WE CHASE AWAY TOURISTS, AND ATTRACT MORE JUNKIES

From the barber shop to the dentist's office, the talk on the street
these days is street people and the rapid degradation of Maple Ridge's
downtown public spaces.

You'll notice I don't use the misnomer "homeless" to describe the
jabbering junkies and professional criminals who are taking over our
community.

Welcome to the summer of 2004, where political correctness and
populist politics simmer in the summer heat, producing a stew of
pretend solutions to the broken families, drug abuse and victim
culture inculcated in generations of people raised by the welfare state.

My dentist occupies the same building as Dr. Harrison's medical
practice. His letter on the opposite page is one of many examples of
the most polite, tolerant people in the community deciding they've had
enough. Other hard-working citizens in the community have privately
told me the same thing: they're sick and tired of watching the streets
be taken over by people who don't follow even the most basic rules of
civilized behaviour.

We've reported on the fast-food outlet that has had to resort to razor
wire around its garbage bins to keep people from throwing everything
out in search of a quick meal.

We've reported on the well-used network of transient camps along the
Lougheed Highway and Haney bypass. (Update: as of Monday the semi-permanent
campsite under the bridge where Kanaka Creek crosses the highway was such a
welter of bikes, shopping carts and garbage that I didn't attempt to use it
to cross the highway.)

The point should be obvious to all but the most obtuse of do-gooders:
Maple Ridge has become a magnet for street people. We are too inept to
attract tourists, but our word of mouth is world class with the
junkie-thief crowd.

If you don't believe me, ask Jim Goheen, a veteran psychiatric nurse
who told the NEWS in May he recognizes some of our sudden influx of
"homeless" people from the downtown east side and New Westminster. Or
Eduard Bokan, who wrote me this week with the same observation: he
knows some of these people from his extensive travels in Vancouver's
downtown east side. They have come to Maple Ridge because we cater to
them.

Last night Maple Ridge council was expected to give first reading to a
proposal for a 38-unit "second-stage" housing project. This proposal
came wrapped in the usual buzzwords of the helping professions, with
smooth assurances that it would house people emerging from the Cythera
transition house as well as the Salvation Army shelter.

There would be nine apartments for those disabled in some unspecified way
and 20 for former shelter dwellers, plus on-site staff.

Here are a couple of questions I'd like to see addressed at the public
hearing when it comes up in August:

* The drug programs that the junkies will enrolled in before moving to
second stage housing - are they abstinence-based programs, or are they
the modern "harm reduction" type that imagines addicts tapering off
and becoming 'social' crack or heroin users?

* What exactly does "affordable housing" mean? Coun. Gordon frequently
uses this term but never defines it. At what dollar figure does
housing become "affordable"? Isn't this really a euphemism for
"taxpayer-financed"?

* These "homeless" teens who are going to benefit: are they all really
fleeing from abusive home situations, or are some of them rebelling
against mom and dad's "no drugs" rule?

* When someone has fried the wiring of his or her brain with crystal
meth, how long is the community supposed to wait (and pay) for this
person to be "rehabilitated"? When do we admit that, as with fetal
alcohol syndrome, some will never get better?