Dear editor,
Homeless shelter? or just another government boondoggle?
St. George’s provides food from their church hall, with volunteers and donations from the community. If the government was running a soup kitchen it would be a new WCB-approved facility with a CEO, union staff, security, trained chefs and all at the taxpayers’ expense.
Running a homeless shelter is not the mandate of the municipal government. I have worked with street people or “the homeless” and the majority of them are suffering from mental illness and/or substance abuse/addiction.
City staff are not trained for, nor can we afford to properly run a unit that is primarily dealing with people who need far more than just simple shelter.
This is a job for the Ministry of Health or VIHA or a group like the Salvation Army.
As a citizen of Courtenay I could support long-term leasing for a token fee, this (or another) property to the Salvation Army or VIHA to run as a homeless shelter/rehab.
Good intentions, but if you really want to help these people, then leave this job to the professionals. Do not use these people’s misfortune as an opportunity to create another level of incompetent, expensive and ineffectual government.
John Van Egmond,
Courtenay
