SAXTONS RIVER — I am compelled to comment on Cathy Bergmann's letter [Voices, Dec. 12] on the subject of the Bellows Falls Warming Shelter.
I find Ms. Bergmann's letter to be rambling, almost to the point of incoherence. We are told we are to be informed about the facts but instead we are provided in the most part with a litany of opinion and selfserving value judgments. The one comment I can heartily endorse is her statement: “Now I am truly confused.”
The following are the facts.
The shelter is open for receiving guests from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., at which time the door is closed and no guest is allowed to enter or leave.
Between those hours, guests are allowed to go outside for a few minutes to smoke. The current rules provide for a 10-minute limit on such smoking breaks.
As a volunteer, I have never been faced by a problem with any of our homeless guests regarding the smoking break and, to the best of my recollection, guests leaving the shelter for a smoke break have never numbered more than two at a time. I have never felt suspicious that this “privilege” was being abused.
The suggestion that there might be a traffic problem caused by the shelter is laughable - not, however, for the homeless.
Ms. Bergmann states that the shelter is located in the basement of a popular pizza restaurant and in the midst of a “well-established single-family-home neighborhood,” although I am not sure that Riverview Apartments, on whose behalf Ms. Bergmann claims to speak, would qualify as such.
She further states that the neighborhood includes two “high-end“ (don't you love that phrase?) bed and breakfasts.
So what? Are we to infer that shelters for the homeless are to be segregated from their “high-end” neighbors? (Although Athens Pizza has never struck me as particularly “high-end.”)
The “high-enders” should not be so concerned. Our guests arrive in the dark and leave by 7 a.m., surely long before most of the high-enders and their guests arise.
Ms. Bergmann points out that Athens Pizza shares the same ventilation system as the shelter. I have never heard our guests complain of the pizza aromas drifting through the ventilation system, but - horror! - maybe the air flows in the other direction. Who knows what smells or bacteria might insinuate themselves into the system to pollute the high-enders?
The spurious concern for the long-term well-being of the homeless, which Ms. Bergmann trumpets so loudly, is nauseating.
We should not give a hot meal and a warm bed to a homeless person because we cannot also educate them, provide them with affordable housing, health care, and a job.
What arrant humbug! It is just an excuse to do nothing at all.
Ah, “humbug” - that well-known phrase of Mr. Scrooge, who also so rationally pointed out that if people froze to death because of homelessness that would only “serve to reduce the surplus population.”
Of course, we need to do so much more to help the poor and homeless to gain a footing on the ladder to a better life, but do we withdraw the emergency helping hand when the homeless cannot even get a hot meal and a warm bed?
To achieve the longer term objective of giving a helping hand up the ladder to safety, do we kick away the first rung?
I challenge Ms. Bergmann to join me and any other like-minded Rockingham residents to meet and discuss what more we can do to achieve longer term goals for assisting the disadvantaged in our community.
As for heartlessness, the vast majority of the people of Bellows Falls have always impressed with their kindness and compassion, but a very few - not so much.
And then there is the disgraceful personal attack on Ann DiBernardo, a dedicated local community helper.
Yes, she holds three community offices. She did not reappoint herself to the position of town service officer, as Ms. Bergmann states. She was appointed by the selectboard. She gets paid nothing for this job.
She serves on the board of the Warming Shelter. She gets paid nothing for this either. She was elected to the Selectboard; she gets paid $1,000 a year for service. Has Ms. Bergmann the faintest notion of how much time and effort Ms. DiBernardo devotes to the community as a selectboard member?
It is particularly poignant that this debate over the BFWS should be taking place at Christmas time. Will there be “no room at the inn” in Bellows Falls for our brethren as there was none for the parents of Jesus Christ?