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Politicians – get your act together

Politicians need to work together on pressing social issues

Victoria politicians are talking about the election issues as being affordable housing, homelessness, food security and sustainability.

Saanich politicians talk about farming, sustainability and affordable housing.

Central Saanich is complaining about farmers not being able to make a living and the high cost of farming, but they don’t want the riffraff in their part of town.

The Creating Homefulness Society has the 193-acre Woodwynn Farms in Central Saanich just waiting to be used. We plan to offer housing, food, support and job training to up to 96 people, provide mentorship and care through our volunteers. We plan to farm the land to address food security issues; we plan to house those who are currently homeless to address the homeless issue; we plan to provide jobs to address job creation and we plan to give those without the skills to contribute to society these needed skills.

So why are politicians in the CRD not working with us to house the poor, feed the masses and educate the illiterate?

High unemployment in Victoria and the CRD means the streets are scattered with the homeless, the addicted and the hungry. It seems to me that it is a crying shame when Victoria’s food bank – the Mustard Seed – has to take out a mortgage on its property so it can meet the needs of the homeless in Victoria. It seems to me that we all have some work to do to learn to be a community.

Politicians need to get their act together and start talking to each other, and jump on ideas that make sense for the masses. The masses may even get out to the polling stations and vote if they felt they had a chance to make a difference. Let’s not tie up good solutions and smother them in red bureaucratic tape. Let’s get some action happening!

Greater Victorians, you have a voice and you have hands and feet. Use your voice to carry the message, use your feet and hands to work together and use your resources to help those in need. Encourage one another to act.

We are a community, friends. It’s time we started acting like it rather than just looking after our own interests. We need to give each other roots in this community – that means we need to fill the storehouses of places like Mustard Seed and lean on the powers that be to remove the red tape so that Woodwynn Farms can work the land so we can provide food, jobs, and housing.

Let’s not settle for “keeping things the same.”  The same isn’t working and people are hungry, poor, and homeless.

Kathleen Busch

Victoria