Dear Editor,

There was an article that was written in response to housing affordability in Fort St. John a few weeks ago, where in Trevor Bolin's opinion, housing is attainable because the claimed average income in Fort St. John is $92,000. 

This claim was an insult to those in Fort St. John who are not lucky enough to make stupid amounts of money.  Possibly, they made choices that they would like to be at home with their families at night instead of out in a camp, where many develop depression and yearn to meet the ultimate dream: gasp *a good paying job where they could be home every night with their families. 

Some lower income citizens possibly chose to go to University and become teachers, police officers, firefighters, social workers, people struggling to start up a business.  Perhaps they make minimum wage because they are immigrants and their degrees don't meet Canadian standards. 

His opinion completely discredits those who hold respectable jobs but can't afford the over-inflated prices of housing in Fort St. John after they pay for food, daycare and other daily and very costly necessities.  Even the rents are ridiculous.  Want to buy the cheapest house in town?  Come on down with $200,000 + and you'll be in a 900 square foot dream home a block away from the homeless shelter where the crack addicts wander around.  Yes we have homelessness, addiction issues, people who struggle with personal issues.  I would refute that his opinion was one sided and it was not backed up with any concrete statistics, making it biased to the extremely wealthy in town while turning a blind eye to the blue collar professionals. 

In response, I felt it necessary that someone in this town should acknowledge and stand up for those who are working at respectable jobs but don't make even close to half of $92,000.  I stand up for the many single mothers in this town who are balancing good parenting with making enough to survive.  Those who can't easily put away a $25,000 or so down down payment on anything because they pay upwards of $2,000 in rent.  His response was one sided, and as a responsible city councilman he should have been the first to acknowledge the many citizens of Fort St. John struggle to attain adequate housing and that those people matter.

Jen Meyer

Fort St. John