Yogi Berra, the legendary New York Yankees catcher, has a knack for mangling the English language in a manner that's both funny and appropriate at the same time. Without question my favourite of his malapropisms - "It's déjà vu all over again" - seems tailor made for the Sunshine Coast.
A couple of years ago the citizens of Elphinstone were in an uproar because a Pratt Road abode was being used as a transition house. Local men and others from the Lower Mainland who had gone through the agonies of drug withdrawal and now wanted to become part of society again were being housed there. Local folks were sure that murder, mayhem and heaven knows what else were sure to follow the denizens of the house.
The house has since been vacated because of ongoing concerns about the septic field. However, in the two years the place was occupied, none of the doom and gloom predicted actually came to pass.
No one was attacked when they walked by the house, students on their way to school weren't accosted, and none of the neighbours fared any worse than they did before the recovering addicts moved in.
Flash forward to 2010, move down the highway to Langdale, and the same concerns are being aired again.
Granted, this time it's not just drug addicts needing a place to get clean, but - gasp - there are also mentally ill people who will be welcomed there.
Imagine a place where schizophrenics can go where unscrupulous creeps can't take advantage of their illness, where those who are sick can actually get the help they need. At the very least, the mentally ill need the rest of us to be sufficiently open-minded to hear out the plans.
It can be frightening facing illnesses we know very little about except for the severe cases that get highlighted in the media. Most times people who have a mental illness or addiction are of much more danger to themselves than they are to society. The facility in Langdale is by no stretch of the imagination a done deal. Our community deserves better than knee-jerk reactions: take the time to educate yourself on the issues at stake here.
On Monday I spent the day with my son Patrick and his family in Vancouver. I had many things to be thankful for, not least being that they were the ones cooking dinner. But as I pondered the things I like best about my son, the one that instantly sprang to mind is his sense of social justice.
A few years ago a similar house to the one proposed for Langdale was on the planning block for Patrick's East Vancouver area. His neighbours reacted in a similar manner to the woman who wrote to our editor a couple of weeks ago. Patrick attended several meetings and campaigned vigorously in favour of the facility for the mentally ill.
The one statement that Patrick made at the time stays vividly in my mind.
"Mom, I can't believe people's attitudes. Don't they know the sick have to go somewhere?"
Déjà vu, anyone?
