NewmarketToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is a letter to the editor and an open letter to Aurora town council.
Re: Coming Up at Council: Men's shelter saga continues, Feb. 22, 2025
Mayor Mrakas and Aurora council,
I write to you in support of member motion 9.1 to resubmit the application at 14452 Yonge St.
Congratulations to Councillor John Gallo for bringing this forward again. Homelessness continues to increase and emergency transitional housing is a vital component in the broader solution to this crisis. I urge all of you to support this motion. I urge you all to again support the application when York Region brings it back before you.
Many in Aurora have chosen to not “move on” from the council decision to reject the application a year ago. Instead, they are out here choosing to help. Many in the community cannot “move on” from precarious housing situations without support. In fact, many people have few choices and rely on those in power such as yourselves to make decisions that will affect their very survival.
There is no doubt in my mind that we don’t have a parking crisis in Aurora. There is no doubt that the town could easily accommodate parking on the 13 acres that were recently purchased to access the trail head. I’m also quite certain that the recently planted trees on the site may be relocated. I also don’t believe that trees and storage of personal vehicles should take precedence over a fundamental human right and your moral obligation to protect the vulnerable, especially when we have the resources to do so, as we so evidently do have in this particular case.
We all saw the threats, the vitriol, and the violent comments hurled at the unhoused just two years ago go unchecked. The Ontario Human Rights Commission weighed in. The same opponents rebranded themselves a year later but their despicable motivation was already evident. The weaponizing of the planning system to socially engineer neighbourhoods is reprehensible. Enabling them by exploiting every legislative loophole is even more so, in my ever-so-humble opinion.
The community at large has weighed in, professionals in the sector agree, and a majority of council have come around to see the feasibility of this site. The only reason that this motion would actually “do nothing” would be to continue to create fishing expeditions for another site after utilizing every tool to thwart the process for this application — an effort that has been a painful and shameful display of political arrogance by some and feckless compliance by others.
We elect you to reflect the best of us, not the worst in us.
Get out of the way and get on with it.
Neil Asselin
Aurora
