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 letter is in response to a petition that was circulated in the Vespra Street area regarding a proposed supportive housing project in the neighbourhood.
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Does anybody want to know what the residents of the Victoria/Innisfil/Sanford/John street area were thinking when we signed the petition opposing the modular housing proposal?
I cannot speak for everyone, but I will do my best to present the general consensus of a compassionate, charitable and engaged community that watches over one another.
If this project goes forward and provides homes as a hand up for vulnerable people, it shouldn't raise any alarms. However, please consider why exactly certain individuals are difficult to house. Do they have an extensive criminal background with a high risk to re-offend? If they do, is it part of a problem with addiction and untreated mental health issues?
There are many families with young children living in this neighbourhood, mine included. We will be the ones who encounter any problematic tenants sheltering at Vespra Street.
Usually it's the police who are responsible for helping those whose problems are on display for all to see, but in light of recent events in our city, I would not be surprised if we are left with a police force that is reluctant to engage anyone or enforce anything.
So who exactly is going to be present and accountable to help introduce hard-to-house people to our neighbourhood? Will Coun. Keenan Aylwin volunteer on a regular basis to pick up discarded needles and smooth any tensions that may arise?
Some neighbours, expecting the worst, have listed their homes for sale. I don't blame them. The overlapping social issues of drug addiction, homelessness, crime and prostitution have waxed and waned here for quite some time, and the Vespra Street project is the last straw.
Our neighbours are leaving a part of Barrie that, according to rumours, is referred to by the Barrie police as "the jungle." Obviously, it would be great if we could outgrow this reputation, which is what we have been striving for.
So will the Vespra Street project add value to our homes or not? Will there be increased crime and disturbances?
Downtown BIA chair Rob Hamilton was being brutally honest when he stated that the interactions between the homeless population and the rest of Barrie is "a collision of two worlds." He wasn't wrong.
My neighbourhood shares the same concerns as Barrie's Business Improvement Association, only we don't have the luxury of hiring an expensive consulting firm to speak for us and steer public opinion.
I would like to end this by suggesting that anyone who attempts to answer any of these questions should employ the same scathing honesty that Rob Hamilton uses when he thinks that nobody's listening.
Daisy Oliveros
Barrie
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