Homeless Chic

Mayor Banman chose two councillors who have each grown long in the tooth watching the City and the Abbotsford Police Department (APD) take a criminal approach to social policy by banning harm reduction services to addicts, having the APD launch and impose Chief Bob Rich’s ‘disperse and displace’ strategy – otherwise known as the Abbotsford Shuffle – as well as month after month of silence from the Abbotsford Social Development Advisory Committee (ASDAC) over the last six years about the needs of Abbotsford’s growing homeless community.

John Smith chaired ASDAC all those years during which he apparently found nothing of interest to share with council. Patricia Ross first cottoned on to the chic new crisis when a rally was held outside of City Hall in February led by Councillor Henry Braun, after Mayor Banman turned down $15.3 million in funding from Rich Coleman in order to protect the business interests of downtown merchants who argued that getting homeless people off the street was bad for business.

Now Ross and Smith have decided to start over right back at square one and get every human being who has been unable or unwilling to solve homelessness in Abbotsford except at the end of a billy club, to have monthly meetings with themselves until the election so as to make it look like they are doing something about homelessness.

Councillor Ross was overheard mentioning she had met a homeless person and decided to have it out with John Smith at the last Task Force meeting.

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