Talking About Talking

Depending on how it unfolds from here, the Lynwood Charlton/Augusta Neighbourhood/Radial Separation Bylaw/Ontario Human Rights Commission situation has the potential to wind up a couple of ways.

1) Prompting a city-wide dialogue, possibly resulting in an invaluable teachable moment.

2) Yet another opportunity for Hamiltonians to see the goings-on in their city with cynicism and resignation, once more having their lack of confidence confirmed.

I'm inclined to believe we're going to see the latter win out. 

I listened to the January 17th Planning Committee meeting that dealt with the proposal for Charlton Hall to move to Augusta Street, and I wrote about it starting here.

Since then, I've read articles dealing with it at The Spec, The Hamiltonian, the comments found at each, and spoken to people in-person. This week I attended the followup GIC meeting, where a report was presented on the effort on the part of the City and Lynwood Charlton to come up with a solution. 

What's bothered me more than anything else has been the bewildering tendency of so many observers to want the Human Rights Commission card to be played, to get the City to comply, and be done with it. To move on to 'more important things'. In the mix has been a consistent tendency to retroactively condemn and dismiss the Council that was so seemingly foolish as to have enacted this bylaw in the first place, and by extension, the current Council. 

As a primer for this crux of this editorial, I'm going to go on record regarding a few aspects of this discussion:

1) I am for 'social assistance' facilities being present in all Hamilton communities while understanding full well that there are good reasons why there is a concentration of them in the downtown. 

2) I am for neighbourhoods standing up for their communities and having the right to express their fears, their reservations...their honesty. No matter how unrealistic or uninformed they may start out being. They deserve to be heard. After all, these are their neighbourhoods being impacted, one way or another. Their lives unfold there. 

3) I take at face value that government and non-profit agencies have the best interests of those-in-need at heart...while reserving the right for a modicum of skepticism. I also reserve the right for a larger level of skepticism when it comes to for-profit entities. 

4) I am against the arbitrary and knee-jerk vilification of people who ask contentious questions such as  'Do we have a 'poverty industry' in Hamilton?"

5) I am against people shutting down such discussions because they're so attached to their own truths that they end up either lacking the courage or the stability to go beyond these attachments. 

Looking at the Lynwood Charlton situation, a) I'm not convinced the Radial Separation Bylaw is the best approach to addressing a 'saturation' of facilities in Hamilton, while b) not believing the Augusta Street location is an appropriate one for the facility currently situated at 62-66 Charlton. 

Lynwood Charlton invested in 121 Augusta knowing full well that there was a bylaw on the books that would prove to be a contentious hurdle. They invested knowing that Charlton Hall is in dire need of an overhaul by the landlord, a financially-strapped City of Hamilton. And that these two factors, when combined with a sympathetic population (after all, who can argue against 'human rights' when they're being trumpeted by the provincial commissioner?), would mean that one-way-or-another, they'd get what they wanted. 

I don't like the taste of this. No matter how I stir it up. However, I'm willing to concede that if the Radial Separation Bylaw is an imprudent approach to ensuring that there isn't a 'conglomeration' of facilities (leading to a 'worse-case scenario' that I'll confess I'm not capable of  envisioning), then this tack shouldn't be judged harshly. (Again, no matter how ill-advised I see their choosing of the site.)

Lynwood Charlton doesn't own 62-66 Charlton, they've sunk their money into 121 Augusta, so I can't see Lynwood Charlton going anywhere; there are no other options on the table for them. Therefore, we're about to enter into a contentious arena: either the Radial Separation Bylaw gets rescinded, or this situation goes to court, presumably by way of the Ontario Human Rights Commission and/or the Ontario Municipal Board. Which would be a long, expensive process. 

But no matter which possibility results, I think it would be a sin if no dialogue ensues on the part of Hamilton residents. 'Moving on' without gaining a better understanding of the bigger picture just seems...wrong. 

So this is what I'd like to see happen, assuming that the bylaw does get rescinded:

1) Hamiltonians are provided an opportunity to understand what the circumstances were that had the Radial Separation Bylaw brought into effect initially. Especially in regards to how the landscape changed with the Harris government's initiative to shift the service paradigm back in the previous millennium. 

2) Hamiltonians are provided an opportunity to understand what, if anything, has changed in Hamilton since the Radial Separation Bylaw was instituted. 

3) Hamiltonians are provided opportunities to discuss the issues that Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall has brought to City Council's attention regarding the bylaw, and community inclusion in general. 

4) Hamiltonians are provided a full accounting of all social services facilities in the city, as moved by Ward 5 Councillor Chad Collins at the recent GIC meeting addressing the Lynwood Charlton stalemate. 

5) Hamiltonians are provided opportunities to discuss pride-of-place, neighbourhood composition, issues dealing with residential care where there are problems, so that both complaints and misconceptions can be dealt with in an open process. 

I'd like to see all of these occur so that we actually deal with the various contributing factors, and get to a place where reconciliation is achieved, where closure has been attained. 

This is how mature participants deal with contentious issues. 'Let's move on!' is not the rallying cry of a thriving, responsible group of people. It's more the cry of those who aren't equipped to deal with Reality in a healthy way. 

I believe we're better than denial, distraction and avoidance, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that what ensues resembles behaviour more akin to something evolved than something mired in cynicism and fear. 

M Adrian Brassington