A snarling, growling police dog lunging at your face in an apparent desire to rip it off, has to rank high on the list of really bad wakeup calls.

One supposes it is easier to intimidate the homeless when you wake them out of a peaceful sleep in the night to find a police dog straining to attack them. Their focus tends to be on the leash that is all that is keeping them from being mauled.

In case the threat of their trained attack dog is not enough to drive the homeless to find a new camping ground somewhere else, the police threatened to unleash a beast that strikes fear into any citizen who has the misfortune to become its prey – the bylaw enforcement officers.

Yes, the police told their sleep-befuddled victim that if the camp was not abandoned they would set the bylaw officers loose and all the victim’s meagre possessions would garbaged – leaving the victim helplessly exposed to the life-threatening wet and cold elements of the weather. This police statement would appear to confirm the reports made of bylaw officers looting and destroying homeless person’s possessions all over the city.

What heinous crime have these homeless people committed? Existence – worse: the audacity to exist and camp in Abbotsford and camp.

Some kids out exploring/playing/ looking for ???, had come across the camp and been “freaked out” at finding a homeless person existed in their neighbourhood. The Parents phoned the police to run off the homeless – presumably uncaring where the homeless go as long as it’s NIMBY.

Sorry, but I have to inform that this behaviour will not work. Because in some other neighbourhood some other citizen is having the police harass the homeless out of THEIR backyard. Consequently even as a homeless person is displaced from one neighbourhood, another homeless person displaced from some other neighbourhood is moving into the abandoned camp.

The pointlessness of continually wasting taxpayer’s hard-earned money to chase the homeless in endless circles around Abbotsford is not, as important point as it is, the major point we as a city, as a society, should be troubled by. Neither is the ethical questions raised by using trained police dogs to hunt down, find the camps and harass the homeless in the middle of the night.

No what I want the reader to think about is the lessons we are teaching our kids by this behaviour and the effect these lessons will have on them and the society they will make. Consider as well what this behaviour says about us and the society the kids will inherit from us.

Kindness, compassion, help, love? NO, not in this neighbourhood. People are continually complaining about the behaviour of kids today. Think about where and who they learned these decried behaviours from.

How are we teaching them to address problems and issues? Denial, pretend it does not exist or drive it into someone else’s backyard and hope they solve it. This behaviour teaches them nothing about taking responsibility, facing problems full on and thoughtfully dealing with them.

People make fun of and laugh about suits brought by children against their parents for the way they were raised. I am beginning to think that kids today have a legitimate right to sue their parents for failing to raise them in a manner that equipped them to deal with the problems and challenges they will inherit; part of the first generation of children that will inherit a world of less opportunity, lesser dreams, squandered resources and a failing ecology from their parents.

I had the distinct pleasure of watching council give approval to the Spirit Bear Centre Society proposal for a detox/recovery facility for female youth.

Personal experience has taught me that detox/treatment/recovery for youth is non-existent in this area. In truth, services for youth are virtually non-existent in this province.

Councillor Lowen was accurate about the quality of the people involved when he spoke in support of the proposal . Councilor Smith was correct when he said that we are deceiving ourselves if we do not think we have youth in our community who need this type of mentoring and recovery. He was also right that there is a need for a variety of facilities to address our communities addiction, recovery and homeless issues.

Councilor Smith was also quite correct in his statement that we want to attract and support responsible groups that are going to provide services that benefit our community. It is by welcoming and supporting people such as those at Spirit Bear that we ensure that our detox/recovery facilities are world class. As a city we have have seen what happens when you do not support good facilities and organizations.

It was positive to hear that Councillor Ross took the time to meet and inspect the premises. On the other hand it was unfortunate to hear Councillor Gill give in to the NIMBYs.

The citizens of the neighbourhood should not feel as though they have been singled out. The harsh, sad reality is that with the number of issues and thus facilities needed to address and reduce Abbotsfords social problems, all neighbourhoods in the city will be host to facilities. Reality is that the need for recovery and transition facilities in this city is deep and we want not only to put in place the structures needed, but to attract the best people and societies to be running these programs.

Bravo for council for approving this proposal and setting a precedent for approving projects filling community needs and involving good people. I would ask that council direct city staff to extend a welcome to Spirit Bear and to facilitate any needs they may have. I would also ask citizens who have the opportunity to both say “Well done” to council and lend support to Spirit Bear.

I do have a question/challenge for those who signed the petition against this proposal, a paraphrasing of John F. Kennedy. Ask not what your community can do for you, but what you can do for you community. What are you going to do to make this facility a success? They say it takes a community to raise a child. It definitely takes a community to reclaim a child or person from drugs.

This question/challenge is important not only for those of the neighbourhood, but as a question/challenge for all citizens. For in the answer lies the truth of whether Abbotsford is merely a collection of buildings? Or is Abbotsford a Community?