http://www.vancouversun.com/entertai...576/story.html

Bird-brained anti-homeless plan in Surrey stinks
By David Eby, Vancouver SunAugust 31, 2009

When the reporter called me early Saturday for comment on the latest
from Surrey, I had to ask him to repeat himself.

And then again.

He told me that in Whalley, either the RCMP or City of Surrey, or both,
had an innovative new plan to solve their homelessness problem.
According to reports, city workers had allegedly spread chicken dung
around a social services building and by trees in a park. There was a
video of the dung, which looked deceptively like regular dirt.

The point of the whole exercise appears to have been to make the
affected areas less appealing to the homeless. Chicken dung smells, you
see. Like really, really, really smells.

Having been an urbanite my entire life, I have no idea how bad chicken
dung smells, but according to reports, Dante considered it for
incorporation into the eighth circle of hell for sinners who didn't put
enough thought into public policy before implementing it.

On the smell scale, it's apparently somewhere between rotting eggs and
teen gym shoes. Well, not as bad as teen gym shoes, but you get the idea.

Someone at the city clearly forgot to check in with legal on this
strategy to render public property unfit for human use. It's surely
illegal 10 different ways at least, violating human rights codes, the
Charter of Rights and Freedoms, environmental laws, the property rights
of private property owners and leaseholders, police and public employee
codes of conduct, and on and on.

Worse than the bird-brained stupidity of this plan, its obvious
illegality, and the lingering political stink that will continue well
after the city and/or RCMP realize their mistake and clean up the mess,
is the attitude it reflects on the part of public agencies towards
Surrey's homeless population.

In Vancouver when there are complaints about the effects of social
service provision on neighbouring areas, the city works with the service
provider on a "good neighbour" agreement, and the service provider works
with the people they serve to reduce impacts.

While it may seem like more work initially, that impression is probably
only true if you don't consider the amount of time Surrey must have
spent sourcing raw chicken crap and finding city employees with the time
and inclination to spread it.

In any event, good-neighbour agreements are far more sustainable than
city employees spreading whatever they can find that reeks the worst in
larger and larger circles around service provider buildings. "Surrey
High? This is Stan calling from the City public works department. Would
you consider collecting your students' gym shoes? We just had a great
new idea."

Bizarre at best, hateful to the most marginalized and vulnerable people
in Surrey at the worst, this plan should be put back in the coop, and
the next time someone says, "Hey, I've got a good idea," maybe, just
maybe, it should be subjected to the smell test.

David Eby is the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.