Pete Fisher is a local boy,, born and raised in Cobourg and has worked in the news business for over thirty years. He is of a political mindset that is very different from mine. I am guessing that  if Ezra Levant had more money Pete would be working for “Rebel News” along with his buddy the “Menzoid” – David Menzies. But we agree to disagree on most things.

The reason I am prefacing this post with an opinion of Pete is that I would like to congratulate him with a story he wrote on the 10th of January  about a woman having a mental health crisis. Read it here, but let me paraphrase it in a couple of paragraphs.

On the night of 10th January he was contacted by someone at the Warming Centre in Cobourg. Earlier that day at 7.15 am the woman had been told that she was evicted, from the Warming Centre, and told to come back in 24 hours. Later she was told that it was for seven days when later that night she attempted to get back in as she had no place to go. The penalties were administered by the Security Company not a mental health professional. When asked if the Guards had mental health training they refused to answer the question.

The person who called Pete had a lengthy interview as he, the person, tried to find overnight accommodation for the woman. He was very critical of the lack of mental health facilities for the woman (or anybody else) and in fact the only advice given to him by any of the people he spoke with was to wait for a daytime referral from Mheart, a programme run by the Cobourg Police.

In writing this I am struck by two things. One is the way that the County, who funds the Warming Centre, and the local admins of the Centre have handed over overnight supervision to completely untrained security guards who wield absolute power over clients seeking shelter. This power is obviously absolute and arbitrary and not helpful in anyway to the mentally ill. The other is that Pete Fisher has excelled himself in this article. Shying away from injecting his ‘hard’ opinions about the homeless and unhoused he actually wrote a story about tragic circumstances – thank you Pete.

As to a conclusion to the story? That is so ironic because the only place that this woman ended up at, after being denied a place in Port Hope, she came back to go where???? —– The encampment!!