WE NEED ACTION, NOT TALK

The Editor:

With great interest I read your editorial ('Passing the buck downtown,'
Times, April 12).

The message that came across was that these people need help now, not five
years down the road.

I was, however, somewhat surprised at your ending comment: "Take your pick,
compassion or common sense."

How can the two be seperated? True compassion often needs much more than a
hug and talk only.

I totally agree with Abbotsford Downtown Business Asssociation excecutive
director Mary Reeves that the Abbotsford downtown core is not the right
location for a detox centre.

"If we care at all about these people we'll want to preserve them from it,
not put them in the middle of it."

There are much more suitable locations in the area.

I believe there is no other society that does more for the needy than the
Salvation Army has done for many years. They deserve the highest of praise.
But the rehabilitation of people's lives addicted to drugs has far more
strings attached to it than the handlings of some of the other physical
aspects of their problems.

As your editorial points out, these people need help today. Not five years
down the road. How true! We need action. Not talk only.

The federal government is planning to spend $250,000 this spring for the
installation of a lighting system for a baseball diamond at Mountain Prison
in Agassiz. Surely they must be wise enough to fairly divide our
hard-earned tax dollars and help us fund a much-needed detox and treatment
centre?

The time to point out how bad the situation is in downtown Abbotsford is
long gone. The downtown core is deteriorating fast. People's lives and
young children as little as 8-10 years old are being abused and destroyed
because of our apathy and careless concern for the less fortunate.

It is the duty of a caring society to enlighten and show a better way of
living to those in society whose early beginnings in life began, and were
fostered, in the suburbs of hell.

Pehaps it is time that the conglomerate of "Bible Belt" Christians take
stock as to the purpose of living in the hub of a drug addicted area.

What we need is to get the immobile woe callers off the fences to begin to
exercise genuine compassion with constructive initiatives toward helping
those in need.

Reeves' attitude toward the complex problems in the Abbotsford downtown
core is filled with genuine compassion for all concerned.

It is people like the likes of Reeves, Const. Denys Scully and Uultje De
Jong that give people new hope where there was none before. Please keep up
the good work

Gertie Pool, Abbotsford