Thunder Bay – NEWS – As City Council prepared to ratify the selection of a site for the homeless encampment, youth from the RMYC stepped up to insert their facts and views on the Miles Street site.
Youth and their parents were then at City Hall on Monday to show the Council that their voices must matter.
Here is what the youth told Council:
Dear City Councillors,
The Regional Multicultural Youth Council (RMYC) is writing this letter to express our appreciation for your efforts to support the homeless in our community. This is a noble act that shows empathy, and we are totally in favour of building spaces for people to transition into healthier more productive lives. However, we feel that this should not come at the cost of the safety and well-being of children and youth, and the anxiety of parents in the community.
From our perspective, the Miles Street location to build a shelter for the most vulnerable is not ideal because this is next to two well established and thriving youth centres –The Underground Gym and our Multicultural Youth Centre. This site will not make the youth who frequent these facilities feel any safer. Our groups provide a safe space for young people to be off the streets and access services that aim to stop preventable problems like the very issues you are grappling with.
We run after school programs that promote healthy lifestyles and wellness, study groups to support students to stay in school, graduate and pursue careers to enhance our workforce and contribute to our economy; summer school for students who did not get course credits during the pandemic to catch-up — (more than 80 per cent of high school dropouts end up in prison and on our streets), and summer work programs to train youths about transitioning into the work-world. We support youth to be proud of their heritage, promote reconciliation, and help them to realize their full potential.
We also develop young leaders and peer mentors to serve as role models who use positive influence to stop bad habits and make a difference.
Many parents and carer-givers of the youth coming to our youth centre are already concerned about our safety in the Fort William downtown neighbourhood. In fact, we do not think many of you Councillors would feel very comfortable sending your child to attend after-school programs in the south core.
Building a shelter for the homeless in the Miles Street location will heighten our fears and this will affect participation in our extra-curricular actives with out-comes that will perpetuate dependency with negative ripple impacts across our community.
We want to thank Councillors Rajni Agarwal, Albert Aiello, Mark Bentz, Dominic Pasqualino and Trevor Giertuga for not supporting this location, and call upon Councillors Shelby Ch’ng, Kasey Etrini, Andrew Foulds, Brian Hamilton, Greg Johnsen, and Kristen Oliver to reconsider their decision as a proactive strategy to reduce the numbers of homeless people seeking to use the shelter in the future.
We will fully support any location that is not next to safe spaces frequented by youth who want to access programs, services and supports that will help to create the Thunder Bay we all want. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!”
Thank you,
Georgette Hamilton & Sham Jadullah — RMYC Education Project Leaders
Summer Spade & Jessie MacKay – RMYC Healthy Lifestyles Project Leaders
Admire Kargbo & Heritage Arinikande – RMYC Anti-Racism & Reconciliation Project Leaders
