Italian homeless help model brilliant

The Globe and Mail recently ran a brilliant article Nov. 12 entitled “Crushing Addiction.” It outlines the highly successful therapeutic work community in San Patrignano, Italy, which has seen an amazing 20,000 people graduate from its program.

San Patrignano is a model for what Richard LeBlanc, founder of the Creating Homefulness Society, is trying to create in Victoria’s Capital Regional District. This potential for triumph over our current homeless situation is astounding and thrilling.

Victoria is ready to embrace such a proven, innovative concept now. By improving the lives of our fellow citizens and helping them reintegrate and contribute back to society, we will assist in alleviating the burden on our social and emergency services, automatically aid local downtown businesses and create something amazing for a community to be proud of.

But more than all of these enrichments, we will be a part of something greater than ourselves. We can begin to turn the tides on a culture whose obsession with material wealth has things out of balance. Let us have the courage to view human relationships as wealth and offer our neighbors a hand up.

Lisa Grant

North Saanich

People distorting judge’s ruling

Re: Judge overstepped authority: city council (Victoria News, Oct. 29)

Congratulations to Sonya Chandler for being the only member of Victoria city council to vote against appealing the B.C. Supreme Court decision overturning the city’s anti-camping bylaw.

I am extremely disappointed with the rest of the council, not only for wasting money on an appeal, but also for distorting the intent of the decision by Madam Justice Carol Ross.

If people take the time to actually read the judgment, they will see that Madam Justice Ross is not calling for the creation of massive tent cities for the homeless. She, like all the rest of us, would like to see these people provided with proper accommodation.

In her ruling, she simply recognizes the existing reality and says homeless citizens with no other place to sleep should be able to use a bit of public space to do so, on a temporary basis, until sufficient accommodation is available for them.

Instead of padding lawyers’ incomes with its court appeal, city council should be devoting whatever financial resources it has available to giving direct assistance to the homeless.

I also wish Dean Fortin and the other councillors would stop whining about the additional burden that would be placed on the police budget if homeless people were allowed to sleep in the parks.

I can’t recall these councillors uttering any similar cries of distress earlier this year when almost $150,000 of public funds were handed out to former Victoria police chief Paul Battershill.

Gordon Pollard

Victoria