Dear editor,
Subsidized housing in Crown Isle?! (Housing project to help mid-income earners Feb. 6 Record.) Our mayor and local MLA should be ashamed of themselves. As long as there are people living on the streets or in their cars, they have no business using millions of dollars of our taxes to finance subsidized homes for middle-class people. Homeless people live in constant discomfort; and danger from the elements, unsanitary conditions, and human predators.
Then there are those who are in danger of becoming homeless: They are the ones paying over 50 per cent of their income on rent, those who are one paycheque away from becoming homeless, and those who live in fear that their affordable housing might be sold out from under them as condos. Should they be pushed under the bus with the homeless, too?
And since when is $1,200 for a studio suite affordable housing? Only after the most vulnerable people in the community are housed in truly affordable rentals, should they even think of helping the middle class. And when that happens, the middle class will automatically be taken care of. As the poor move out of the places they can’t afford, they would leave vacancies for the middle-class renters. Problem solved.
If this project goes through, I will remember this come voting day. MLA Leonard and Mayor Wells still have time to redeem themselves and cancel this ill-advised project.
Charlotte Ostrowski,
Courtenay