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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Homeless camp isn’t solving underlying problems

Homes for the mentally ill need to be built, not camps for the homeless, says letter writer
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It is certainly not smart to keep handing out everything free to those who stomp their feet and cause chaos, says letter writer. NEWS BULLETIN file photo

To the editor,

Re: No immediate action taken to evict campers, May 31.

Homes for the mentally ill need to be built, not camps for the homeless. Mentally ill people have taken over most of our cities.

It is no longer safe to walk in places. It has become commonplace to see garbage and dirty needles discarded in front of our eyes. It is certainly not smart to keep handing out everything free to those who stomp their feet and cause chaos. Government should require any person who is getting a handout and has no fixed address to do some kind of work or volunteering. It will at least keep people occupied and not roaming our areas with all the time in the world to cause trouble.

Some are committing crimes because they have nothing to do and they know there is little punishment. Kindness is taken as a weakness and has led to anarchy.

J.H. Wingrade, Nanaimo

To the editor,

What a five-ring circus complete with fencing and shouts of “we want.” As Tuesday morning unfolded at the tent city, a young man wearing an old communist China Mao Zedong hat waved an old communist U.S.S.R. hammer and sickle flag and paraded around smiling. Other activists ran around holding a Canadian flag upside down.

With the shouts of we want emanating from the occupied city property, elsewhere in Nanaimo lots of ‘help wanted’ signs are taped in the windows of a paint store, restaurant, pub, construction site and a pawn shop, just what I saw.

If 50 people in Nanaimo invited the 50 less fortunate at tent city into your homes they would be housed and have good role models. That is compassion. Not the continuous complaining for taxpayer dollars to foot the bill for those who should be applying for those posted jobs and working for a living like every one else. We have created an entitled group which the middle class has to keep supporting more and more but we are not teaching them to feed themselves.

Drake M. Churchbridge, Nanaimo