To the editor,
Re: Tent city residents disrespectful, Letters, July 19.
In regards to the growing tent city downtown, I believe this is mostly a manifestation caused by the treacherous practice of allowing foreigners to gobble up our real estate for all these years. Rents are skyrocketing and prices of real estate is off the charts. The hoarders of real estate must feel very proud of themselves in being the masters of the universe while the next generations face a dystopian future of debt, stress and struggle.
In the end, the taxpayer ends up with paying the cost for more very expensive government housing not just for the homeless but for low-income earners, the elderly and the disabled. Before this massive real-estate bubble there was plenty of rooming houses, apartments and cheap little fixer-uppers and people felt there was a future for them.
I believe we need to immediately ban all foreign purchases of our land and as well as send letters to all the foreign owners demanding they put their houses on the market as soon as possible. If they do not, I believe we must work to repatriate all foreign-owned land as soon as possible.
I believe we must think about the future generations first even if it means a sacrifice for the present. We must decide soon whether we are to be a viable, self-reliant and self-owned country or just a corporate colony where ordinary citizens are used as dependent cattle to make the rich richer.
Are we a country or not? To be or not to be is the question.
Holden Southward, Nanaimo
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