The Editor:
New Westminster's homelessness problem is becoming more and more of an issue by the day.
It is slowly turning our town into an increasingly dangerous place at night.
As a student who enjoys going out for long periods of time, the walk home is feeling more and more unsafe.
It’s not like I walk down the sketchy side streets; I walk on the main roads.
The other day, someone came up to me and asked me for substances, which is something I feel that no student should ever have to deal with.
The youth of today should not be afraid to go out at later hours in the day in their own hometown.
This doesn’t even mention how dirty this makes our city look; when you go down to the Quay, under the parking lot is disgusting.
I don’t see how our government could let part of our city get to that point. There are used needles on the ground, people sleeping under the cover of the parking lot and I overheard a police officer saying that another overdose happened here.
People live close to this street. I don’t even want to imagine having to be worried every night hoping that someone isn’t trying to break in for cover. Or, when you are leaving in the morning have some poor guy sleeping outside your front door.
I feel like we need some kind of higher patrol around this area to help get these people off the streets, and off the substances into homes of some kind so they can get better.
If we don’t, we are putting the people of our home at risk for both parties.
This is not an issue that can be ignored forever; it will slowly get worse and worse.
We should try and work on this issue now so we can make sure that the next generation of our youth doesn't have to live in fear of our city late at night.
- Theodore Humenick, New Westminster
