Every person has a set of needs in order to realize personal potential and self-fulfillment.
And every community – every level of government – has a responsibility to do all it can to allow people living with a mental illness or diminished abilities to achieve those goals – to do the most for people who have the least.
As Christine Wood so ably reported in a recent story in Coast Reporter on homelessness on the Coast, it is clear that as a community we are falling far short in this regard. Yes, there are motivated and generous folks doing and giving what they can. But that is clearly not enough.
Abraham Mazlow identified his hierarchy of needs in 1943. While contentious, as every decent idea ought to be, it stands as a metric against which a community may be measured.
Briefly, Mazlow’s hierarchy of needs comprises the following:
1. Biological and physiological needs – air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sleep.
2. Safety needs – protection from elements, security, order, law, stability, freedom from fear.
3. Love and belongingness needs – friendship, intimacy, affection and love, from work groups, family, friends, romantic relationships.
4. Esteem needs – achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others.
5. Self-actualization needs – realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.
We must ask ourselves this: Are we providing the means for vulnerable community members to achieve their individual potential?
Given our failure to provide the weakest and most needy among us, the sad answer is: No.
There are simply too many homeless and families depending on dwindling food bank resources to say we are even close to providing social justice on the Sunshine Coast. If only the happy tourists who admire the superficial beauty of our area knew. They’d never return.
Several elements of the two bottom levels of Maslow’s hierarchy are not in place for too many folks.
Basic and affordable housing could solve this, but this solution is elusive and is principally the role of government. Also, though, the nature and trajectory of the current real estate market is to blame.
In the past, many homeowners rented out suites in order to meet tax and maintenance needs. Now, an increasing number of new homeowners buy outright on the strength of high re-sale prices for their mainland houses and don’t need rental income. Bad news for renters.
People like Matt Thom-son and the Sunshine Coast Affordable Housing Society are working hard to achieve concrete solutions, and this is a necessary thing.
But there are other issues we must confront.
Levels 3 and 4 deal, in part, with social barriers. These are thorny. And in the context of mental illness, it is stigma that stands in the way.
The inability to achieve acceptance, self-esteem and social networks flows directly from a general fear and ignorance about mental illness. The solutions to this problem are nettlesome, because the roots and causes of social stigma run so deeply.
What becomes evident, upon reflection, is that Mazlow’s structured hierarchy of needs is fluid – each level flows and interacts with others – and that government at all levels have not done enough to make things better.
Perhaps MP Pam Goldsmith-Jones might have ideas about how to discuss these social issues publicly. The email address for this column is [email protected].
I will be watching my inbox.
