Dear editor,Re: Laurel Lodge in Courtenay suggested as homeless shelter.Thank you for taking the time to writing and the report in your paper about the issue Douglas Jones and Gary Chamberlain are involved in.Everyone would agree homelessness is a problem for many marginalized people. What aggravates the problem is the fact there is so much talk about the issue but so little real action to finding a viable solution.My intention around this important issue is awareness to the fact that the problem as I have come to recognize it is that the homeless people in our community need help and support if they are to break free of the chains that keep them bound to a life of poverty and substance abuse.Band-Aids will only cover the wounds the healing starts when people can see there is light at the end of the tunnel.My moving record will show what it is like to live on the edges and fringes of society in that world drugs are an escape mechanism for many that are caught in the grips of poverty and live on the street. We have to look out for each other in this day and age for to long people where concerned with themselves and those in their immediate circle. It is time to look at the bigger picture of why people end up homeless and on the street in the first place we must work to stop the cycle of denial before people are striped of all they own and are cast out like unwelcome trash but that is another story for another time.What my production is seeking is an answer a solution to come from the reaction we are witnessing to the problem of homeless in our community and others in our community in dire straits of ending up homeless that is the challenge we want people to recognize.If you we are not a part of the solution, then you we are a part of the problem and the solution can only come when we recognize that fact. Either we deal with the reality of the problem or the problem will be larger and more costly in the long run.Gary Chamberlain,CourtenayEditor's note: Gary Chamberlain is making a video about homelessness.
