone who was definitely mentally ill, we called the cops and had them taken to a psych ward. Of course, in about 2 hours the person would be released and back on the street. And the cops would pick them up and bring them back to the centre. So we waited until the cops had gone and then called them again. We kept doing that, playing ping pong with the psych ward using the poor mentally ill person as a ping pong ball, until the health authorities finally caved in and started to provide medical services for the people we sent them. It was a lot cheaper to keep them in a psych ward, where they belonged, than to release them, because they would just end up back with us and we were using up a lot of police time and effort. And the psych wards are actually pretty good. If someone can get in there long enough to have some treatment like regular therapy, like twice a day, and supervision of medications, then they have at least a chance. Just giving someone a prescription for medication with no way to buy it and evicting them onto the street is not an effective way of treating mental illness. It is a waste of public money. It's expensive. In  Calgary, the Dickensonian mental institutions of the 1800s are gone. Psych wards are in hospitals and have doctors: psychiatrists even. They are paid to treat mentally ill people. It's their job. Throwing mentally ill people back on the street stops the shrinks from doing their job and is a total waste of money. It's cheaper to treat them and put them on a healing path.

According to The Face of Mental Illness, and I have written about this before, the path of recovery from mental illness requires three things:

1. The patient must accept responsibility for their illness. That does not mean it is their fault; it means they are the only ones who can cure their disease. Everybody else is there to help, but the patient is the one who has to figure out how to cure the disease. And curing the disease can take up to 15 years. It is not going to be cured overnight.

2. The patient must accept responsibility for their medications. The medications do not belong to the psychiatrist or the social worker or the nurse or anybody else; it is the patient's disease and no one else's and it is the patients medications and no one else's. The patient, in consultation with their shrink,  must manage and determine the amount of medication. And don't rock your meds. Keep at a steady level of meds for at least three months before making a change and go slow. If there is an obvious overdose of meds, then tone it down but only if the shrink says it's ok to do so. Don't rock your meds. Slow and steady wins the race. And don't argue; you will need the meds. You're not going to win without meds. And you're not going to win without a psychiatrist. A counsellor, psychologist or social worker ain't going to cut it; you need a professional. You need a shrink. Use the shrink and don't dick around about your meds. You may need to take them for ten to 15 years. It is highly unlikely you will have to take them forever, although that does happen but it is rare. Take responsibility, choose to get better, find a shrink and take your meds. Go slow.

3. The patient must have a circle of support. This can be very close friends or family or both. They have to love the patient so much that they will be there for them for 15 years provided the patient has gone through steps one and two. And nobody has to play the fool. If the patient refuses to accept responsibility and choose to get better, refuses to find a shrink to work with and refuses to use meds to get better, you cannot help them; you can only end up being hurt yourself. The patient can get better; it ain't a forever thing.

I have seen a lot of people who have refused to get better. Mental illness can be addictive. It is how people have survived trauma from early childhood. There is no easy answer. It is very difficult. Sometimes you win. Regarding mental illness, no one can cure the patient; the patient must cure themselves. We help by providing a shrink, meds and a place of healing. We can provide a healing path. we cannot walk it for someone else. 

This is a remarkable video:
Video by Calgary Police Services

The loss of family in a very materialistic society results in devastation. It appears the wealthier the city, the greater the problem of homelessness. Perhaps, because a city is so wealthy, the homeless become so apparent.

It has been some time, years, since I last posted. I had planned to make a comprehensive study of the problem of the homeless mentally ill in one of the world's wealthiest cities. I believe I have accomplished that and from some of the comments that have come my way, I believe the task was very worthwhile. Many have written that this blog has helped them in times of trouble. Lord knows, we have all been through times of trouble and if anything I have done has helped, then it was worthwhile.

I had stopped posting because I went to work at the Calgary Drop-In Centre -- probably the world's largest homeless shelter. It is an amazing place with amazing people. The staff who work there are beyond description as far as the best attributes that can be found in human beings goes. There can be up to 1500 homeless people per night staying there. There are five floors. No one is turned away except for the extremely violent who would be a danger to the staff and other clients. Other than that, no one is turned away. Ever.

I worked nights. Mostly I worked on the first floor, at the entrance door and in the extreme intoxication ward. Sometimes I worked in the lobby where those in extreme intoxication had been removed to. It was like a war zone where wounded and desperate people lay everywhere. I have never seen such a sight other than in pictures of refugee camps or places recovering from natural disaster. In spite of the devastation, there is the consistent manifestation of unbelievable kindness and generosity between clients and among staff. It is a truly remarkable place. It changed me.

I also worked on other floors where people could try to get their lives together. Some of the floors had clients who worked daily and were waiting to get a place or established. These were sober floors. There are programs and counselling services. There is an artists' studio. There is an extensive kitchen and food. The place was built by the people of Calgary, primarily, who raised the money for it. It continues to run as a charity. It is right downtown and in a beautiful building. The place has saved a lot of lives. However, sometimes we lose people whose bodies have been found in the adjacent river or frozen in a parking lot nearby. Sometimes we are told of someone in trouble and we go and get them and bring them into the warmth. It was winter then and people freeze to death in Calgary.

At first I thought there would be a tremendous number of crack addicts. However, there were incredibly few crack addicts. Many had problems with alcohol. Some just had a really bad turn or series of turns in their luck. Practically every single client had been through the child protection agency or had been a foster child.  No one had family other than other people on the street. The lack of family, as children and as part of growing up, was the most remarkable and outstanding statistic. It appears there is a tie between us and our birth parents, that if broken has devastating results. The power of the family is absolute in our lives. After being at the DI for four months that winter, that is an obvious statistic.

There are those who man the trenches: men and women actually. Their weapon is selflessness. The battle cannot be won, but it must be fought. The resolution to this overwhelming injustice is included in teachings of many admired teachers and leaders in the past. It is our materialism that is killing us. But how do we change that? Indeed, how do we change?

According to mathematical calculations, our model of society establishes that the reason we have such horrific social problems, like homelessness and a growing army of mentally ill without access to medical care, comes from basic corruption in society.
Let me explain. It's an engineering problem. Take a bridge. What keeps a bridge up? How come it doesn't fall? Simple. It is the structural integrity of the bridge and integrity of the materials making up the bridge that keep it from falling. If the bridge has no integrity, then the bridge will fall. Simple.
Society is made up of relationships between people -- not political, or social, or financial, or religious or psychological or whatever kind of relationship, but a complex set of dynamics and experiences that form relationships. Not relationships with institutions or companies or governments, but relationships between people, pure and simple.
So, if society is made up of relationships between people and those relationships lack integrity, then society collapses, just like a bridge or a building or anything else. We have found that truth and a commitment to truth and reality is the key to solving social problems. If you want to cure a disease, you have to find the cause of it. Otherwise you are just treating the symptoms. If you want to cure a disease; find the cause. Then you can cure the disease.
The political system and inherent philosophy is irrelevant. The amount of money, budget and technology are all irrelevant. You don't even have to go large scale. If the day-to-day interactions and subsequent relationships between people in a society lack integrity, you will have problems all over the place.
The present economic collapse is no exception. It collapsed because our economic system lacks integrity. Any further analysis is just details.
Our health and social systems lack integrity. Just ask anyone working in these systems. Ask a doctor or an experienced social worker. You can even ask a politician. I've talked to a number of them and, so far, they all agree.
The system under which we live is designed to lack integrity. If you fix it up and make it all squeaky clean, it will soon deteriorate. It works with the assumption that people are fundamentally greedy and lazy, that people themselves lack integrity and have even been trained to be that way. It's an incorrect assumption. If it was correct there would be no need for the media and educational promotion of a necessity of acquiring unlimited material wealth for the sake of self indulgence. You gotta train people to lack integrity and keep at it to make a society like the one we have now.
Everything is relationship. Everything is people -- people dealing with people. The fault lies not with any organization, government, whatever. The fault lies with the individuals that make up and work for organizations, governments, whatever.  That's you and me, and in how we deal with others. It is a personal commitment to integrity.
It's called being an adult. Society has to grow up. A commitment to selfish motivations will result in poverty and disease. An immoral society is a diseased society, or soon will be. 
The cure? Easy. Work together. Talk about it. In a depression, people become a heck of a lot more valuable than money. They're printing the stuff like crazy and it won't be worth much very soon anyway. People, on the other hand, now that's a different story.

Hi. I am getting interesting emails from different people all over the place. Here is a project for homeless people in New Hampshire. It is run by a professional psychologist named Cindy and it is call the Under the Bridge Project. They have very little to work with but at least it's something. India has at least something. We have a drop-in centre and some beds that are overcrowded. We have no one that I know of who is working with the mentally ill. Here, as in almost all other places, there is no access to medical care for the mentally ill on the street.

Here's something Cindy sent me:
The Under the Bridge Project

Since 1998 The UTB outreach team has attended to the needs of the unsheltered homeless in Manchester. Our volunteers collect usable goods from community resources to redistribute. We also provide advocacy and referrals. We receive help with our goals through community members who respond responsibly to help us address immediate needs and God's Providence.

The Dance of Outreach Outreach is primarily directed toward finding homeless people who might not use services due to lack of awareness or active avoidance and who would otherwise be ignored or underserved.

Outreach is viewed as a process rather than an outcome, with a focus on establishing rapport and a goal of eventually engaging people in the services they will accept.

Outreach is first and foremost a process of relationship building and that is where the dance begins...

Outreach by peers, meaning "children of God" forgoing the titles or degrees, is an essential connection for the ignored, abused or otherwise sheltered and unsheltered and the formerly homeless.

Outreach connects us to one another, places care and humanity into our own hands and builds community amongst us.

Outreach with our peers is non-judgmental. It builds understanding it values programs that work and steers clear of those that don't. Outreach by peers doesn't waste time. It doesn't pass out bus tickets to other towns and it doesn't let people starve because of their "inappropriate behavior" which may have put them out of shelters, nor do they freeze in bad weather.

Outreach by peers, allows baby steps and coaxes when appropriate the step toward the hospital, the rehab, the shelter, and mental health. It doesn't side step real issues and, can confront when needed

And Outreach is to dance with grace, when the stakes are high as the challenge for all of us. Bruce We also help plan annual Gimme shelter which is a sleep-out on our state capital- file attached. we work with colleges and churches to raise awareness. we get people experiencing homelessness that we have met to attend and speak and for at least one night thaty have a place to sleep without getting woken up and told to move on or be arrested. and we annually plan Homeless memorial day vigils as we keep track of street deaths and help community grieve as other families would. . there is awesome national group website where you can get lots of ideas. nationalhomeless.org peace, gotta work the streets as you know its getting cold and need to stock up folks with blankets and coats cindy

--
"... everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence." Mourning Dove (Christine Quintasket), Salish.

It's been a while people. I have been busy beyond description. We ended up evicted because my wife and I are looking after our disabled brother. He's not mentally ill, he has Downs Syndrome. Such is the society in which we live. Life goes on.

I received an email from India. Sarbani works with the homeless mentally ill in Kolkata. It looks like it's his job. That's more than we have going here. We have people working with the homeless, but no one specifically working with the mentally ill on the streets. India's ahead of us on that one. Here's the email he sent:

We started this work one and a half years back. There are around 466 homeless mentally ill on the streets of Kolkata. Right now running from pillar to post to raise some funds for the hospitalization cost for emergency cases. Its tough. But worth trying.

He sent the following link: Stuff in India click here.

He also sent some pics of news articles. Here they are ...


I wish they weren't so blurred so they were easier to read. The top one is about a young man who was found naked and babbling prayers rummaging through garbage. He was taken to a hospital and under the care of a psychiatrist, found a road to recovery. He has a long way to go, but at least he is getting treatment that seems to be working.

The second article talks about 18 mentally ill people who were found living on a railroad platform. They were taken to a judge who sent them to a hospital. They didn't have any room for them there and they were rejected. They went back to the judge and he sent them to a doctor. The doc said only one of them was ill and the rest were rejected. The clinic revealed they simply didn't have the facilities for them. No one knows what to do with them or how to keep them.

Sarbani says he just keeps working on, with nothing and little or no help. But at least it's better than what we do.

I began this blog as an investigation into the causes of social problems. I wanted to find out why nothing worked in our society any more. Here we have a problem that is epidemic throughout the world. This problem of homeless mentally ill people is everywhere. And here we have pretty good evidence that almost nothing is being done about it. At least in India, it's being examined. Here, it's being ignored. I am not a sociologist or a shrink; I'm a mathematician mostly. I am trying to model social problems and look at it mathematically. I have come to a few conclusions on the causes of having 1,000 to 5,000 homeless mentally ill people, who are very sick and suffering, living on the banks of the Bow River in Calgary, one of the riches cities in the world. It would cost very little to cure the problem in fairly short order with a commitment to actually solving the problem. In other words, with integrity. However, we spend much more to manage the problem; it just keeps going. It's destroying our downtown and killing business after business in the central core. Recently, Sears moved out of the downtown. A huge multi story building has been emptied by Sears. I don't know if anything has taken over to fill the void. The Bay is probably next, and if the Bay goes, there goes downtown Calgary.

So, what's my conclusion, and what the heck is it about that stone? Well, it goes like this, I'm concluding the reason we're in this situation, is because we have built a society where people would rather keep their jobs than do them. We have an army of bureaucrats and accountants and no one to do the work. In Calgary, there is one psychiatrist working for Access Mental Health who is assigned to the homeless. He works a couple of days a week, a couple of hours a day. And that's for over 1,000 very sick people. He works out of an office. You need an appointment and have to go through a screening to see him. You fill out a form. You wait for a phone call and two separate phone interviews from screeners. If you're lucky, you can see him in a couple of months. So, if you're mentally ill, homeless, have the where with all to keep it together for a while and have a cell phone -- hey, you're in luck!

It's based on the difference between our perception of the problem and the reality of the problem. Which is why I keep harping on Truth all the time. There's a huge difference between our perception and reality. People who believe their perception happens to be reality are people who are mentally ill. Those of us who strive to come closer to reality and overcome their assumptions and perceptions, are those who are a lot closer to good mental health. In other words, to get right down to it, we have built a society which has lost it's fundamental integrity. It is inherently corrupt.

A couple of weeks ago, the federal minister of health lambasted a conference of physicians over the drug shoot-up havens provided for in Vancouver. He based his condemnation of the bevy of doctors on the simple fact that what they were doing was simply morally wrong. It was a wrong thing to do to provide access to the poison that was killing their patients when they could, in fact, actually heal them. It's a step forward. There may be arguments against him, but his premise is sound. There has to be someone, somewhere, who is willing to take the moral high ground and damn the consequences; let's heal people, lots of people. We don't need more bureaucrats or accountants; we need people on the street getting the job done.

We are caught in a zero-sum game. Wars get started this way.

To explain: there is a mathematical approach to human relationships. One of theseis the two-person zero-sum game. In this particular game, game there is a loser for every winner and for every winner there is a loser. The Chicago Futures Exchange, which handles most of the world’s economy, is protected by the principles of a zero-sum game. It is the prime example of a zero-sum game. If you investigate these principles, you would find that for every zero-sum game, without exception, there is a trick to winning. If you know the trick, you can win every game. In other words, it’s a crooked crap game.

What’s the only thing you can do when you find yourself in a crooked crap game? – Quit.

The only way to win in a zero-sum game is not to play. Actually, the game is played by trying to get the other side to lose. It’s a losers’ game. No one wins; life is not a zero-sum game. Life is a game of cooperation. We are, in reality, in an arena where if you win, I win; if you lose, I lose. Whether we like it or not, we’re in this together. And yet the world keeps playing a zero-sum game. For the sake of power and wealth, everyone else has to lose so that, by default, those playing the game win.

But everyone thinks they know the trick. Everyone tries to put everyone else into a crooked crap game and thinks they have the dice loaded in their favour. Both sides of the game think they cannot lose. And as a result, we walk onto the field of brinkmanship; hence, the Cuban missile crisis; hence, World War One.

Now, there has to be something to pull us out of this ridiculous game, otherwise we as a species could not have survived for so long. And it is this game that is being played throughout the world, which has placed us in crisis.

This may sound melodramatic or absurd, but the answer is Truth. Beyond the tricks, beyond the façade of falsehood, lies Reality, lies Truth. And the truth is the ultimate trick in this universal zero-sum game. With Truth, you cannot lose; it is the ultimate weapon.

But if you are dedicated to Truth and cannot lose and everyone else is playing this stupid game, then they have to go to the wall. They either back down or go the limit. Each side piles on more and more consequence to get the other side to back down; hence brinkmanship.

We are caught in a zero-sum game and no matter how hard we try, we can’t get out. Believe it or not, this has everything to do with homeless mentally ill people strewn throughout the cities o the west.

Compassion is an interesting thing. You would think it would apply to those in need pretty well across the board. But it has boundaries and limitations.

For example, my brother John arrived Christmas Eve. He was pretty well a basket case. He is a mentally retarded 61-year-old man in a wheelchair with a broken leg. He is completely dependent, on a list of medications a mile long, was "escaping" from a nursing home where he has been pretty well locked up for five years, both ears were badly infected, he was totally disoriented and a mess of other stuff I won't go into. Needless to say, he was traumatized.

Without hesitation, my wife and I devoted ourselves to bringing him back from the edge. We hustled up various organizations and government bodies to swing into action in order to support John and start him on a recovery process.

There are very limited programs and policies in place for the government to support disabled people in such a situation who arrive from another province. However, the individual bureaucrats, desk jockeys, professionals, clerks and just about everyone who came into contact with John swung into action and did everything possible to help him. As a result, he can stay with us for a while and we are able to nurse him back to health.

To let you know, it has been about a month and John is off of all but one of the meds and that is in a greatly reduced dosage. That's under medical supervision as well. He has weekly therapy to get over his trauma. He is awake now. He enjoys going to the local Junior B hockey games. He has a growing community of friends and circle of support. He is looking forward to getting his cast off. He likes to sing when he's happy. He still cries in fits of anguish and grief, but the fear is leaving him. He's getting better.

John's life of hardship began decades ago when his mother died in 1961 and he was institutionalized for 20 years. The last five years were just the last straw. Right now we look to the future and things get better day by day. In his life John has had people who loved him. And that is what makes it possible for him to begin to recover.

Now, the reason I'm writing about this on a news blog about the homeless mentally ill is this: John got help because people were compassionate about his situation. Of course they were compassionate. He has his brother and family to advocate for him and people have compassion for the mentally retarded. We all know John was born with his condition. He is not at fault. As a matter of fact, even thinking he is at fault is repulsive.

As my wife and I were walking in the local park by the river pushing John along in his wheelchair, we discussed why is it that John gets help while all those people who are very sick and unable to look after themselves -- the homeless mentally ill -- go without. We figure it has to do with compassion. People are compassionate towards John, but, it seems, not towards the mentally ill.

John is easy to love. He smiles at people and waves and says hi to just about everybody. He has an innocence and child-like nature that inspires compassion. Mentally ill people do not.
Furthermore, some of those who are mentally ill have been known to be dangerous. It's fairly rare, but it happens. Generally, mentally ill people are not easy to love.

John is not alone as one who has suffered because of his disability. There are thousands who suffer with no access to services and treatment all across Canada. There are also thousands who do receive treatment and whatever help they need as well. But there is a dividing line here. Some receive compassion within our society and others do not. And the dividing line is hard to define.

The mentally ill are seen as having brought it upon themselves, that they were not born that way. For example, many are associated with the addicted and thereby tainted with the accusation that their disease may be in some way their fault, or that they could recover if they wanted to.

The statistics contradict the belief that the homeless mentally ill are sick because they fried their brains on drugs. It is not fair to equate mental illness with drug addiction. These people are just sick. They have no hope and no access to help and as a result, they are a major drain on society.

The madness is that they can possibly recover and the cost of their recovery is far less than the cost of managing a hopeless situation for both the ailing and the surrounding community.

It appears that from a lack of compassion, rather than a lack of ability, we have found ourselves with a major social problem.

And the paradox is, that this is from people who are basically compassionate.

This is my old stompin’ grounds. I hitch hiked out here back in 1968 and began work as a gravel truck driver delivering to the foot of the Husky Tower as it was being built. I’ve been all over this town. My parents got married here and so did I. It looks like my son will be married here too. I’ve met all kinds of people in Cow Town.

I came back here last year and was bustling around trying to make ends meet, as is my lot. I was working in the north east and living in the west end by the river. I was taking the C-train most of the time. That’s the Light Rail Transit in Calgary.

Nevertheless, I get home and realize I’ve lost my wallet. Do you have any idea what a major hassle it is to lose your wallet? Most of you probably do. It’s not the loss of money; it’s the loss of the ID. It takes months to get your driver’s license, health card, bank card; hell, even your library card requires a piece of mail with your address on in so that takes a while to come through. And of course every wallet has bits of pieces of paper and stuff that is real important information you will never get again. Let’s face it people, losing your wallet is a hell of a drag.

So I call the bank and cancel my bank card. I get Visa to shut down. I cal the police and there was a fairly helpful officer on the line who lodges all the info he can, including driver’s license, etc. It looks like my pocket was maybe picked or something. OK, that’s all done as evening comes to a close and I have no idea what to do next.

Morning comes and I find a crumpled up bus ticket rummaging in my coat. At least I can get downtown to the bank and maybe hunt around a little.

Downtown I drop into the Bay and security looks about and reports they haven’t seen my wallet. I tried a couple of coffee shops but to no avail. This sucker is lost.

As a last resort I cross Seventh Avenue into Calgary Transit’s office and ask at the desk if a wallet has been handed in.

“What’s the name?” says the clerk.

“Bruce Rout,” I answer and he punches the name into his terminal at the counter.

“We got it,” he says and heads off into the back. I can’t believe my good luck.

He returns and hands my wallet to me. “Open it and give me a piece of picture ID,” he says.

I open my wallet to take out my driver’s license and there, staring me in the face, is a brand spanking new monthly transit pass that I had just bought. It was totally transferable. Whoever found it could easily have taken it. I hand the desk clerk my license and check the inside pocket of the wallet. Sure enough, there’s a $5 bill in there, right where I left it. That was all the money plus a $75 bus pass. All ID was intact.

I showed the clerk. ”There’s my bus pass and all my money,” I said.

“You’re pretty lucky,” he said.

I took back my license and headed out. First thing I did then was call the cop shop and cancel the report on the lost wallet. They were stunned and very happy to hear there were still honest people in enough abundance that my wallet could be found intact including everything valuable.

This is a good town. I had lost my wallet at the transit station in the middle of the seedy part of town. They have all types there. When I say seedy, I mean real seedy. Whoever picked up my wallet probably never even opened it. Then again, they probably did open it to check who it belonged to. They probably saw the transit pass and the money and handed it in to the transit lost and found without even thinking of being dishonest.

It reminded me of the time when red China was first opened up to the west as a result of Nixon’s visit. One of the comments there was that Chinese people were so honest you could lose your wallet with money in it and it would be handed in to the authorities completely intact. You don’t need to go to China to find honest people. They’re right here. They’re all around us.

As I went through the rest of my day I could only chuckle intermittently. That’s because that’s Calgary. That’s what this city is like. This is a good town and these are good people. They work hard and they are basically honest.

Like I say, this is a good town.

It’s cold.

You are slowly but surly freezing to death. There is just you and a small cedar tree by the river in the snow. You have not slept in so long you cannot remember. The voices are starting to go away. They are much quieter now. You are starting to get tired, so very tired. Memories of your wife and children have faded. It is amazingly calm as darkness mercifully descends.

Across the river, in a modern, clean and warm office the mayor takes another sip from his favorite coffee mug and stands to look out his window over the river and park. There is a tree and a sleeping derelict beside it disappearing in the quickly passing evening haze. It is not his problem. Nothing can be done. He takes another sip of coffee and returns to work.

The next morning the cleanup crew has been called in to take away the body. It is difficult to straighten it out since it was clinging onto itself when death overtook it. It was probably trying to keep warm. There looks like frozen tears on frozen cheeks and a visage filled with pathos. It is not pleasant work.

A crew member removes a small stone clutched by a dead and frozen hand. The body is removed. The crewman lingers a little wondering why the body would be holding a stone. What does the stone mean? He turns it with his fingers and holds it to the light. It is an ordinary stone, no shine or sparkle, probably sandstone, nothing special.

But why was he clinging to it? Why, at the last moment of life, would this man cling to a simple and non-descript stone while freezing to death by a river? What is this stone?

He ponders it, examines it, and looks for some meaning to a meaningless death. It is as ordinary and insignificant as a homeless mentally ill nobody dying in the snow. Can there possibly be any meaning? Does it matter?

The stone, he thinks, is it real? Is any of this real? Is there really a problem? Are there really people dying?

Maybe it’s not. Maybe, like millions of those in power and authority, with responsibilities too great for any individual to handle, the stone is just as we perceive it. It’s not real. The problem is not real. It’s just as we perceive it. There may be a problem, but if it’s not my problem, it may as well not exist.

If the stone is not real, if the stone is as we perceive it rather than something that is there whether we perceive it or not, then nothing is real. Not even Truth itself.

If the stone is not real, and there is no real Truth, no reality outside of our perception, then right and wrong are as we perceive it. It’s not our problem.

If there is no stone, then Justice is as we make it and as we desire it. It is our intellect that rules. It is our will that controls the universe, and whoever can control the human will, controls reality. If there is no stone then we are free to deny what is real. Nothing is real.

That, it seems, or so postulates a humble crew man who cleans up dead bodies by the river in Calgary, is the crux of what is going on. We have become so bizarre, so divorced from reality; we cannot bring ourselves to acknowledge the existence of a simple stone. To do so would mean a great, great deal.

If the stone is real, the universe exists. It exists whether we perceive it or not. We have been given the incredible gift of being able to perceive the universe, but it was here long before we were born and will continue to be long after we are gone. The stone is just as valid a candidate as an observer as anybody else or any thing else. Who is to say it cannot perceive being held by a kind and good man by the river before the lights go out?

Why is there a major problem of homeless mental illness in every major city in the world? Whose bright idea is it to prevent hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of sick and suffering people from medical care and medicine? And whose bright idea is to keep them suffering?

This is not a matter of public opinion. It does not matter if it is but one person or a majority of the voting population. If a child is suffering and you have the ability to alleviate that suffering, and do nothing, then that is abuse of that child. It is not a legal matter; it is the difference between what is wrong and what is right. And wrong and right exist regardless of what you may perceive. Truth, justice, knowing the difference between right and wrong, and a vast host of other verities our ancestors have given their lives to uphold, actually do exist. They are real.

And for anyone to allow suffering, especially of the sick and homeless, in our ridiculously wealthy society, whether it’s your responsibility or not, is very simply wrong. It indicates a denial of what is real. It indicates a denial of the truth. And that is the path to a dedication to what is truly evil. That is the legacy we will leave for our children, because the universe will continue to go on and leave us behind.

So, dear Reader, what can you do? Above all, don’t endanger yourself. If you are moved, if you believe that the words you are now reading are real, whether they are printed on paper, on a computer screen or being read to you. If what you are reading now is real and not a part of some manipulative world you have dreamed up or been caused to believe. If you really believe there is right and wrong. If you believe Truth is what exists independently of our perception, then this is what you do.

Next time you are out walking, pick up a simple and humble stone, nothing special. Keep it with you. Put it on your desk, dashboard or whatever. Each of you, whether working in a library, handling a desk, patrolling, or just trying to make a living, knows that at some time we could have done something to save someone.

We simply acknowledge that there is a right and wrong. Maybe next time it will be different. Maybe next time we can make a small but significant change in the course of the universe. Just a little is enough.

Because we can see that as a crew man puts a pebble in his pocket and walks away, all there was to witness the death of a good man was a stone, and his only friend was a tree. And that’s the difference between what is real and what is not.

Hey, you might want to check out http://www.austinmardon.org/. It’s Austin’s website. Austin Mardon just won the Order of Canada about a week and a half ago. He won it for his work with the homeless mentally ill. His list of achievements are very long and I encourage you to give his site a boo. Also, click on this "make Austin an MBE" and submit your vote.

We talked for about half an hour today over the phone. I’ll relate a bit about his point of view and can hopefully expand in the future.

“There are approximately 700 homeless schizophrenics in Calgary. That’s specifically homeless schizophrenics rather than mentally ill people in general. There are other diseases like manic depression and so on,” he said.

He explained that work in New York City had shown that a program of getting medication to the homeless mentally ill, in the form of injections every other week, had resulted in a huge success rate.

“With Risperdal Consta, you would only need a nurse to give an injection once every two weeks, and a general practitioner to initially diagnose the homeless schizophrenic,” he said.

“This is not a homeless issue,” he emphasized, “It’s a medical issue.”

He added that the program required the permission of the person undergoing the program.

“What they did,” he said, “was they provided the person’s welfare check with a very good meal along with the injection.”

”It is much easier to manage an injection once every two weeks logistically and financially than to give a pill every day,” he explained,

“Government and the public keep talking about solving the homeless problem. Ironically Risperdal Consta could solve the problem of schizophrenic homelessness. Without Risperdal Consta the government could spend many millions dollars treating homeless schizophrenics without making any impact whatsoever,” he said.

Austin also pointed out that those who suffer from Alzheimer’s Disease receive treatment and help but those who are homeless and mentally ill do not.

“There is such a stigma against mental illness,” he said.

We talked for a bit about different medications and both of us agree on the benefits of Risperdal. He was surprised to learn there is a generic for the drug in pill form that is very cheap. However, he argued that just giving the homeless mentally ill a bottle of pills to try and hang on to and self-regulate their medications is foolish to say the least. “There is no way that a homeless mentally ill person could do that,” he said. He argues that the injection once every two weeks is a much better way to go.

“There needs to be established a social connection with the broader community, you know, in shelters with the medical community. You don’t need that much … you need to be creative.

“One last thing … with generations past if someone became psychotic and was homeless they attempted to house them, usually in squalid conditions, in rural houses or warehouses, but we don’t even do that today. And the irony is that we have medical treatment.

“For example, John Nash who won the Nobel Prize in 1992 was actually homeless at several points in his life. Some of the people who are homeless, if given medical treatment rather than being ignored, might actually get into the process of recovery.

“What I’ve seen is the incredible results of people who have cooperated with their treatment. I believe there is hope. It involves the medical community.”