nimby
I attended a community meeting this evening around having an addictions support recovery home in a part of Squamish known as the Garibaldi Estates.
Unfortunately, there is a high incidence of drug and alcohol problems in this area and the community reacted to this known community problem that I suspect they feel powerless to address.
The community of Squamish is very spread out with four separate communities: downtown Squamish, Valleycliffe, Garibaldi, and Brackendale. Many of these areas are in transition as the traditional sources of employment such as pulp, rail and mining have been lost in the couple of years and there is the added real estate development pressures around the 2010 Winter Olympics taking place - increasing land speculation and greed.
Vancouver is very expensive to live in and the outlying communities such as Squamish are marketed as Vancouver bedroom communities.
The population projections for Squamish are expected to double in the next ten years just because it is close to Vancouver - there is no new sources of employment expected other than retail and service industries, all low paying. It is a fascinating community to live in for this reason - how does a small town adjust to being a big city bedroom community?
Lots of people who worked in the traditional sources of employment have been displaced and are unemployed. There are pockets of major drug use in Squamish- heroin, crack, crystal meth., pot and booze as well as black market oxycontin, etc. are all readily available from what I hear.
Yesterday I read in the BC newspaper that more youth smoke pot regularly than cigarettes. Last week in the paper I read that the use of legal prescription drugs sold on the ‘black market’ is almost equal to that of illegal drugs.
The big dealers of dope in this community all own big houses in the exclusive areas of town, so I hear.
Of course, people in the community who feel like they have no control over the evident drug traffic and excessive alcohol use are going to rise up to challenge what they have some control over: a support recovery home in their community.
It is sad as many of the objectors to this initiative are so misinformed and hold erroneous stereotypes of alcohol and drug abusers without seeming to realize that the same people they are rejecting from living in the support recovery home are their children, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, parents, and grand-parents.
This ‘nimby’ syndrome happens everywhere and not just Squamish.
