Everyone has to "go" and everyone creates garbage, regardless of where you live, whether in a traditional single family home, a condo or in a tent.
Salmon Arm seems to have found a better way to co-exist with people living in tents than other communities.
My wife and I go birding several times each summer along the Salmon Arm waterfront and have remarked about a tent community at the entrance to one of its waterfront parks.
(The tent community) is surrounded by portable fencing which seems to be respected with no tents outside the fenced area plus, at the open entrance to the fenced tents area, there are a potable toilets and a small dumpster for trash.
The tented area appears to be quite neat and tidy, with no trash littered about and no open latrine areas. I have no idea what arrangement Salmon Arm has with the people living in the tents but it seems to work.
Personally, my view is I would rather see my tax dollars used this way than continually being used to roust the homeless from where they choose to tent and cleaning up the unsightly mess and open latrines that get me and other taxpayers upset.
Providing some basic necessities to people who cannot afford our high rents and traditional housing costs strikes me as a kinder, gentler and more rational approach towards our fellow human beings. What do you think?
The poor have always existed, as have people with mental and social issues. Let’s see if other communities can follow in the footsteps that Salmon Arm seems to have pioneered.
Jim Bodkin, Vernon