To the Citizens of Vernon
I wish to commend Mr. Kai Eli and his Avengers in their effort to assist in taking back a community park. To me and too many others, a park is somewhere kids can play and Family’s gather in a safe green area. A park is not a camp site, a place to use as a toilet or a rendezvous to do drugs. I also think it is commendable that community volunteers go around and pick up used needles and also spend time to clean up our downtown core. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but wonder why our mayor is so silent on this issue. It seems to me that he is hiding behind committees and task forces along with special paid consultants to address the homeless issue. Community citizens are trying to improve our town perhaps the mayor could at the very least assist in picking up needles or join in the trash cleanup. This way he could feel the pulse of his town. As many other people do, we normally drive to Kelowna for our shopping as we don’t want to be intimated or hassled by just walking down the street in town. What compelled me to write my thoughts was that as an exception we needed to go downtown on Wednesday morning around 10:30am to do some urgent banking and while walking only one block in the downtown area we observed the following. Two street people had their hats on the sidewalk. One was trying to get your attention by trying to stare you down so that you would give while the other only 5-6 feet away was very verbal on trying to get your attention. Meanwhile 3 other street people took the 4 street benches and spread out their packsacks and rolled blankets on all the benches to ensure nobody would intrude on their discussions.
Instead of all this current bureaucratic process, why someone at city hall can’t be given the task to call 7-10 municipalities within BC or across Canada that have roughly the same population base as Vernon and find out what they are doing about homeless people. Take the 3 best ideas or amalgamated ideas and make this proposal to city council and get on with it. I am sure that Vernon is not an isolated case with this issue.
It may be time to have a “community police office” beside troubled parks such as Polson Park because kind citizens such as Mr. Eli cannot be present 7 days a week. Maybe it is also time to provide a dedicated area for the homeless. They could set up their tents (not at a park) and provide portable toilets for their use and a disposal container for the ones that do drugs. Don’t think it is a citizens’ duty to pick up used needles. I would also recommend that as Vernon city hall are great to create by-laws, that one could be created that stipulates –”No Panhandling-or Soliciting within our downtown core area”. Based on the newspapers and internet, our business people located in downtown are fed up and so are our local citizens.
It is with all due respect, I realize that I am painting all homeless people with the same brush however it is time to act and have a clear direction on how to take back our town so that we don’t need to rely on kind people like Mr. Eli or volunteers to be proud of our town. When tourists come this way or we have visitors we can walk downtown hassle free.
Thank you for taking the time to read the article.
Bob Gendron
