Dear editor,

The construction of a perimeter fence around the Connect Warming Centre raises significant concerns about transparency and the city鈥檚 approach to addressing homelessness.

According to the city鈥檚 website, the fence is designed to 鈥渃reate dedicated space and more separation that will help improve the needs of both the Connect Centre and the adjacent businesses.鈥� It further claims that the fence will provide 鈥済reater privacy and screening for both Connect Centre clients and area businesses and their patrons.鈥�

However, after reading the city's justification, one can鈥檛 help but feel skeptical about their motives. As the city has stated, the fence certainly creates more physical separation, it also deepens the alienation of our homeless population, effectively hiding them from the view of those who prefer not to acknowledge the ongoing housing crisis. Rather than offering a meaningful solution, the city's approach feels like a 鈥渂and-aid鈥� solution 鈥� one that wastes taxpayer money without addressing the core issue.

Does the city really believe that homeless individuals simply disappear into the ether with the construction of a fence? These individuals still exist, struggling to survive daily in the face of an ongoing housing shortage. Instead of providing them with the necessary resources, the city seems to have relegated them to what amounts to a holding pen for cattle - out of sight and out of mind.

Imagine being unhoused and forced into a space where you're hidden away from the world, merely to keep the discomfort of the housed population at bay. It's deeply frustrating and angering that the city would spend $150,000 on a fence designed to keep the homeless out of sight, rather than investing in long-term solutions to the housing crisis. Where are the plans for additional low-income and supportive housing? Treating marginalized people as though they鈥檙e something to be hidden away, instead of developing comprehensive, sustainable solutions, is an embarrassment to the City of Courtenay.

Jimmy Andrews

Courtenay