Other communities need to help homeless

DEAR EDITOR:

“Fear mongering by mayor to homeless,” by Kristine Shepherd’s (Herald letters, Jan. 28).

With many years on council, Penticton Mayor John Vassilaki speaks from experience when he calls for a halt to BC Housing proposals for more homeless housing.

One of the most pressing needs is housing for seniors; single mothers; lower income working families and the disabled. We cannot spend all our tax dollars housing the transient homeless and ignore the needs of many other fine longtime members of our city. Too many of these people go to bed hungry at night.

Co-op housing opportunities, where people own their share and have a stake in their community, should work well. BC Housing should do some serious re-thinking about what best serves the needs of Penticton and look to other areas of need by supplying affordable housing in our community.

While Ms. Shepherd is obviously compassionate, unfortunately her view is naïve and unrealistic. I am sure she works hard to help the homeless, however there are many others in need who have lived here all their lives. With rapidly expanding real estate prices these people are lost in the flurry of taking migrating homeless and the drug addicted off our streets.

We don’t need to import homeless from other communities to fill empty spaces because we love building homeless housing. And unfortunately, that is what happens when one community overbuilds enabling other communities to ignore their responsibilities in the matter. This is why we need a well-balanced approach that serves the needs of the Okanagan Valley as a whole. The other communities must live up to their responsibilities.

As the mayor recently stated, housing for the homeless works best when others in the surrounding valley take responsibility for their share of the load.

Penticton cannot be the sole supplier of homeless housing for the Okanagan Valley. All communities must take part in a valley-wide effort. I would suggest that Ms. Shepherd concentrate her efforts on making sure that other communities take up their share of the load.

She would be doing her community and the homeless a favour. She could start by finding out how many homeless units are in other valley cities and speak to their councils about upping their tally.

When the mayor spoke about turning Penticton into a ghetto he was likely referring to the reasons above.

Elvena Slump

Penticton