Patrick Joesph Schnerch, click
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Blogs by Patrick Joesph Schnerch
Mental illness / Addiction/ Homelessness/ Victoria BC 6/2/2009 10:53:26 PM
Many may not know that “The City of Gardens Collection” is not generating any personal profits for myself. Much is being donated to charity, while the rest is being used to fund the project.
The seven book series was not designed to profit off other people’s pain and suffering, but help them. I have personally invested tens of thousands of dollars from my own pocket to provide a platform for our most vulnerable to break the silence and be finally heard.
This is a golden opprotunity to tell your story and capture the hearts of society. Together we can level the playing field and lay down some new rules. Without standing up and speaking out, no one will even care to listen to you.
This has been the case for almost since the beginning of time. To gain respect you have to earn it. There is a choice between a lifetime of disparity and poverty only to die on the streets, or to stand up for yourselves and demand for change and respect.
This book series is designed to put a face to the numbers, figures and statistics. Your blood and tears will be the ink. We will breathe life into those pages.
I am disappointed that not one single person has the guts to stand up for themselves. From the 1,242 homeless or unstably housed, it seems that no one wants to change their lives around. You are being given the opprotunity to voice your views, concerns and observations of life on the streets of Victoria.
One of my personal reasons for writing this book series is that I was tired and frustrated of how society treated me when I was in my life’s darkest moments. I was so angry that I decided to stand up for myself and push back. I felt first hand the stigma, discrimination and unwarranted fears of me and where I stood in mainstream society.
Neglect, ignorance and silenced by the mainstream shoved me down in the cracks of this so called civilized society. For most of my adult life, I was continually battling between suicide and a forty ounce bottle of rye every day. I used self-mutilation to calm me down from going over the edge. My body is a roadmap of scars, blood and tears.
My mental illness was a permanent label awarded to me by society where my rights, freedoms and respect were taken away from me. I lost my job, self-esteem and my will to live. I was told what I can or cannot do. My words fell on deaf ears, my actions caused me to be thrown in the mental ward hidden away from society as to not to disturb their precious lives.
For the past twenty years, I have isolated myself from the society who is not willing to accept me as a fellow human-being. Hidden in my office, I fill my pen with poison and fight back. I have personally been around the block a few times myself.
After all these years,we now have 1,242 people on the streets of Victoria with no place to call home and are living the same hell as I did. Society has not changed. There are some efforts being made, but have little affect on the reality of the streets.
It became my mission in life to provide awareness of mental illness and and homelessness to the public in hopes of reducing stigma, discrimination and unwarranted fears.
I have anger in my veins. My blood was spilt decades ago. I have made a commitment that I would do everything in my power to break the silence and fight back. I don’t want my brothers and sisters on the streets to go through what I did.
Now, I am offering the people on the streets of Victoria an opprotunity to join me and have our voices heard around the world. Together we can break the imposed silence and provoke change. This action will pave the way for us to achieve a better life free from pain and destitution. My death-bed wish is to smile one more time. pjschnerch.shaw.ca
