Putting homeless housing near schools a ‘goofy plan’
Vancouver City Hall’s announcement last week about the construction of modular housing for the homeless at 650 West 57th Ave. is politics run amok and jaw dropping, to say the least.
The project is a Frisbee throw from Winston Churchill Secondary and Sir Wilfrid Laurier Elementary. No doubt some of the residents in the shelter will be harmless, but among them will be people who colour outside the lines of social norms. Parents drive their children to school in part to avoid interaction with ne’er-do-wells, so does it make sense to drop them off where those very individuals may be congregating?
Child-raising is challenging enough without putting kids in the position of witnessing drug culture and overdoses. The only positive in all this will be the students getting to marvel at the skills of the first respondents who will be working on some poor soul, comatose, on their school grounds.
I’m going out on a limb here to say that none of the politicians and advocates behind this goofy plan live in this area or have their kids attend these schools. If they did, they would be on the “not in my back yard” bandwagon. Barry Craig, Vancouver
Affordable housing a must
The never-waning greed and lust for profit of developers needs to be reined in yet again. The absence of social housing in the new 105 Keefer St. proposal in Vancouver should be the red flag for city council to deny this once more.
Every commercial, residential project should have a mandatory amount of affordable housing. This is the only way that working-class citizens can survive in the Vancouver housing market. George Porter, Vancouver
Neufeld should resign
Schools are public services covered by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the B.C. Human Rights Code. School trustees like Barry Neufeld in Chilliwack who are unwilling or unable to respect those two fundamental laws as they relate to students should step down.
There is a precedent in B.C. that there should be no discrimination against the LGBTQ community in schools. Twelve years ago, a B.C. teacher who espoused anti-gay views was disciplined by the employer and by the regulatory body overseeing teaching certificates. The discipline was upheld by the courts.
Neufeld can have his personal views and express them. However, where this intersects with his role in the public education system, he must check his personal and discriminatory views at the door. Glen Hansman, president, B.C. Teachers’ Federation
Past isn’t relevant today
When I read that people say Chilliwack school board trustee Barry Neufeld is entitled to his opinion about the LGBTQ community, that is true. But as a trustee, a certain level of competence and truth is required.
We are supposed to have progressed beyond Neufeld’s pathetic, ignorant, deplorable 1950s point of view. Only people like U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters, with their regressive policies, want to claim the past as being relevant today. Edward Fox, Surrey