Province buys land for homeless shelter in Maple Ridge, B.C.

But advocates criticize the gesture as window dressing. A new homeless shelter is planned for Maple Ridge, B.C., a community that has shown hostility to the idea in the past. But according to a spokesperson for a longrunning tent city there — Anita Place — the purchase will do nothing for the more than 100 homeless people living there. The provincial government announced Thursday it had purchased a section of land in Maple Ridge for $3.6 million to be used for approximately 40 new supportive housing units and relocation of up to 40 shelter beds from the Salvation Army shelter. It also announced $15 million in new funding for rental housing aimed at seniors and low-income families. And while Maple Ridge Mayor Nicole Read is applauding the move to buy 11749 and 11761 Burnett Street, she knows homelessness is a contentious issue in her city. “We’ve had a lot of really significant hiccups along the way with the Liberal government,” she told On The Coast host Gloria Macarenko.“This is the latest in a line of pro- posals that has come forward so we’re hoping to see this move ahead,” she said. “We’ve been waiting two years on this and that’s a really long time for people who are outside in the cold to be waiting. This can’t happen fast enough.” The first one of those hiccups, Read said, was a proposed low-barrier shelter that was scrapped after community opposition and government cancelling the plan. The second was a temporary shelter that when closed was supposed to be followed by a more permanent solution but which never materialized.