EMPRESS SHUTDOWN FORCING HOMELESSNESS

You are invited: Come one, come all and watch the spectacle as the
long-term residents of the Empress Hotel are evicted onto the street
to join the rest of the homeless society in Chilliwack.

It is official, as of July 31, the hotel rooms at Empress Hotel will
close, throwing more than 20 people out onto the street and homeless.
The people who are being evicted are not drug addicts and drunks, we
are talking about ex-service people on fixed incomes, people with
medical conditions on social services, low income employed people.

The mayor and the RCMP said they are happy with the Empress Hotel
closing, saying now the downtown criminal element will go away and
disperse into other communities.

The downtown crime problem is not the fault of the hotel and the
residents in the hotel; the crime problem is the criminal drug traffic
created by the rolling needle exchange the City of Chilliwack parks in
the City of Chilliwack owned parking lot behind the Empress Hotel.
Imagine how your business would be affected if a needle exchange was
parked beside your business three days a week. If they want to park
the rolling needle exchange someplace, park it in front of the Police
Services Building on Wellington.

The mayor, his councillors, and the RCMP are happy, but it still begs
three questions: (1) If there is so much criminal activity at the
Empress Hotel, by the residents, then why has not the RCMP arrested
any of them or anybody for that matter?; (2) Which business will be
the next host of the City of Chilliwack rolling needle exchange and
the drug and criminal element it brings? Yours?; and (3) Do you feel
safer?

The mayor, councillors, and the RCMP have all failed the citizens of
Chilliwack on a major scale on crime prevention in the city and they
are using the closure of the Empress Hotel, and its tragic forced
human homelessness and suffering, as a smoke screen to hide their
crime prevention failures in the upcoming elections so Sharon Gaetz
can get elected as mayor of Chilliwack and give the citizens of
Chilliwack more of the crime prevention the citizens of Chilliwack
have experienced in the last four years. Remember, only a couple of
months ago Stats Canada rated Chilliwack as one of the most dangerous
places to live in Canada.

To use the lives of people to advance a political career, now that is
verging on criminal. And, for the people of Chilliwack to do nothing
to prevent this forced homelessness is equally criminal.

Mike Hodge
Chilliwack