Dozens of residents packed a meeting on Tuesday night in Maple Ridge to voice their frustrations about a council proposal to regulate and manage recovery and transition houses in the city.
One of the residents, Kathy Pring, has been an outspoken critic of how the city is dealing with the issue of homelessness. She was at the meeting and joined the Simi Sara Show on CKNW to talk about her concerns.
Pring thinks recovery is definitely the way to go but doesn’t trust the city to use this as anything but a money-grab.
“The thing with recovery is we want to make sure that we’re not making profit as we go. We want to help these people. We want to see these people recover as they say. We want to trust them that the recovery is exactly what it means.”
LISTEN to the full interview:
Maple Ridge City Councillor Craig Speirs says last night’s meeting went a long way to addressing those trust issues.
“People don’t want to be the city of hate. They want to be the city of feeling. That’s what I got quite firmly. And they want things done right. And this is an attempt by their city to regulate something that is unregulated”
Spiers realizes the homeless issue has affected their public image.
“We’re just coming out of their homelessness issue and it has left a bad taste in people’s mouth.”
But, he says if people want to hold them accountable, they are very accessible.
“We have solid lines of communication. Our website is full of information if you want it and every one of us has a public phone number.”
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