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The Editor:
Re: Letter: Compassion, empathy needed to help New West's homeless population (Dec. 26, 2024)
Nice try.
That about sums up our thoughts in response to a letter to the editor sent by Brad Cavanagh, a well-known confidante, long-time friend and political ally of Mayor Patrick Johnstone and his Community First caucus.
Under the Record's headline of “Compassion, empathy needed to help New West's homeless population,” Cavanagh feebly attempts to paint a picture that is not only a complete distortion of reality, but it falsely builds a narrative that only his Community First political allies on council care about the homeless and marginalized people living in our city.
While the Mayor and his political allies may find this difficult to accept, the people living on our streets won’t have their problems solved by compassion and "preformative" empathy alone. Research clearly demonstrates what is actually required is housing and support services, and a lot more of it.
In many cases the homeless also desperately need modern mental health treatment and clinical supports — something that was promised, but never materialized after the closure of Riverview Hospital decades ago.
That’s why for the past two years, your New West Progressive (NWP) city councillors have been some of the harshest critics of the BC NDP government for their delays in getting a 55-unit supportive housing project built at Agnes and 6th Street. A project promised by the Ministry of Housing in 2021. Incredibly, shovels just went in the ground a few weeks ago with an occupancy date scheduled for no earlier than January 2026.
We’ve regularly called upon the NDP government to stop simply making announcements about new supportive housing projects and start getting shovels in the ground.
The same can’t be said for our Community First Council colleagues (who are politically aligned with the NDP government in Victoria) as they have been either muted or extremely measured in their public rebuke of Victoria's failed housing policies.
Have we rubber stamped every supportive housing project that’s come before Council in the past two years? The simple answer is no.
We scrutinize them all very carefully. We listen to the public feedback. We assess whether they are located in the proper spot with access to 24/7 wraparound around services. We factor in whether there is too much of a concentration in one neighbourhood — or not. In other words, we are doing our jobs as city councillors to not only reflect empathy and compassion for those living on our streets — but for the taxpayers, business owners and residents who inevitably will also be impacted by every one of our decisions.
It's worth noting we voted in favour of the establishment of a truly temporary homeless shelter operated by the Lookout Society downtown as well as advocated for a one-year extension to the shelter located at Army and Navy operated by the Purpose Society. An inconvenient truth that was absent from Mr. Cavanagh's letter.
Lastly, in terms of the police, to argue they don’t play a role when it comes to interacting with our homeless population on a daily basis demonstrates a complete lack of understanding as to what is actually happening on our streets — in particular in neighbourhoods like our historic downtown.
Just ask any one of our men and women in blue, and if they could speak freely, they would tell you how New Westminster has over the past five years become a "homeless hub." A place where other neighbouring cities can send their homeless after another "crackdown" or closure of a homeless encampment.
Few could argue our police who work in a mid-size city are being forced to deal with big city problems and social decay — including having to come up with strategies on how to manage and assist an ever-growing homeless population.
Mr. Cavanagh, the reality is there are indeed seven adults in the council chamber and it’s high time we all follow through on one of the NWP's approved initiatives to establish a “Team New West” approach.
It’s been almost two years since that motion passed, with the Mayor doing little to get our federal and provincial representatives at the table with us to begin solving the long-standing challenges facing our city.
Only then, with a strong and unified voice, will we actually begin to develop long-term solutions and not simply implement band-aids that further kick the problem down the road.
In other words, it's critical we build more housing for homeless people throughout the entire Metro Vancouver region.
Something, for the record, we both support.
- Couns. Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas, New Westminster
