Solution

The ironwood mall as a alternative central location for homeless services 

Provision of general heated daytime shelter with opportunities for earning money by creating items for sale online.

Positive social interactions between community members and homeless through shared process of creating items.

20% or what we are doing is creating 80% of out problems

20% or what we are doing is creating 80% of out solutions

You are a choice maker.  Make a choice.

Campbell River was incorporated as a city in 2005.   The mill opened in 1952, a month after I was born, and closed in 2010.  I took a licking but kept on ticking.  After a great deal of hemming and hawing (some things never change) the Tyee plasa was built around 1958 .  In 1987, roughtly seventeen years after my first night in Campbell River,  the Van Isle theater was transformed into the Tidemark Performing Arts Theatre.  The Musum moved into it's new digs in 1994 the same year the Art Gallery opened in the Centennial Building.  FYI: I'd love to put on a show there.

In 1979 I worked as a HD Marine Mechanic for BC Packers and spent a season in Namu.  My wife worked in fresh fish.  Michael was 6, Carrie was 4. We were tempted, but we did not stay the winter.  I wish we had, we would have been richer people today having been accepted by the locals who were beginning to share their catch.  

Due to the general lack of services and a faltering fishing economy, the Homalco peoples dispersed to larger centres.   The Discovery Harbour Center was built on Weiwaikum First Nation reserve land purchased by the federal goverment in 1998 and features First Nations designs throughout the facility.

In 1900, the Christie Indian Residential School was established on Meares Island. After more than eight decades and at least 23 student deaths, Christie closed in 1983: the last functioning residential school in British Columbia.  Many of these people are holocaust survivors.  Many are homeless, but 

many of the homeless look just like your sons and daughters and parents

The Ironwood Mall

Today there are still some businesses at the Ironwood Mall, but mostly the space is filled to the brim with RVs.  My wife is a member of the Dragonboat Society which has a clubhouse and stores the dragon boats there off season.  There is a Thrifity Foods, a senior center, a shoe store, a UPS, a dentist and a fair bit of common space.  But mostly its RVs.  

I no Jesuit; but I'd rather the RVs were parked there (warm and dry) than all up and down my street. 

Maybe it is time for a better solution.  Maybe its time for a clean slate.