Editor:
I would like to thank Cathie Roy for her moving, and in content, disturbing piece on the situation Ms. Howe finds herself in (Coast Reporter, editorial, May 28).
I worked in therapeutic residential care for years, some years back. The program I co-directed had a mandate of short-term assessment for teens 13 to 18 years, each client's stay up to 90 days.
During that time funding for after school counselling on a one-on-one basis was cut, the result being, after a short time, that there were far more kids coming into "the system." As a result, our mandate was changed to accommodate this influx, and what was a very successful program was changed to nothing more than holding for kids that had no business being in care at all. The reduction in funding across the board has lead to a glut of folks without the care they need, and mostly displaced into the community at-large.
The government expectation being that, the community, churches, and service groups, such as Rotary, would take up the slack. This has lead to a glut of people, unable to self-care, left to their own devices.
The homeless counts have soared, and folks such as Ms. Howe, left with, at best, inappropriate placements. The billions spent to accommodate VANOC, new roofs for sports arenas, the short fall in provincial education being about the same as its costing to provide a temporary facility while this said new roof is installed. Seems to me that the people in need in this province are to take a back seat to elitist interests of the Campbell crowd. It has to stop.
John Paulin
Gibsons
