Mount Edwards message is propaganda

Re: “Neighbours ‘in the dark’ over plans for Mount Edwards Court,” March 15. When neighbours say they are “in the dark” about Mount Edwards Court, they mean it. The mayor announces “They [the school] were told the plan is to have the building be 50-plus and no drug use.” What about the neighbours? Why could this not have been announced weeks ago? So, 50-plus and no drug use, great. We have the mayor’s word on that.

Meanwhile, the Victoria Cool Aid Society does not consult or inform, as if tent city left no scars. In fact, their contrived Mount Edwards Court Good Neighbour Statement includes this gem referring to their services: “Provision of such services may be accompanied by public disturbances, calling upon residents, social agencies, provincial agencies and the city to ensure negative impacts to public and private property are minimized or eliminated.”

Really? When the expected public disturbances happen, neighbours (residents) must reduce negative impacts, but only to “property.” Have we been deputized? Sadly, being a neighbour to tent city negatively affected more than just our property. It affected our feelings of safety; it changed how we lived in our neighbourhood, where we walked, when we walked, where we parked. Drugs and weapons do that. Who wants that back?

And this is the problem: agencies willing to move 100-plus “social issues” into a residential neighbourhood (beside a school), emphasizing benefits, minimizing and misrepresenting the real impacts, then taking no responsibility beyond their doorstep. No wonder neighbours feel “in the dark.”

Even when there is communication, it seems merely directed propaganda. James Campbell Victoria

DARREN STONE, TIMES COLONIST Mount Edwards Court was set up to provide transitional housing and support services for the homeless, many of them former tent-city inhabitants. A letter-writer says consultation and communication with neighbours about the controversial Vancouver...