Re: “Leadership needed after church vandalism,” letter, Dec. 29.
The letter regarding the defacing of Central Baptist’s walls makes it seem a fitting retaliation for the church’s construction of a secondary wall to prevent street people from using its frontage to shoot up and sleep off the effects.
But the letter ignores the fact that the homeless users of this space have been disfiguring it with their graffiti for a long time. The church is not alone, moreover, in having to defend its property from abuse by often-lawless street people.
Owners of nearby buildings (and in neighbourhoods stretching all the way up to Quadra Village) have had to fortify them with steel barriers around doors, basement windows and parkades to prevent street people from burglarizing their properties or building fires there to cook their drugs, oblivious to the risks to inhabitants and their homes and businesses, and, of course, to drug users themselves.
Central Baptist provides a free breakfast each month to the homeless and does not deserve to be abused by public opinion or by street people, who are not helped by being treated like victims exempted from responsibility for their actions or condition.
Steve Weatherbe
Victoria
