I have been reading the passionate letters to the editor as of late.
The new shelter location is inspiring strong feelings and is drawing divisions in our community.
I’m here to call for us to come together, to avoid being divided.
First and foremost, the perpetrator of criminal assault of unhoused individuals is utterly appalling and has no place in our society.
We, unequivocally condemn those illegal actions.
(Sept. 7 Trail Times letter. “Anger never reaps healthy solutions.” To clarify, there is no link between the person throwing rocks at homeless people and concerned residents of Riverside Avenue.)
The reality is, everyone who isn’t already wealthy is struggling.
Members of our community certainly are, as most of us are living paycheck to paycheck. But we are working to better our community.
We rely on our provincial government to help provide services to people in need.
The concern is that this proposed solution is not adequate to meet the needs of Trail’s unhoused population, not even close. There are twenty-four beds proposed for more than fifty unhoused individuals.
That leaves more than half without housing facilities. And these people will do the only thing they can, which is camp near to the services they will have access to.
We genuinely fear that the consequences of the inadequate resources devoted to the shelter will fall predominately on our community to address, by virtue of our geographic proximity to the shelter.
The fact that there is inadequate services for all those in need.
And it is exactly that. Fear.
Because the proposed services are clearly inadequate, and because our communities attempts to communicate and work with the various government groups has been extremely difficult.
I have sent BC Housing two emails for every response they have provided. Additionally, BC Housing was asked in a third party audit to establish a criteria for evaluating whether an Operation and Operator are meeting their contractual obligations and has not been able to provide me with that criteria, a question I have been asking for well over a month.
This information in conjunction with BC Housing firm stance that the Operator’s responsibilities will be geographically limited to a small area has left us concerned about how issues like petty crime and waste collection will be addressed outside of the Operator’s responsibilities.
The City of Trail limited their public consultations to a single mail-out, until our community organized and made our voices heard.
Getting the city to commit to any resource allocation and planning has been passed off as “premature” by city management.
With such poor engagement from the governmental agencies, it’s not hard to see why we are fearful that this will become a place to put a problem and forget about it.
Out of sight (downtown), out of mind.
I call upon the same compassion being asked for by unhoused advocates to be shared with us, who will be working day-by-day to deal with the base, community level impacts.
We ask local volunteers to come help us with ensuring our community stays clean and safe for everyone who lives here.
We ask volunteers to take an unhoused individual into their homes if they can afford to.
And most of all we ask for compassion and understanding. Understanding that we are scared.
Scared that not enough is being done and that our lives will be made worse by being forced to help others, while struggling ourselves.
Help prove us wrong by encouraging BC Housing to do build proper facilities that can actually meet the needs of their clients.
Prove us wrong by helping us keep our community safe, clean and enjoyable for us all.
I’m extremely frustrated that there have been insinuations that a community trying to organize itself, in fear; is related to a criminal assault.
It’s disappointing that this conversation lacks nuance and has resorted to mud-slinging.
I beg everyone to come and join us so we can properly dialogue and share in building this community with us.
Regards,
Will Hillary
Riverside Avenue community