CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a letter about homeless encampments, published Jan. 6.
The letter recently posted regarding homeless encampments immediately opens through the lens of rose-coloured glasses.
The fact of the matter is that encampments are not a “safe haven” for people. They are breeding grounds for criminal activity, and an astoundingly unsafe part of any community.
We only need to look at reported increases in property crimes near encampments to see this. Not only that, but there have been countless atrocities reported from a police officer being murdered in British Columbia, to an Edmonton man being sexually assaulted after being duped into helping during a fake moment of “distress” on a late-night walk home, to rampant drug use of narcotics, “housing” of gang members and storage of stolen property to see that these encampments pose serious risks to local communities.
Are there happy, “sunny ways” solutions for our current homeless and addictions crisis? No, but leaving these issues to fester because “it’s the compassionate” thing to do is not the proper response, either.
Alexander McKean
Clearview Township
