RE: From tents to homes, Sept. 3
After reading this opinion piece in the newspaper, I'm left wondering how many more tent encampments will it take before city hall gets the drift? The City of Hamilton has always had a huge homelessness problem, something that has been ignored for decades. The perfect storm has been created by COVID-19 and three common factors in all of this, drug addiction, alcoholism and homelessness, that all intersect.
Once free tents were handed out by some misguided souls, the homeless set up camps. For what it's worth, I was an alcoholic for many decades. It eventually ruined my life. I ended up living in a room at the YMCA. I had hit rock bottom. I decided that I had to get clean and sober or die. It was a white-knuckle ride at first, but it got easier over time. Even when my son Logan died, and I failed to revive him, I still managed to stay sober.
Obviously, those who are living in tents need a lot more help than outreach workers can provide, who do more enabling than saving someone from destitution and poverty. What shocks me more is not a single person involved has said doing drugs is dangerous and you should stop; what I see is classic enabling. That should stop.
Mark-Alan Whittle,
Hamilton Mountain
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