By Richard Stewart

THERE WERE MANY lessons to be learned during the mid-morning bomb threat at Coquitlam’s Dr. Charles Best Secondary School December 13.

It began with a 40–minute ‘lock-down.’ Anxious students were kept in darkened, locked classrooms. Then the school population was hurriedly evacuated and sent through the falling snow to temporary refuge in the only two neighbourhood buildings capable of accommodating the 1,500 students and 100 staff of one of Coquitlam’s largest schools.

The gym at Ranch Park Elementary could hold about a third of them, and the rest – some 900 students and staff – crammed into Coquitlam Alliance Church, just across the street from the school.

Sanctuary

In the grand tradition of sanctuary, church staff brewed coffee, served cookies and put their minds to the task of entertaining hundreds of captive, energetic young guests.

The youth minister organized a singalong, a missing lyrics game involving Christmas carols, music and trivia contests, physical activities . . . well, imagine if your teenager invited 900 friends for a four-hour visit.

My 16 year old daughter and 14 year old son were among the impromptu guests that day, along with a niece and a nephew.

Students hadn’t been allowed to grab their lunch on the way out of the school, and no backpacks were permitted for security reasons. However, the students had their ubiquitous cellphones, and through text messages and phone calls they started to get the word out.

When I received the call from my daughter, I was actually on my way to Coquitlam Alliance Church (though it isn’t our church), because of something which had happened at the City Council meeting the previous night. Students were just arriving at the church as I pulled into the parking lot.

What followed was confusion, supported by both school staff and Coquitlam RCMP, who were both trying to figure out how to handle the situation. Amid them all, church staff and volunteers tried to make the best of a tough situation.

Outside, worried parents had begun to gather, after radio news programs broadcast sketchy – and conflicting – reports about the incident. The line-up grew to almost 200 parents, with tension and snowflakes filling the air.

Inside the church, the atmosphere was thick with irony.

Homeless

The previous night, December 12, City Council had given final approval to rezoning amendments to permit Coquitlam Alliance, along with Calvary Baptist and Eagle Ridge Bible Fellowship, to operate emergency homeless shelters during the worst weather over the coming three months.

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Under the proposal, the three churches (plus one each from Port Coquitlam and Port Moody) would share the task – one month each – of offering shelter to homeless men and women who would be picked up by bus from specified Tri-Cities locations. It’s not an ideal program, but even with its flaws it’s a welcome and potentially lifesaving proposal.

Oddly enough, without the text amendment to our Zoning Bylaw, in Coquitlam it is illegal for people to sleep in church. Don’t laugh.

However, the zoning amendment faced vocal opposition from neighbours of the three churches. The idea of a busload of homeless people arriving in their neighbourhood didn’t appeal to them, to say the least, even if the buses were supposed to take them away again in the morning.

Thus, the stage was set for what was possibly the longest continuous sitting of a Public Hearing in Coquitlam’s history. Opponents to the plan came out, matched almost one-to-one by supporters of the shelters.

In fact, when the eight-hour marathon hearing finally ended at 3 am, exactly 37 speakers against the shelters had been countered by 37 speakers in favour, with both sides offering passionate and often eloquent reasons for their position.

Among those in favour were several students from Dr. Charles Best, who presented a petition signed by several hundred students supporting the homeless shelter.

The opponents weren’t bad people, by and large. But they were fearful. We heard concerns about property values, break-ins and thefts,  drug use and discarded needles.

‘Those people’

Mostly we heard about the need to protect children from ‘those people.’ Many concerns reflected stereotypes of homelessness – not necessarily accurate, but nonetheless potent.

Love of child trumps love of fellow man, we were told repeatedly; as a father of four, I understand the sentiment. How could we consider a temporary homeless shelter where there is a school – Dr. Charles Best Secondary – right across the street?

For those with faith, it might not have really been a coincidence. But it was ironic.

I watched as some of the same neighbours who had spoken against the church’s application at the Public Hearing, some of those who cited their children as reasons for their opposition to a cold-weather shelter at a church, found themselves thankful the very next day when, during a crisis, the very same church sheltered their children from both a snowstorm and a more insidious threat.

I wonder how we got to the point that a church must apply for permission to operate a homeless shelter. As all this unfolded within a few days of Christmas, I’m thankful that 2,000 years ago the zoning regulations of the day didn’t prohibit the creation of an emergency shelter in a stable.

As for all the dire predictions, these shelters will likely go unnoticed – except by cold, lonely people who will be thankful that, as places of worship have done for centuries, a church opened its doors during cold, wet weather, to those with no place to go.  

Richard Stewart is a city councillor in Coquitlam.

February 2008