Chicken Manure Dumped To Move Homeless, Now City Says Sorry

Chicken manure was dumped on a homeless campsite Tuesday in downtown Abbotsford, British Columbia in an effort to make the inhabitants go somewhere else. Those kind of antics might go unnoticed in some parts of Texas, but they have resulted in a public outcry — and now a public apology — from the Canadian town’s City Manager George Murray.

According to an alternative Abbotsford news source Abbotsford Today, it’s all part of a long-standing campaign against the city’s homeless. Mike Archer, the editor of AT, wrote in a fiery editorial today that Abbotsford “has a long and well established tradition of chasing its poor and downtrodden with police dogs, moving them day after day, taking their belongings and ensuring they have nowhere to go, no one to turn to, no hope left.”

Murray apologized for spreading the chicken manure on the homeless camp Wednesday: “As city manager, I take this situation very seriously and retain full responsibility for the manner in which we dealt with this incident.”

Homeless activist James Breckenridge, who first brought the chicken manure attack to public attention, was furious about the destruction. Telling The Province that city officials had repeatedly destroyed the bedding at the homeless camp, he called the manure attack “a new low — using manure, especially chicken manure, in light of bird flu. We had to destroy a million birds in the Fraser Valley because of avian flu.”

And Breckenridge is not impressed with Murray’s apology. He posted an angry reply that said in part:

“[I]s the City of Abbotsford apologizing for getting caught?

“What reason is there for the homeless to think this apology and any promises attached to this apology are, or will be, any more meaningful that the apologies and broken promises made by mayors and councils to the homeless in the past?”

Apparently, Abbotsford doesn’t even get points for creativity in dealing with its homeless problem. CBC News said that in 2009 the city of Surrey, British Columbia also spread chicken manure to move the homeless along.

[chicken photo by Jean “Just Chaos” via Creative Commons]