Dear Editor,

I live in the Comox Valley. I am a home owner, a taxpayer, and a community activist. I am responding to a letter from the Comox Valley Taxpayers Alliance (CVTA).

I attend most of the Housing Coalition's meetings on homelessness. Many of the homeless in this community attend these meetings. The CVTA states that the majority of the homeless people that we see on our streets are not originally from the Comox Valley. I would say that's true for the majority of the population in the Comox Valley. However, most of the homeless here are in fact from, or have been from, the Comox Valley. The next point that's being said is that the homeless people are being transported here. There is no evidence that people have been bused in from other communities. That is hearsay, not fact.

Then CVTA offers up the idea that we are housing the homeless in an effort to destigmatize them. We are not trying to destigmatize being homeless. There should not be a stigma in the first place. We are trying to move towards basic human rights for all to have shelter.

Point of fact: when I read the letter from CVTA stating that Duncan had spent in excess of $12 million on a shelter, I looked it up online. I could only find a $12 million fund for four shelters in four cities, with Duncan getting a state-of-the-art animal shelter. The grant was provincial, and for four animal shelters. Yes, re-read that. I wrote "animal shelter." This is not a grant for human shelters! Duncan also has an assisted living shelter, The Village, which is supported by the provincial government. There were two apartment buildings to be constructed with income based on rents available. It appears the City of Duncan supplied the land, but a private contractor was to build the apartments.

The CVTA letter goes on to say that building a shelter for the homeless is an atrocity. I believe strongly that we should be doing our best to give every member of our community a life up. We have working poor living on the streets. We have many seniors in the Valley living on the street. To rent one room in a house is $1,000 per month.

In this community, it is even worse. There is a great lack of housing, higher number of citizens are needing access to the food bank for assistance, and the food bank is struggling to meet the need. Shelves are often nearly empty. We have a group, the CVTA, calling the homeless a stigma. We have people with a private agenda appearing to be purposefully spreading misinformation to the public. Many of those people, apparently, do not want to see those who need help.

Some of the reasons help is needed by some of our citizens include:

- Firstly, the governments closed the mental hospitals and dumped patients on the streets

- then they stopped building houses, for decades

- next they cut back on mental health help

- After that, they failed to build necessary mental health facilities and addiction support centres

- the poor and disabled were allotted support that didn't cover food and lodging

I find it disheartening that a group of people in our community have enough money to mail an information letter (with apparently disinformation). I, a home owner, received it, friends in houses with community mailboxes received it, however a friend who lives in an apartment did not. Targeted flyers cost money to deliver. Would it not be better and more helpful to spend that money on calling for community support and helpful suggestions based on human decency and truth?

If I received a letter that was truthful and did not denigrate our most vulnerable citizens, I would have paid more attention to it. I consider it an atrocity to have it arrive in my post box. I am thankful for the roof over my head and the food in my belly, and would wish that for our entire community.

Diane Nakoshima

Courtenay