It was good to step out Saturday morning and see that the snow they had been predicting for Friday night/Saturday morning had not arrived, even though it was unseasonably cold for March.
The City of Abbotsford, despite the predictions of snow and subzero temperatures, had just torn down the home (his camp) of an acquaintance of mine: turning him out into weather that had extreme weather shelters opening across the lower mainland to provide protection from the predicted freezing weather.
I spoke to him after his home was hauled away and he assured me he had already found another spot to camp. Still it is a different matter to be headed into freezing cold weather in an camp you are just setting up, rather than a camp that was well established and in which you had already survived the earlier snowfalls in.
The City had been informed that there was no housing suitable to meet the housing needs of this individual (and others like him) and that because there was no place for him to move to, tearing down his camp would render him without shelter from the elements.
The only thing the City’s actions accomplished, other than wasting the limited resources of the City, was to place this person’s health and life at risk by turning him out into the freezing weather.
Abbotsford seems desperate to close down the camps before the image of the Peardonville bridge fire fade from the public’s memory and they lose their excuse to be turning people out of their shelter, their homes.
And it is no more than a deceitful excuse until they start throwing everybody out into the street from apartments, condos and houses to protect them from fires – since far more people die from fire inside than out.
With the City apparently dedicated to continuing their pointless behaviour of tearing down homes and forcing people to relocate to a new camping location, other experienced homeless are asking about my supply of (or access to) blankets. Thus when the City comes by to haul their shelter away they will be able to get replacement bedding to survive the weather and the elements.
With all the money the City has wasted over the years I have been watching and writing about this pointless behaviour of chasing the homeless around the city, the City could have built the needed housing. But no, the City would prefer to cry poverty while pointlessly wasting taxpayer’s money – as opposed to spending it wisely and accomplish something.
Message to City Council: we are in a recession; we cannot afford this continued pointless waste of money; we need thoughtful behaviour for a change.