Start by helping feed the homeless

Dear editor: I am writing today because of a very important issue in Penticton. That issue would be the lack of food available in Penticton for the homeless.

As I stated in previous letters, Penticton has only one meal a day for the homeless or hungry. It gets worse. The soup kitchen serves the meal so it seems they get to decide if you even get lunch.

If you misbehave too much the soup kitchen will ban you from eating at their lunch.

Since when is a basic need used as a bargaining chip to behave? If you do not behave no meal for you that day.

I think this is a really screwed up system. I do however have a solution to this issue, which is to take all those coin boxes and use all those coins for a communal kitchen. This way we all could eat.

What is the point of the disability system giving us a cheque monthly for food if there is nowhere to cook it? Think about this for a moment.

How do we have a balanced diet or any diet when we are forced to eat whatever comes either out of a bag, like chips, or prepared food?

The cost would well be worth the price to not only put the kitchen in but to monitor the kitchen. The kitchen could be manned by two people, two shifts and end the same time the washrooms are closed.

Personally I really cannot see much problem with doing this.

I am sure the people that use the kitchen will behave for the small amount of time it takes to make a meal. We in the soup kitchen monitor ourselves also to a point.

All I know is that one day I was angry, but not at the food issue. A person gave me a sandwich and that sandwich calmed me down after I ate it. I did not expect this but it showed me how much food plays in our daily life.

Please give us a kitchen to cook with and that will help the anger you hear outside your home, business, etc.

We need to find the focus of Penticton’s issues. The system is too busy fighting the people and vice versa. The need to win each battle takes the focus off the main issues and the solution to those issues of food, water, shelter.

Both sides need to shut up and listen to each other and hear each other, then come up with a plan of attack. Like a communal kitchen, or water fountains with cold water, washrooms instead of an outhouse after dusk would be nice, a communal shower that we could use.

All these things need to be looked at before we house more homeless and fail yet again to correct the issues.

Sandra Diane Hall

Penticton