Mr. John Smith still has not answered the most important question concerning the recovery house policy.

Mr. Smith and council have failed to answer: “when you close a ‘bad’ recovery house, where are the people/residents going to go”?

I support closing bad recovery houses, probably not for the same reasons as Mr. Smith, but I do support closing them. But, and isn’t there always a but with a people problem? But I felt, and still feel, that Mr. Smith and council need to have a plan in place so the people in those recovery homes that will be closed have a place to go – rather than mindlessly adding 100 – 200 more homeless to the overcrowded, overrun streets of Abbotsford.

Since it appears the Mr. Smith and council have followed their usual policy with taxpayer questions, they did not listen and ignored the question, I want to pose something to think about for the citizens of Abbotsford who will be affected by the new recovery home policy.

Before celebrating the closing of a recovery house in your neighbourhood – where are the people who live in the house going to go?

Recovery houses were a market response to the demand for affordable housing. When you close a recovery house there is nowhere else the residents can afford to move to.

You may not have liked a recovery house in your neighbourhood but are you prepared for the ex-residents seeking shelter in you carports, crawl spaces, sheds or trees around your/their neighbourhood? With nowhere else to go the people are going to stay in the neighbourhood they know – your/their neighbourhood. That is their comfort zone and where they will want to stay.

Perhaps any newly displaced residents of recovery houses can find rides to Mr. Smith and other councilors homes and neighbourhoods?

After all they have been aware of the question of where displaced residents of recovery homes will go for over a year and … done nothing to address this question/aspect of the new recovery homes policy.

I have spent the last several years working on recovering my mental health after mental illness literally consumed my life. With hard work my recovery has progressed to the point that I enjoy the best mental health and balance of my life.

Imagine then my dismay and alarm at your government’s assault on my mental health. Words are inadequate to express fully my feelings concerning this assault on common sense and thought – but I will strive to convey to some understanding.

Having been forced to deal with the mind numbing, irrational bureaucracy, the immense waste of taxpayer dollars and the insanity of repeating over and over actions and programs that clearly fail to help people in need, rather than adopting best practices demonstrated to reduce homelessness and other social ills during my recovery – I was able to cope with the stupidity and waste by sharing the insanity through my written words.

But your government’s new and increasing offensive against good governance, fiscal responsibility and plain common sense poses a severe threat to my hard won mental health.

The government’s desire to prevent the international story of the Vancouver Winter Olympics from being the contrast of the shinny new facilities for rich citizens games and entertainment with the squalor of the increasing numbers of the poor (many with jobs providing service to the rich), mentally ill and addicted homeless living on the winter streets of the lower mainland is OK.

It matters not that it is fear of bad press and disturbing images flowing around the world as the world focuses on the Winter Olympics that causes desperately needed funds to flow, rather than caring.

What matters is that there are funds available to begin to end homelessness and associated social ills.

What is unacceptable is that it appears that the government intends to spend these funds in the same ineffective, wasteful and pointless manner of current programs and behaviours whose only accomplishment is to have increased homelessness and poverty and.

What rational sane person could possibly imagine that if a program is doing nothing to decrease homelessness, that running that program more hours a day, even all day long, is going to do anything but spend more money to accomplish the same failure? Only a government bureaucrat or politician could believe thus.

If a program or behaviour does nothing, then doing more of the same behaviour will accomplish nothing but to waste money better spent on practices that have demonstrated their effectiveness elsewhere. We need to embrace change, to accept the risks that come with making changes and act with deliberation and rational thought.

What next? Reach back into history for other failed government responses to problems with a specific class or group of people? Plans for the internment camps for the Japanese people still exist. The government could build camps out in the Fraser valley and ship the homeless et al out to interment for the period leading up to and during the 2010 Winter Games.

If we want to avoid the story and images of BC and the Winter Olympics that people around the world get from being the poor, mentally ill and addicted suffering and wandering winter streets of Vancouver, Whistler, Abbotsford and throughout the province the rational approach is to end homelessness, not to attempt paper over or hide the problem.

We need to champion an end to homelessness. We need to provide leadership to bring about the changes in policies and behaviours necessary to end homelessness.

I want to close by sharing the story that caused me to sit down and write this plea for my sanity, the end to the insane behaviour of our government and a change to rational behaviour on homelessness.

There was a call placed from an agency Vancouver inquiring if there were emergency shelter beds available for a woman client – in Abbotsford. They were going to ship her out of Vancouver to a city where she had no support and would in a matter of days be back out on the streets.

We have a problem of homelessness. Rather than continuing to ignore it, to hide it or dump it on someone else we could try a very novel approach – ending homelessness.