Beaches Residents: Give the homeless program a chance.

This is a follow-up post to my blogging yesterday talking about how residents in the “upscale” neighbourhood of the Beaches in Toronto are threatening legal action to prevent a local church from sheltering and feeding the homeless in the wintertime for 1 night a week. The Star ran an article today detailing how this program ran into similar initial opposition in a couple of other communities, but that the opposition died off after the usual rationale given for opposing the program didnt turn out to be correct:

“The three kind of concerns – lowered property values, public health concerns and safety concerns – were all dealt with,” Posen said.… As for crime going up and house values declining, “nothing of that has happened,” Bruce said, noting the community has been happy and neighbourhood prices have almost doubled in the past 13 years.

I would say to the Beaches people to try and get over your fear of this - and I think the suggestions of the people in the paper of going out to volunteer for the program to see it in action is a great idea. Show you have a heart for these unfortunate people who’ve fallen through the cracks of society.