Shelter From the Storm

With apologies to Bob Dylan, I quote the following from Dylan's Shelter From the Storm because it reminds me of Mayor Nicole Read's campaign rhetoric about dealing with the homeless problem in downtown Maple Ridge.

“Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns
"Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm"

In the thirteen months since the election, Read's promise to deal with the homeless issue in our neighbourhood has been a colossal failure on virtually every front.

The low barrier or harm reduction model applied to the 'temporary' shelter has not lived up to the promises of Rain City Housing which operates the facility.

Street crime such as prostitution, drug use and trafficking, major and minor crimes, violence and the erosion of neighourhood standards continues unabated.

We continue to find discarded needles and condoms at pretty well every corner. Some of the homeless have even resorted to using stairwells and other nooks and crannies as outdoor toilets.

Drug overdoses in the immediate area continue to require the attention of police, ambulance services, the fire department, city outreach workers and other assorted personnel at a cost that nobody at city hall will talk about publicly but almost certainly exceeds a million dollars or more in this year alone.

The 'temporary' shelter has done nothing to slow down this rampaging social disaster.

Earlier this week, Read admitted that, with only four months left on the six-month lease, it is unlikely that a permanent shelter can be established before the April 1, 2016 scheduled closing date for the 'temporary' facility.

Not many people in this neighbourhood placed much faith in Read's announcement prior to the October 1, 2015 opening of the 'temporary' shelter that it was only 'temporary' and would be shut down at the end of the six-month lease period but they were desperate for a solution to the unfolding social tragedy.

Cliff Avenue residents and the operators of Catalina Spa benefited by the closure of the tent city which had created unnecessary disruption and fear in the lives of those people but the re-location of the homeless to the current shelter solved nothing.

Even the drug dealers supplying the users didn't have to shift their locations and business carries on as usual.

As long as the shelter allows drug and alcohol use in and around the facility, the social, police and other costs will continue to escalate.

In Maple Ridge where average property values have sky rocketed in the past few years, the selling price of apartments in the immediate area surrounding the Caring Place and the 'temporary' shelter have plummeted. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out why.

As long as the shelter remains in a central downtown location and the harm reduction and low barrier models are employed as acceptable standards, we will all be losers.

Finding permanent living space for people suffering from addictive habits such as drugs or alcohol abuse or those suffering from various forms of mental illness is, at best, a band-aid solution. While it is admirable to want to provide “Shelter From the Storm”, there must be more to it, even if that means mandatory or enforced treatment.

One thing which will ensure continued failure is more rhetoric and political dodgeball from the mayor and city bureaucrats.