BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is in response to a letter to the editor titled 'LETTER: Vespra St. housing proposal 'the last straw' for some residents' published on March 1.
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The residents of Brock Park have a lot to be frustrated about these days.
Our neighborhood has suffered from years of neglect by the city and our councillors. Our streets are cracked and crumbling. Our sidewalks heave and are icy. Many houses are rented out to multiple tenants by absentee landlords. Some even sit vacant waiting to be flipped for a quick profit.
In the coming years, our northeastern skyline will be blotted out by a multi-tower development and now anger is growing about a supportive housing complex slated to be built on Vespra Street.
This morning, reading a letter to the editor, I learned that the Barrie Police Service calls our area “The Jungle." I do know that Barrie police tactical officers did raid a house on my street several times in the course of a year.
We need affordable housing in this city. We need a lot of it. We need to help those who suffer from homelessness and addictions.
As a community, we need help to heal those who suffer from mental health issues and the poor choices that have led to drug habits and petty crime. Most broken lives can be fixed. The question is where do we build supportive housing?
Sometimes the solution is there right in front of you. The first time I visited the downtown library, I was struck by the sheer amount of wasted space behind the building and the municipal lot that was being used for parking. I believe in a smart and forward way to use available land. A parking lot is not one of them.
However, developing land for both residential and commercial use with parking under it is! The city could build supportive housing on the municipal lot. This would have a minimal impact on loss of parking spots as housing would be above those spots offering the benefit of covered parking in inclement weather.
A suggestion was made that the old fire station lands on Vespra could create much-needed parkland. Our neighbourhood has lost a huge amount of usable parkland at the corner of Brock and Innisfil streets because the city planted saplings at Brock Park. Many of these are now dying.
In closing, I hope that Mayor Jeff Lehman and council come up with a compromise that will work for most residents. Meanwhile, I think that I will sit back and crank up Guns N’ Roses' Welcome to the Jungle.
Robert Ossowski
Barrie
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