I have heard city councillors moaning over the large budget increase given the Abbotsford Police Department and the affect this will have and has had on other budget areas.

I was thinking about this because the police are so hot-to-trot about tearing down homeless camps around town.

I rather doubt it was to tear down homeless camps that the police were given their $4,000,000 budget increase?

But with the spectacular fire and death under the Peardonville overpass providing cover justification, the police want to move quickly, before the image fades from the publics mind.

Is chasing the homeless from spot to spot, time after time, really the best use of police resources when there are gunfights taking place on our streets and our city is becoming a gang hangout?

Let me be clear I, and the homeless themselves, would agree and be happy to see some of the camps torn down or the residents required to maintain their campsites – as homeowners are required to upkeep their property.

We all are aware of the horror stories of neighbours who have old cars or other junk piled in their yard or of the problem of having someone on your street selling drugs out of their residence.

Those whose camps are their home feel the same way about bad neighbours as others feel about bad neighbours near their home.

These are the homeless whose camps will never make the television news or the newspapers because they are neat, tidy and well kept.

One couple I know has just started to clean up an abandoned pigsty of a campsite, having already cleaned up one such site in their neighbourhood. Considering the great deal of effort involved since they have to remove the debris one shopping cart load at a time, these are the kind of people you want as neighbours.

The police should be focusing their time, resources and taxpayer dollars on problem solving and dealing with real problems not chasing people who are and want to be good neighbours around the city from spot to spot simply because they lack the resources to meet their housing needs.