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COLUMN: Neighbour's advice on helping homeless and city

Editor's note: New Westminster NewsLeader editor Chris Bryan addressed this column to the city of Abbotsford, which has been dealing with homeless issues. Given that the Tri-Cities have issues with homelessness, too, we're sharing the column.

Editor's note: New Westminster NewsLeader editor Chris Bryan addressed this column to the city of Abbotsford, which has been dealing with homeless issues. Given that the Tri-Cities have issues with homelessness, too, we're sharing the column.

Dear Abbotsford city council:

I hear you have a homelessness problem in your city.

We did too, in New Westminster a few years ago. Today, not so much.

And I heard a tie vote (4-4) meant defeat for an application to build a 20-bed low-barrier housing facility for homeless men in your city.

Turning that down was a big mistake.

Let me explain: You may recall what New West was like 10 years ago. Our downtown was awful. Chronic homelessness all over the place. (There was a fair bit of drug dealing, too, but that's another story.) Guys with their lives packed in shopping carts. Folks sleeping in the same doorway other folks used as a urinal.

On weekday mornings in 2007, it was common to see police and city staff use a dump truck to cart off homeless people's belongings that had become an eyesore. They would also break up homeless camps in parks and other hidden locations.

The "homelessness problem," along with the drug trade, was killing New West's image in the region.

Creating promotional brochures for the city must have been brutal. I can picture the Chamber of Commerce putting together promo literature and insisting all photos be cropped tightly - looking at the big picture was too bleak.

Then something happened. In 2008, the city partnered with BC Housing to rezone four properties the provincial body had purchased.

One, the College Place Hotel, had a strip joint and a beer parlour, and its claim to fame was the 638 police calls for service racked up between 2005 and '08.

They shut the booze cans and renovated the building with 40 supported housing units plus 16 emergency shelter beds. The three other buildings included the Rhoda Kaellis Residence (24 units), Maria Keary Cottage (20 beds) and the Elizabeth Gurney House (12 units).

At the time, some people worried about building all this capacity for housing the homeless.

Three buildings are downtown, where some business owners feared we would become even more of a destination for the homeless, especially considering our neighbour Burnaby does pretty much nothing.

In 2008, the homelessness count in New West was about 72 individuals.

Doesn't sound like many, perhaps. But in a small city centre, six dozen people without a place to sleep, urinate and, in some cases, wrestle an addiction or mental health demon, can make a huge impact.

Most average folk in New West avoided downtown in those days.

By 2010, all four BC Housing projects had opened. A year later, the 2011 homelessness count indicated there were 39 people without housing on our streets, a drop of 46% from 2008. (The next region-wide count is mid-March, so we'll see how 2014 looks.)

But the best way to judge the difference is to walk in our downtown.

Jam-packed shopping carts are rare. I haven't seen someone sleeping in a doorway in years. You still see homeless people, though far fewer. And those folks who seem to "fit the type" look like they've had more access to a shower and laundry. Bluntly put, they look more together than what you would see in the past.

As for residents in general, we like to go to our downtown now. It has become a more desirable place to live, work and shop. Police and bylaw officers have more time for better things.

It may have been wary before but now even the business improvement association is on board. This year, it is again helping to fund a program that hires homeless people to help keep the streets clean. It's helping to build their connection to their city and their pride in it.

Today in New West the gap between "us" average folks and "them" homeless folks has narrowed a lot.

And from where I sit, everyone wins.

Sincerely,

Your neighbour down the river

Chris Bryan is the editor of The New Westminster NewsLeader, a Black Press sister paper to The Tri-City News.