To the editor:
Yep, downtown Thunder Bay (especially near Victoriaville) is a sinkhole. Drunks, hookers, junkies and perverts of all kinds hang around there because of the Shelter House and cheap apartments.
If the city put some money into fixing this area up, like maybe building a rehab or just generally gave a care about the poor. Most of the people I know from around there can't even afford toilet paper; and not because they have a crippling addiction.
Nope. It's because they're under 18. They can't get full-time jobs or even get their own house. Most can't go home due to abuse from their parents, step-parents, foster parents or grandparents.
They come down to Shelter House, hoping for a hot meal and a warm bed, but most of the time they can't even get that. The meals are inedible a good portion of the time, and the beds are small and uncomfortable.
It nearly always smells like alcohol-induced vomit or urine. On their first day here, most of the youth will cry because of how horrible that place is.
The youth are quickly desensitized because of everything they see.
Used needles litter the alleys and garbages.
Then there`s the homeless smashing each other out over little things we take for granted, like clean clothes or change. There are people going through withdrawal while trying to find a vein to inject their fix.
A girl I met a while back witnessed a murder, less then 50 metres from where she used to sleep. Face it, if we can't fix up this place soon, we're all screwed.
Erika Fitzgerald,
Thunder Bay
