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News Views: At odds

Maple Ridge council needs to wait to see who it will be dealing with in Victoria.
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Maple Ridge Mayor Nicole Read is back at work after a five-week absence following a police investigation into online threats and harassment against her.

She returns a week after the provincial election, during which two NDP candidates defeated Liberal incumbents in the two local ridings, and days after council decided, in private and without her, to act to remove a second homeless camp in the city.

Read will not be discussing the threats against her because they are the subject of an RCMP investigation.

However, she was publicly at odds in social media with those opposed to how the city has handled the issue of homelessness, starting with the formation of the first such camp on Cliff Avenue nearly two years ago, and the subsequent temporary shelter in downtown Maple Ridge to clear it.

That shelter was to be open for six months, but was twice extended as the city and then MLAs Doug Bing and Marc Dalton differed over a location for a $15 million supportive housing complex and homeless shelter, proposed by B.C. Housing.

A committee formed by those MLAs, who rejected two previous locations after much public protest, announced just prior to the May 9 provincial election that a site for such a building has been recommended, but that it would not be revealed until afterwards.

The camp was set up the next day.

Now with Bing defeated and Dalton, who lost by 120 votes and hoping for a recount with absentee ballots in, and the provincial government waiting for the same to determine if it will form a minority or majority government, a decision regarding a new shelter in Maple Ridge is on hold.

Council needs to wait to see who it will be dealing with, in Victoria and in the local MLA offices.

On May 31, however, the temporary shelter is to close. Those staying there are to be offered accommodations across the street at the Salvation Army Ridge Meadows Ministries, next to which the Cliff Avenue camp was located, before that shelter relaxed its low-barrier policies.

The new homeless camp, on 223rd Street near the Haney Bypass, is encouraging those from the temporary shelter to join them.

Coun. Tyler Shymkiw, acting mayor in Read’s absence, said last week that the city is “going to move heaven and earth” to shut down the camp “before anyone gets hurt.”

After bylaws and RCMP tried to remove tents and fencing from the property, proposed as park, those at the camp retrieved them and set up again, then held a protest in front of city hall on the weekend.

The city is now seeking a court injunction to force the campers out.

While the camp remains, so does the community – as divided over what to do about homelessness as our local, provincial and federal governments.

– Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News