An Oct. 19 letter (Changing attitudes towards homeless critical to solution) suggested that we consult with the homeless.
Advocates tell us that tent dwellers did not do $100,000 of vandalism in a local school in just a few hours, and that they are non violent and unarmed. Truth and reason are simply not in them when you try to have a rational discussion with them. Try asking them not to smoke near a bus stop if you do not believe me.
A Nanaimo tent city resident brandished a machete and a pruning saw in front of a video camera when asked about the Sons of Odin threatening to take vigilante action.
My 60 something stoner brother lives in a tent in the summer and a car in the winter, after being evicted from our mother’s basement for elder abuse. He eats at missions for low income and street people and tells me that I am envious of his “simple life.” Go figure.
That is a conscious choice he made, to be able to buy more pot than if he paid for rent and for the food he eats. He has made that calculation before. After he was fired from a medical lab for being constantly stoned on the job back in the 1980s be tried sleeping outdoors in Beacon Hill Park when he did his budgeting for staying constantly stoned while living on EI and making sham attempts to find a new job.
It is hard for most of us to conceive the mind set that considers that a reasonable alternate lifestyle to be seriously evaluated, unless we have decades of personal experience dealing with addicted family and friends.
Kelly Bert Manning
Saanich