serendipityoucity

There are times in your life where you just work at stuff with all your heart and you never really know if it is going anywhere or is of any use.

For instance, today, as I have been done for the past 8 years, i weeded, dug and planted flowers in the centre of this derelict roundabout by the city living housing project near where i live.  The tree is finally growing, the city now protects it in the winter with fencing and the original perinials i put in are doing great.  So are the weeds!  So I spend a 1/2 a day +/- while writing to endeavour to clean it out and pilfer plants from the hood to reguvenate the spot.  This is more for me than the hood, however, the long term benefit is a nice looking spot that eventually will look really nice and will uplift that part of the city a teeny tiny way.  It also sparks conversations with strangers and encourages guerrilla gardening and local place based responsibility.  But all this is in my imagination and is an intangible.

Today, I got notice from Ted at the SPNO of a new Homelessness Hub created by the Federal Homelessness Secretariat and et voila the Homelessness Indicators that I helped develop as a researcher with Acacia Consulting and Research are featured.  Developing indicators is no small thing and they are never perfect, nonetheless, these are now in their 5th year of data collection and this is for 22 cities.  What I hope will happen next is that key purse string holders will actually make some decisions based on these numbers!  The facts do speak for themselves!