Fake tickets are not ‘victimless’

RE: Const. says he issued real tickets (Feb. 8)

Const. Stephen Travale is on trial, accused of “issuing phoney tickets” to street people.

In his defence, he insists that he was issuing “real tickets”. He and his bosses, who, as he says, “like tickets”, seem oblivious of the fact that real tickets do real harm.

Of course street people don’t pay those tickets — how could they? If they had adequate and dependable income (such as you I and can use to pay the odd ticket for parking etc.) they would not be living on the street.

Even the most hard-headed among us must wish for street people to find shelter, to be able to get their lives together. Some of us feel compassion. Some of us just want them to cost us less in emergency care (medical, policing) and stress on our neighbourhoods. The street people themselves want to be less desperately vulnerable. With everyone in agreement, why doesn’t it happen?

Remember those tickets? They were not paid; there was no money to pay them. Nobody expected them to be paid. But they were not forgiven, not cancelled. They ended up as debt, as reports against their credit rating.

If you have ever rented a place to live, you are probably aware that your prospective landlords checked your credit rating. If you had unpaid debts, they were free to refuse you. Those real tickets are unpaid debts, another factor which is keeping real people on the streets. Marianne Vespry, Hamilton