Editor, the Gazette:

I am so grateful to see your efforts to really assist the homeless people in your town, as well as those people facing addictions and mental illness. It fills me with hope when I hear how many of you stood up against the closing of Whispers and the soup kitchen. And now, many of you are standing up for people’s rights to use the library and other public places so long as they are respectful. In my town, we have a similar crisis of poverty, homelessness, and division.

There will always be people who say, “I don’t want to see that in my town.” Still, these people are compassionate when it comes down to it, you need only find a solution which is not degrading to anyone, but empowers everyone to share space. Working together is our only means of fighting disparity because only unified can we see our true abundance. It makes me think of the story about the soup that was made by each poor villagers adding whatever vegetable or spice they could and suddenly they had enough for all.

To those who are still fearful of losing something by supporting addicts, homeless, or otherwise vulnerable peoples, I say, please at least do not stand in the way of others who are able to. And please remember, the social justice we cultivate today will be there to support all of us, regardless of circumstance.

Kassandra Dick

Squamish, B.C.