OrilliaMatters 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 the city's recent decision to ban tents and temporary structures on city property.
Council's decision to ban tent encampments on municipal property without a housing solution is unconscionable.
Are they not aware of skyrocketing rent and housing prices being unaffordable to more and more people? Of high food prices? Of the dearth of living wage jobs?
The people who made this decision are all comfortable and secure financially. What they are doing is trying to hide the housing problem, not deal with it. Embarrassed by homelessness so they remove it from their sight.
This rekindles memories of Conservative politician Barbara McDougall, embarrassed in the 1980s when Canada was criticized for having too many people living below the poverty line. Her solution? Lower the poverty line!
Unconscionable then. Unconscionable now.
Rick Lockman
Orillia
