To start, I want to be clear and say that I do not condone the use of manure or fertilizer to drive homeless people from public property.
Last week, Port Coquitlam became the third community outed for using such a tactic.
According to reports, two bylaw enforcement officers spread fertilizer on a plot of land in an effort to keep a homeless man away from a trail situated near an elementary school.
I don't condone it but I do understand it.
What else were these bylaw officers to do in the short term? They asked the man to leave - on several occasions - but he keeps coming back.
The question now becomes what do we do in the long-term? How do we stop homelessness so that our bylaw officers don't have to make these unfortunate decisions?
I think we're already doing a lot of the right things.
Kudos to city governments and community organizations in the Tri-Cities for spearheading shelter programs, developing outreach plans and for stocking food banks. Because of their efforts, the number of homeless in the Tri-Cities is relatively low.
In Metro Vancouver, we've also seen positive statistics. From 2008 to 2011, the number of people who reported being "unsheltered" (i.e., living on the streets) decreased by a whopping 52%.
Yes, more needs to be done. We obviously need more money for affordable housing, mental health and addiction services. But I think we're on the right track with the right mix of strategies.
One strategy that I'm sure my colleague failed to mention is a strong economy.
According to Charity Intelligence Canada, each year, 80% of homeless people in Canada are transitional homeless, people who lost their homes because they lost their jobs, just moved to a big city to find work or because they were evicted from their apartment.
The only way to help this segment is through job creation. That means saying yes to natural resource industries, yes to investing in businesses that create jobs and no to regressive tax policies touted by Jim's buddies at the NDP.
Thanks to free-enterprise governments federally and provincially, we have made progress on this issue.
That said, we have to do more. None of us want to see a repeat of the fertilizer incident.
