Dear Editor,
I am a small business owner in Maple Ridge who sees and deals the with the drug addicted and homeless population on a daily basis.
There are some who have an interest in getting better and getting into a regular rental home, like all of us.
But since the CERB cheque’s have been coming out the amount of overdoses and extreme nature of most of our clients has gotten out of control.
We have had daily updates as to the latest overdose or robbery in the local “mods,” which is the modular housing that has been provided.
I don’t believe that throwing money at people that already have an addiction is helping it is actually hurting them.
RELATED: End of CERB means uncertainty for some, new system for others
Do you know how many drugs you can buy when you don’t have any bills to pay and you not only get a welfare cheque for more that $700, but then you get a $2,000 CERB cheque every month on top of that.
We all know they are not supposed to get them both, but no one is checking and it is killing people and only allowing people with addictions to get deeper into it or die from overdose.
RELATED LETTER: CERB is simply worsening overdose issues in Maple Ridge
Please someone help me understand how it benefits anyone to not have any programs in place to make sure this doesn’t happen and give me some sort of confidence that my tax dollars are funding something other than drugs and death.
Cory Botner, Maple Ridge
.
_______________________________
• If there is more to this issue, please let us know about it. Email us at editor@mapleridgenews.com. We look forward to hearing from you. In the meantime, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
