The homeless have it good
One year the B.C. Liquor Control Board hired undercover decoys to spy on their government owned liquor stores to see if their staff was following established guidelines of asking for a piece of identification from customers that looked young in appearance before purchasing liquor products. The undercover decoys found that Liquor Control Board employees were not asking for identification in a large majority of liquor purchases.
Now the time has come for undercover decoys to be initiated into our local streets in regards to the homeless population.
That is, undercover decoys to start living in the tent camps, sleeping in local streets, decoys sleeping at the homeless shelter, showing up at the needle exchange location, and eating at the local food bank. These decoys do not have to be RCMP or have a background in how to stop crime. They can be hired from the local civil population, and employees with paying jobs in the food bank, needle exchange, and homeless shelter do not need to know about the decoys.
All these decoys need is a sharp eye with very good hearing. All of their detailed information to be handed in to the RCMP.
Why decoys? To catch the drug dealers. These drug dealers have to be eliminated, because they are responsible for the massive amount of robberies and theft from all of us due to the fact that the homeless hooked on drugs need money to buy drugs, thus they go into stealing at the same time causing massive damage to obtain articles that they are stealing. Why are pawn shops accepting stolen property?
I myself have taken my dog for a walk through the high school grounds. I am not a Perry Mason, or a Ben Matlock, but you do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what is going on. One time, three homeless people met a person on the grounds, did a exchange with the person, and that person took off and the three homeless people went over to sit by the fence and put needles into their arms. The person that walked away was a drug dealer.
Having a decoy in the area could put a stop to this. Not the decoy himself, but via the RCMP. A decoy could have walked up, talked to the drug dealer and made contact of where he could meet him in the future to buy drugs for his needles. That way the decoy could meet the drug dealer with the RCMP waiting nearby to take the drug dealer into custody.
I myself have attended two town hall meetings at the Sands chapel in regards to the problems created by the needle exchange location on Trunk Road.
One question asked to Gary Kerr, Duncan’s bylaw officer supervisor, how come tickets are never handed out to the homeless people? His reply was that they rip the ticket up; and yet again, you and I could never do that. We would have to pay the fine.
One question was asked to the RCMP constable of how come they never take a homeless person in for a night in a jail cell. His reply was that does not prove anything, and what they do now, is just have a firm talking with them; yet for you and me, the RCMP would never hesitate about putting you and I into a jail cell for the night.
Another question to the RCMP was stressing that damage caused by the homeless is costing home owners added expenses. The answer the RCMP gave was to put in a claim in to your house insurance; yet again if you and I do damage to someone’s property, we have to pay for the damage.
I have passed panhandlers sitting outside local merchants, asking for money. Right behind their heads, a sign would read, help wanted.
I would say that the homeless population has three divisions. Those divisions are drug addiction, alcoholics, and the ones that are out of luck without being able to find a job. These ones see how the government caters to the drug and alcohol people and decide to do the same and that is, never look for work again.
Many of these homeless people are still capable of working at a job. I do not buy that they all have mental issues. The government uses this excuse so that they do not have to cure the problem. All that is needed for the men is a haircut, shave, and a clean set of clothes and shoes. The same with women. A haircut, some makeup, a clean set of clothes and shoes. Many retail jobs available.
At the St. Julian Street tent camp, some incentive has to be created. That is, a van should pick some of them every morning, and go and clean garbage for about four hours. Something to look forward to.
The government recently purchased the Comfort Inn in Victoria, to house the homeless. The hotel has 152 rooms, all non smoking when it was operating as a hotel.
Since the purchase, there has been two fires caused by smoking in the rooms. Shows how these high paid B.C. Housing management are doing their jobs.
A high powered rifle complete with ammunition was found in one of the rooms. Again how come the highly paid B.C. Housing management are not checking what the residents are bringing back to the hotel? The system should be a check in system when returning to the hotel, and a check out system when leaving the hotel. Also a visual body check and backpack check when returning to the hotel. Also there is no need to have paid staff doing cleaning, laundering, and grounds maintenance.
As everything is free to them, including cell phones, compliments of the B.C. premier, the residents could do these jobs. That is the cleaning of the rooms, hallways, the washing of all linens, and clean up of the grounds around the building, including the watering of the flower pots.
In summary, the homeless have it very good, and they all know that, because the government is not doing anything to get them back on their feet again financially, and that means working, not government funded by taxpayers handouts.
Everyone has a heart, but that does not mean to give your spare change to panhandlers.
Unless the government does not put a handle on the problem, it is only going to increase. Why? The prime minister of Canada gave out $300 million taxpayer dollars to the poorer countries to help fight the COVID virus. Three hundred million dollars with a homeless population in Canada. Completely insane. Unbelievable!
Joe Sawchuk
Duncan
