Letters: Kamloops Daily News, Decmeber 21st 2012
In response to Panhandlers Big Downtown Problem (The Daily News, Dec. 17), I fear that engaging in a battle “using every legal law and means available to us” will do nothing but exacerbate the problem of panhandlers in the downtown area.
These people have been neglected by society and the government and face daily ridicule, abuse, hunger, and illness — whether mental and physical — and addiction.
It seems abhorrent to me that people would seek to make the lives of the less fortunate even harder instead of trying to help those in need.
I empathize with those who have been turned out from mental institutions because of a lack of government funding or closures.
I empathize with those who are hungry and cold during our winter season regardless of why they are experiencing that hardship.
I empathize with those who feel threatened when asking for a few dollars and are consequently spit on or yelled at or pushed away, and I sympathize with those who feel threatened by aggressive panhandlers.
Homelessness is a serious problem all over North America. We have let the less fortunate slip through the cracks, moved them around geographically and punished them for self-treating their mental illnesses with drugs or alcohol when that’s all they can manage to do.
Maybe it’s time for us to try a different technique. Maybe it’s time for us to show compassion, to petition our local and provincial governments, to help those who cannot help themselves or give them that dollar with the faith that they will use it to feed themselves.
You may feel threatened when panhandlers ask you for change — and it is unacceptable that they are being aggressive — but that anxiety is nothing compared to not knowing whether you are going to freeze to death tonight, or starve to death this week.
Let’s try and solve this problem instead of pushing it out of the way. Let’s seriously try to give the homeless some change that can’t be found in our pockets but in the compassion, attention, and support that all Canadians should expect from each other and our government.
All societies and all nations are judged on the basis of how they treat their weakest members — the last, the least, the littlest, said Cardinal Roger Mahony, in his 1998 letter Creating a Culture of Life.
ADAM MARKIN
Kamloops
