The Editor,
Re: 鈥溾�楾ough love鈥� coming to 性视界传媒鈥檚 Strip,鈥� the Now-Leader, Sept. 1.
Acting 性视界传媒 Mayor Tom Gill鈥檚 conversation with the Now-Leader鈥檚 Amy Reid offers some troubling insights into the city鈥檚 outlook regarding homeless people in 性视界传媒 and whose interests the city is most committed to serving.
Hint: It鈥檚 not homeless people.
Gill鈥檚 comments make clear that the city is most concerned about the needs of businesses in Whalley. He mentions concerns of business twice in the relatively short piece. This corroborates details in city documents from the public safety committee that I have accessed and read as part of my research on homelessness in 性视界传媒.
Notably, while the 性视界传媒 Outreach Team holds business engagement meetings with the Downtown 性视界传媒 BIA, and engagement activities with the BIA three times a week, homeless people are not present and 鈥渆ngaged.鈥� The Response Plan Status Report is explicit that its approach is 鈥渢o develop solutions to the issues raised by business.鈥漀ot homeless residents but business. That says plenty.
What Gill is peddling may indeed be tough, but it can in no way be called love.
Dr. Jeff Shantz, Department of Criminology, Kwantlen Polytechnic University
鈥撯赌撯赌撯赌�
The Editor,
Re: 鈥溾�楾ough love鈥� coming to 性视界传媒鈥檚 Strip,鈥� the Now-Leader, Sept. 1.
It seems that 1984鈥檚 dystopian world of 鈥榙oublespeak鈥� has seeped into 性视界传媒鈥檚 municipal politics.
The RCMP鈥檚 repressive tactics of containment, coercion, and relentless surveillance 鈥� and bylaw鈥檚 constant harassment and theft inflicted on homeless people 鈥� is called 鈥渁 humanitarian approach鈥� by acting mayor Tom Gill.
The solution to the housing crisis so profoundly evident on the Strip is not actual housing but a shelter, which is simply homelessness under a roof.
And homeless people on the Strip who are forced to comply with arbitrary and dehumanizing rules, like taking down tent poles daily, packing up their belongings and moving them weekly for routine power-washing, and submitting to a myriad of daily orders and interrogations, will now be forced into unsuitable and inadequate housing known as 鈥減ermanent shelters,鈥� all under a strategy called 鈥渢ough love.鈥�
But there is some truth that shines through this performance of 鈥渄oublespeak鈥� 鈥� the city鈥檚 confinement and control policies on 135A (the province鈥檚 only outdoor shelter runs by cops) is clearly meant to serve the interests of businesses and property owners in the area, as it moves down the path of rapid gentrification.
As a society, we are in deep trouble when policies of utter dehumanization are called 鈥渁 humanitarian approach鈥� and obvious disdain and hatred of certain people is called 鈥渓ove.鈥�
Even more disturbing, Gill鈥檚 remarks reinforce a common historical pattern of dehumanization before forced removal, cloaked in a rhetoric of public safety and humanitarian benevolence.
Dave Diewert, 性视界传媒
