Maple Ridge’s debate about housing and homelessness has gone provincewide after Premier John Horgan called the city’s approach to housing “make believe.”
Horgan said, where possible, there should municipal buy-in for supportive housing complexes that B.C. Housing wants to install in B.C. cities.
“But in the case of Maple Ridge, there’s a sense of make-believe, that somehow there’s a better solution on the horizon,” Horgan said.
“We’ve been grappling with this for two years, as the previous government did.”
Mayor Mike Morden continues to oppose B.C. Housing’s plans to build 51 temporary, low-barrier supportive housing units at 11749 Burnett St., on the same location rejected a year ago by the previous Maple Ridge council. He wants a facility that offers longer term mental health or drug treatment.
Premier @jjhorgan says #MapleRidge council’s “make believe” approach to its tent camp had to end #bcpoli #bcleg pic.twitter.com/4FJ50FUlGo
— Tom Fletcher (@tomfletcherbc) April 11, 2019
Morden said in a YouTube video last week that he sees Maple Ridge becoming “a hot spot in the Lower Mainland for people coming here to carry on doing drugs and basically raping and pillaging all of our community and our businesses and that’s got to stop.”
However, on Wednesday, he said those words were “an expression of frustration and probably weren’t appropriate.”
Coun. Kiersten Duncan has now asked Morden to apologize for the remarks, saying in a Tweet she’s “deeply concerned.
I'm deeply concerned about Mayor Morden's recent comments that the homeless in our community are "…basically raping and pillaging all of our community and businesses". I will be asking him to make a formal apology to council, residents, and the homeless residents he vilified.
— Kiersten Duncan (@KierstenDuncan_) April 11, 2019
“I will be asking him to make a formal apology to council, residents, and the homeless residents he vilified,” Duncan added.
The online controversy is continuing with B.C. Housing releasing Facebook video vignettes about Maple Ridge residents who need housing.
Also Thursday, the B.C. Liberals called the province’s housing plan “botched,” and said Horgan is “forcing an unworkable plan onto Maple Ridge that doesn’t include enough mental health and addictions supports and is ignoring the huge rise in crime at a similar location the NDP forced upon Nanaimo.”
A YouTube Q and A info session about the Burnett Street supportive housing complex takes place next Monday at 7 p.m.
