Dear Editor,
Re: “Residents chip in over homeless housing,” News, March 1.
I support modular housing for the homeless and congratulate our mayor and council on this initiative. Few choose to be homeless; there is a story behind every face. Modern society produces great inequality. Not everyone enjoys the same opportunities. Abandoning those who are marginalized diminishes all of us.
The proposed site adjacent to the ICBC Claim Centre is centrally located and close to public transportation. And it has history on its side. It is one of the few remaining vacant parcels of the original Brighouse Industrial Estates, a vast track of land bought for public purposes by a far-sighted city council many years ago. Those estates comprised most of the land from No. 3 Road west to No. 2 Road and from Granville Ave. north to the Middle Arm.
Over many years, that purchase has delivered untold dividends in public benefits enriching the lives of all of us. Numerous public facilities, Richmond City Hall, Richmond Hospital, the Oval, to name a few, are situated on the former Brighouse Industrial Estates purchased for just $1.45 million in 1962. Is it not entirely appropriate that the homeless should also benefit from this public treasure?
Nick Loenen
Richmond
