S TANDARD TERRACE
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VOL. 27 NO. 23
www.terracestandard.com
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Homeless face rain and cold By JOSH MASSEY CHRIS GEE stands with a homeless friend in the woods between the Terrace law courts and the Terrace Sportsplex. The friend, who prefers not to be photographed or identified, met Gee at the now-closed Skeena Bicycle Service a couple years ago when Gee helped him get a second hand bike fixed up. They came together on a cold, wet mid-September morning to talk about the health and safety of the homeless population in Terrace. The friend points into the woods, groves of bushes and grass that most people wouldn’t pay much attention to, where wet garbage and remains of campfires become visible. And within this array, soggy tents where the homeless sleep. Just a day earlier, the man and his homeless friends were told by a City of Terrace staff member driving a city truck to vacate a spot over on Lazelle Ave. where they had tents set up. “We were up there for a month and they came over yesterday morning at around eight. And they said ‘you guys have until 2 o’clock to get your stuff out of here, otherwise we are going to throw it in the garbage’.” Gee, an instructor at Northwest Community College, has a problem with people in his community living in squalor because of a lack of social housing and shelter space. As an avid cyclist, Gee cruises Terrace Mountain trails regularly and is always saddened to see garbage, used needles and to witness the violence that happens so close to institutions of civic stability on Kalum St. “All I thought, was, this is the health unit right there,
JOSH MASSEY PHOTO
CHRIS GEE scouts out evidence of makeshift shelters close to the law courts and Terrace Sportsplex. the courthouse is right there, those are two bastions of health and well-being in society, or they are meant to be,” Gee reflected. “But on the very same block there are people suf-
fering from deep addiction. There is violence that happens in here, and there are people who are suffering, right in the same block.” Life in the wet woods is not fun for Gee’s friend who,
like many others, has recurring substance problems and deep psychological trauma that dogs him every day. He says $30,000 from a federal residential school compensation program last-
ed him two months. “It’s tough. When I’m laying in the bush soaking wet, I sometimes want to give up. That hurts,” he said. The man’s’ sense of humour, good spirit and intel-
ligence keeps him hopeful of finding a home and job, but he says the majority of those he knows in the woods will never be rehabilitated.
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Benefits alliance waits for gov’t word NORTHWESTERN GOVERNMENTS who want a share of provincial tax revenues from large industrial projects came away with what was termed a produc-
tive meeting with a provincial cabinet minister. “We had an excellent turn out from local governments and it was a productive meeting,” said Stacey Tyers,
a City of Terrace councillor and chair of the KitimatStikine regional district, of a 90-minute session with Peter Fassbender whose cabinet portfolio takes in local
governments. Tyers is also chair of the Northwest B.C. Resource Benefits Alliance, the collection of 21 local governments in the region pushing
for a share of provincial resource project taxation. It was formed in 2014 and expanded this year.
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Farm hands
RCMP beating
A force to reckon
College students learn hands-on about working on a farm \COMMUNITY A14
Investigator finds that officer may have committed offence. \NEWS A13
Terrace fighters steps away from a title in amateur MMA. \SPORTS A21