25959 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

I’ve seen buildings like this usually used for the purposes of housing people that require ongoing VIHA-care, like persons with disabilities of some kind. But yes, they may also be retained for health workers.

[Jacques Cadé]

Significant case about rights of the homeless vs. regulatory powers of municipalities will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court tomorrow:

 

In 2013, Grants Pass, Ore., came up with a strategy to deal with a growing homeless population in the city of roughly 40,000, one that might best be described as kicking the can down the road.

 

Through a series of ordinances, the city essentially made it illegal to sleep outside in public. In particular, anyone sleeping anywhere in public with bedding, a blanket or a sleeping bag would be breaking the law.

 

“The point,” the City Council president explained at the time, “is to make it uncomfortable enough for them in our city so they will want to move on down the road.”

 

Unhoused individuals wouldn’t have much choice. There are no homeless shelters in Grants Pass. At least 600 people in the city were unhoused in 2018 and 2019, according to counts by a local nonprofit that serves the unhoused.

 

Now the United States Supreme Court is being asked whether the enforcement of the city’s camping regulations, which apply to all in the city’s residents but affect them in vastly different ways, violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. Oral arguments are scheduled for Monday. ....

 

Source (paywall): https://www.nytimes....reme-court.html

 

Canada has its own Supreme Court, of course, but the U.S. decision could have a big effect on the politics of homelessness and street camping in this country. If the U.S. court favours Grants Pass, it's sure to encourage some Canadian towns and politicians to demand similar laws here.

Edited by Jacques Cadé, 21 April 2024 - 10:34 AM.

[Jacques Cadé]

^ For those who have access to the New York Times, the comments on the above piece (written by a UC Berkeley law professor and homeless advocate) are interesting. Examples:
 

Danielle

Seattle, Washington 5h ago

There's a big difference between criminalizing homelessness and "sleep anywhere you want, nobody can tell you any different." Just as there is a big difference between a day-laborer making $14/hour under the table sleeping in the woods and a person with significant mental health issues wandering around downtown high on fentanyl. It does a disservice to both to group them all under one label, "the homeless," as though affordable housing is a simple key that will solve all their problems. And I can't for the life of me figure out why so many intelligent people, some faculty professors no less, cannot parse the distinction there.

Rob

PNW 4h ago

I'm a psychiatrist in a small western city between 25-50,000 residents. I treat addiction and serious persistent mental illness. Most of the hardcore homeless - tent encampments and so forth - are addicts. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. The more broadly defined homeless such as those who are couch surfing or staying with relatives or working a job from their car are more diverse, and also don't cause the same problems as the hard core homeless.

My city has solved this problem in a way I think works well. It has prohibited tent camping and sleeping in all public areas except for one designated city lot. This lot offers some social services but doesn't promise a rose garden. The city doesn't provide tents, but there are bathrooms and showers and a few social services/outreach. The city created this solution and then banned ALL encampments and camping anywhere else in the city. It works. Those who can abide by a minimum set of rules move to Tent City. Those who refuse leave town. Those who need treatment either accept it voluntarily or are involuntarily committed and I treat them. If neither, then they leave town. This has been a fair solution to a difficult problem.

 

There's also a larger report about Grants Pass and homelessness in today's paper: https://www.nytimes....ess-oregon.html

Edited by Jacques Cadé, 21 April 2024 - 10:37 AM.

[Nparker]

While people should probably have the "right" to sleep outdoors if they so choose, that right must not be absolute. Jurisdictions should have the power to dictate when and where outdoor habitation may take place within their borders. Much like the right to free speech prohibits shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre, so should there be limits on the "right" to set up your home outdoors. Without such restrictions, every bit of public space has the potential to become the next Downtown Eastside or 900 block of Pandora Avenue.

[max.bravo]

^There is no truly “public” space in a city, and that’s the way it should be. City owned spaces (parks, sidewalks) should not allow homeless (or anyone) to plunk down and take up residence there. Same goes for private parking lots and every other square inch of a city.

If you want to live in a tent, go find a commune of like minded people or hide yourself in the woods. Cities can’t be functioning economically/culturally while we allow the homeless to take over in the name of “compassion” - whatever that means nowadays.

[Victoria Watcher]

Agree. But these lazy asses live as close as we allow them to live to the “services”, mostly free food.

[Matt R.]

What’s the plan for when that sanctioned tent site is full?

[Jacques Cadé]

^ It would be good to know which town "Rob, PNW" is talking about, so we could find out its plan if the tent site is full, but my guess his town doesn't have to worry about that. As he says, "Those who can abide by a minimum set of rules move to Tent City. Those who refuse leave town."

It's likely those minimum rules include no illegal drug use, and there's zero tolerance for public use of those drugs anywhere else in his town. The addicts probably leave for Portland or Seattle, where public use of drugs is tolerated, and that keeps his town's tent city population relatively small.

[Sparky]

[...] There is no constitutional right to housing per se. Governments do not owe a positive duty to provide affordable, adequate or accessible housing to homeless and low-income persons and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms “does nothing to provide assurance that we all share in a right to a minimum standard of living” [...]

https://www.cba.org/...Municipal-Parks

[max.bravo]

[...] There is no constitutional right to housing per se. Governments do not owe a positive duty to provide affordable, adequate or accessible housing to homeless and low-income persons and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms “does nothing to provide assurance that we all share in a right to a minimum standard of living” [...]

https://www.cba.org/...Municipal-Parks

And thank God for that, because you can be sure: with government-mandated minimum quality of life levels, will come a defined maximum quality of life. And that max probably won’t be worth gettin outta bed for…

But really, I think we’ll see a cultural/political 180 on this current way of viewing housing in the next 6 years. By 2029 I think the people will be begging government to provide shelter, food, and digital currency.

The next governments (at all levels) will likely be some type of reactionary right wing populism. The far-left experiment has done so much damage to our economy and institutions, the next season of political leaders have approx 0% chance of turning the ship around within 4 years.

At best, they go hard on crime and lay a groundwork for a freer market economy - for which they will be accused (rightly, perhaps) of tyranny and coldheartedness. At worst, they accomplish little, and the inertia of our present descent is barely slowed.

Either way, the country is worse off in 2029 than it was when Poilievre/falcon/whatever municipal populists took the reins in 2025.

Then, when everyone’s seen that conservatism “doesn’t work,” Klaus, Soros, Freeland & friends will swoop in (funding also at the municipal level, as Soros does) to offer us the housing, economic, medical, political, religious, and ideological security that most everyone is craving.

So enjoy your slice of rural idyll while you can Sparky. In 2030, the proles will come to make everything MUCH more fair for the homeless (there will be many more homeless than now)

[Victoria Watcher]

Plan to end sheltering in all Victoria Parks set in motion

 

City councilors pass a motion that would see encampments removed from Vic West and Irving parks by Aug 1.

 

https://www.capitald...s-set-in-motion

[max.bravo]

Plan to end sheltering in all Victoria Parks set in motion

 

City councilors pass a motion that would see encampments removed from Vic West and Irving parks by Aug 1.

 

https://www.capitald...s-set-in-motion

 

And round and round we go. How many times in the last 10 years has council banned encampments from one park, only to 'temporarily' allow them at another? It's a revolving door with the appearance of doing something... yawn

[Nparker]

And each day the situation along the 900 block of Pandora gets worse.

[Victoria Watcher]

And round and round we go. How many times in the last 10 years has council banned encampments from one park, only to 'temporarily' allow them at another? It's a revolving door with the appearance of doing something... yawn

 

Camping isn't allowed in any park if shelter spaces are available.  But we have never put in a system to signal where there are shelter spaces.

 

Only 5 of the 11 shelters that even pretend to update reported their conditions last night:

 

https://shelters.bc2...ictoriaShelters

 

2 of them did report spaces available.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 April 2024 - 07:56 AM.

[Mike P.]

That pdf document surely helps the homeless when 50% of Canadians are allegedly illiterate, probably higher amongst homeless populations. Do they even know they can dial 2-1-1? I sure wasn't aware this was even a thing until now.

Edited by Mike P., 22 April 2024 - 03:00 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

I think less than 5% of Canadians are illiterate.

[lanforod]

50%??? Huh?

[Nparker]

It just seems like that at each election.

[Mike P.]

According to Statistics Canada, 49% of the adult population scored below high-school literacy levels; 17% scored in the lowest level. [1] Newcomer, Indigenous, and low-income populations are disproportionately challenged by low literacy.Jan 27, 2023

[Victoria Watcher]

I guess it depends on the definition, yes.

I see we once again failed the indigenous.