Abbotsford’s New Homeless Strategy: zip, nada, zilch
It has been close to a year since Compassion Park with several city councillors recently quoted in the newspapers ballyhooing the strides made on the homeless front since the closing of Compassion Park.
Looking at Compassion Park in the spring of 2007 what changes in city behaviour do we find? Well, the notices posted to vacate the park now bear the date March 15, 2007 and …… that’s it. It is truly amazing what progress can be made on homelessness and other growing/pressing social issues with leadership, imagination and intelligent behaviour. Unfortunately for the citizens of our City, Abbotsford City Hall is lacking all three.
A year to plan and prepare and we are unprepared and apparently lacking in any plan but pointlessly chasing of the homeless from spot to spot around the city. What Progress!
It may be of interest to readers that the park is pretty much the last choice on the local realty listings for camping spots. For those who have not visited this area it is basically a steep wooded hillside with little level ground for comfortable tenting. But with all the best camping spots around the city taken and the demand for camps rising with the homeless population, you’ve got to take what is available. Especially since so many of the doorways, overhangs and stairwells are already homesteaded by other homeless.
And so it appears we face another spring and summer of senseless chasing of the homeless from point to point around the city until they arrive back at the starting point to begin yet another fruitless merry-go-round chase, and another, and another, and another. More homeless, more wasted time, more waste of taxpayer dollars to achieve – NOTHING. Apparently Abbotsford City Hall’s action plan for dealing with homelessness and other social ills lies in creating a plan in their own image – a perpetual motion money wasting machine.
Maybe it is just me, but personally I would have decided to try at least one different, preferably several different approaches to these problems. What do you think? Would not you also want to have been prepared with new and different approaches, instead of the same old wasteful behaviours?