It looks as though Abbotsford could well have a dramatic summer on the homeless front. The Shelter is currently seeing unprecedented numbers of new faces, no longer arriving by 1’s or 2’s but in groups of 6 – 8. For the first time people who should have been guaranteed a bed, those with under 5 nights at the shelter, are failing to get a bed because of the volume of new people arriving and using the Shelter. At this point in time there are new faces, new people literally pouring into the city.

Abbotsford City Hall has always used “if we put in facilities it will attract a flood of homeless” as an excuse for doing nothing. When warned that they were facing a flood of homeless anyway and asked how they planned to deal with that, they chose not to see or acknowledge this possibility. Even in the face of common sense, human dynamics and the accelerating rate of homeless creation.

Yes Abbotsford City Hall hired a social planner and created and Advisory Committee on social issues, but to date the net result has been to allow Abbotsford City Hall to effectively procrastinate, taking no action on any of the pressing social issues facing the City, particularly homelessness and addiction.

“Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait – The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don’t count.” Robert Anthony

Abbotsford City Hall, and unfortunately the citizens, are currently facing the prospect of finding the city streets awash with the flood of homeless people currently threatening to inundate the City. At which point Abbotsford City Hall will react with its patented lack of foresight, planning and intelligence. Leaving the City facing another set of expensive, messy and unnecessary problems because Abbotsford City Hall chooses not to hear or see what it does not what to see or hear.

Aristotle taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. One would almost think he had meet those at Abbosford City Hall.