To the Editor,
Re: Mayor committed to plan, Sept. 27.
I agree that we should not walk away from the plan to house the homeless; however, I wonder if the homeless have been consulted on the matter.
Certainly, most, if not all, would dearly love to have a place to call home, but that has eluded them, often through their own fault, but more often for a lot of other reasons. Reasons that many of us cannot relate to.
There are many mitigating circumstances which cause us to make wrong choices.
The issue as I see it revolves around the people who have made those choices and continue to do so.
Taking these people out of their habitual environments might help them to change, but it could also create more confusion in the minds of those who are already confused.
Many of those people we want to provide shelter for are making use of the soup kitchens and will have to come downtown for that.
Many of them have their support networks closer to the core and will feel torn if they have to go elsewhere.
I think many will choose to continue as they have been doing, including drug dependence.
We also know that many of those people are those who come alive at night after sleeping the day away and will be scouting out their usual haunts.
More thought has to go into where the location of these wet houses are put and not because of disgruntled taxpayers.
Remember how difficult it was to get a home for the 7-10 Club after it lost the space in St. Peter’s basement?
And do we really want the extra cost of expanding those services to all areas of town?
We might find more advantages all around to reconsider the areas we put these homes, but mostly for the health of all the community.
Frank Malaka
Nanaimo