3483 replies to this topic

[m0nkyman]

Berlin squatters were successful in part because of the hundreds of derelict buildings and also because German squatters tended to actually fix up the buildings they were occupying.

[url=http://www.huduser.org/periodicals/fieldworks/0203/fworks1.html:17a55]Urban homesteading[/url:17a55] for truly abandoned buildings is a pretty cool idea.

That isn't what 'seizing abandoned buildings' means in this case though...

[D.L.]

I think this is the 450 sqft bachelor on Cloverdale Avenue that I posted several weeks ago. In September it was listed for sale at $85,000, the cheapest unit I have seen in a long time. Now the interior has been refinished and it is listed at $120,000.

http://www.mls.ca/Pr... ... ID=5210128

[Holden West]

I think I know that building--half way up the hill. I looked at them back in '89 and they were about $75,000 or so. I don't think any other building spent so long without appreciating.

[D.L.]

Most of the building is two bedroom, two floor apartments, named the 'Cloverdale Townhouse' complex.

[aastra]

A guy has turned his house on Bay Street (near the Baja Grill) into a rooming house. He's renting 11 rooms (although the zoning only permits him to rent 5) at $500 each per month.

Councillor Hughes is apparently defending the guy, even though he added the extra rooms "outside the city's approval process".

Is this really "a golden opportunity to create affordable housing units in downtown Victoria"?

(Never mind the downtown part, we all know that area is a mile away from downtown...my question is, are these rooms really affordable?)

[D.L.]

Affordability is such a relative term. It's going to be a different thing for a rich man than or for a poor man. What I view as affordable housing is whatever is at the low end of the price market. If it is recommended that someone spend 1/3 of their income on their housing, then what is there available in the city for low income earners?

[Number Six]

The current issue of EcoNews features an article on the affordable housing crisis:

http://www.earthfuture.com/econews

[D.L.]

From the article:

For those who do own, their children eventually inherit, which they often use to buy a more expensive home, driving prices higher.

Now think 50, or even 1,000 years ahead. What happens to those who don’t own, nor their parents? They are locked out of the housing market forever, generation after generation.

We need to ensure that Canadian society is not permanently rift in two, into an Orwellian world of the Owners and the Underclass.

That sounds too fantastic to be possible.

One solution is for Canadians to pay more taxes, so that governments (ideally municipal) have a pool of money they can use to buy land for affordable housing, including by establishing Community Land Trusts.

We could increase the property transfer tax (not applying it to lower priced housing), and use it to create a permanent Affordable Housing Fund.

There are also solutions that cost nothing in taxes, such as requiring developers to build 20% of their units at an affordable price, and mixing them up so that they are not shoved off to one side as "poverty alley".

What we don't need is subsidised housing for fully able-bodied working people.

What we do need is denser development (and I don't mean exclusivly highrise) and smaller units, and a variety of living sizes. We need housing units inexpensive enough for anyone with a job to be able to get a mortgage and buy. Then people are able to build equity. Start with a stratazized bunkhouse, then in a few years someone could afford to move up to a stratazized rooming house. Then move on to a bachelor condo, and after that a one bedroom condo. Sounds wild I know, but it might just work.

[Number Six]

I do agree with the article's assertion that this is a political issue that needs to be addressed. Market forces on their own won't do it due to the huge in-flux of buyers from outside this region. The problem isn't where the buyers are coming from but rather that their wealth skews the local market ... it doesn't slow down or drop when it becomes unaffordable for first-time buyers. A $50K/year salary in Victoria won't help you much when you're competing with buyers making $100K/year in Alberta, London or Tokyo. Perhaps Victoria will return to the mid-19th century after all ... if your family owned land you led a privileged life ... if they didn't ... good luck.

I don't believe in raising taxes but something needs to be done. When I watch the news and see foreign buyers snapping up $1M condos over the internet, or investment syndicates buying up several floors in new developments, it doesn't get my hopes up.

[Holden West]

Homeless czar explains program

Nov 24 2006 Victoria News

I read with interest your recent editorial, "Lending Shelter" (Nov. 17), and heartily concur with your proposition that everyone should have a clean, dry room with a bed to sleep on. That makes moral and spiritual sense, and we're learning economic dollars and sense.

The cost of people experiencing chronic homelessness is counter-intuitively high. Someone who is vulnerable and disabled by addiction or mental illness and lying on the street may not look like they are costly, but studies in our country indicate that they are some of the most expensive people to the public purse.

Why? Because they randomly ricochet through expensive primary and behavioral health systems - the emergency rooms of hospitals, acute substance and mental health treatment - and are disproportionally the subject of police interventions on the street, court and incarceration costs.

San Diego discovered that 15 chronic, homeless street people followed over 18 months cost the city and county

$3 million, or on average $200,000 each in health and law-enforcement costs. To their chagrin, the expenditures did not resolve their homelessness or their cycling into expensive systems.

We've discovered through such research that the cost of housing this population is actually less than all that shuffling.

You are correct in indicating that "merely giving homes to homeless people won't also have its problems." Nor would we prefer only housing. We did that before in our nation. It was called deinstitutionalization.

That well-intended policy, which moved hundreds of thousands out of the inhumane and horrific conditions in the back wards of mental institutions, actually led to the unintended consequence of pervasive street homelessness in our country.

What happened?

We provided a place to live without the attendant support services so necessary for vulnerable populations - whether frail elders or those in recovery from addiction or mental illness.

We don't need to make that mistake again.

Our strategy is permanent supportive housing. That is housing with support services to sustain the tenancy. That strategy works. The retention rate in that housing, even for those who have lived long term in shelters or on the streets, is over 80 per cent.

You go on to say that "all that's missing is enough money." You're right again.

There will never be enough resources in any one year to remedy the crisis. But for six consecutive years the Bush administration, in partnership with the Congress, has increased resources targeted to homelessness to record levels. The president asked for an increase in 2007 to over $4 billion.

Those resources have resulted in the creation in the past five years of more than 50,000 tenancies targeted to homeless people who are the most disabled.

The 283 local communities we are now partnered with in jurisdictionally-led, community-based 10-year plans have an appetite for results. And I am pleased that Red Deer, Alberta, under the leadership of Mayor Flewwelling, is the first Canadian city to move forward to create a Ten Year Plan with the same intent.

Results oriented 10-year plans, fueled by political will, community partnerships, and innovative supportive housing strategies, are having an impact. Across the U.S., 30 cites are now reporting for the first time in 20 years reductions of people on the streets and long term in shelters.

You can be assured that these efforts in both our countries are a hand up, not a hand out.

Philip Mangano

executive director

U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness

Washington, DC

Philip F. Mangano was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2002 to reduce and end homelessness in the United States beginning with a prioritization of those who are on the streets and long-term in our shelters. To learn more about 10-year plans to end homeless, please visit http://www.usich.gov

[Caramia]

My god I agree with someone in the Bush administration.

[m0nkyman]

My god I agree with someone in the Bush administration.

Don't worry about it too much. Nobody else in the Bush administration is listening to him. They're treating him like they're treating their consciences. :oops:

[mikedw]

San Diego discovered that 15 chronic, homeless street people followed over 18 months cost the city and county

$3 million, or on average $200,000 each in health and law-enforcement costs. To their chagrin, the expenditures did not resolve their homelessness or their cycling into expensive systems.

I read something about this. Homeless people don't need to be cut loose to fend for themselves. They basically need to be shadowed and have every possible decision made for them.

If you have a couple of case workers per person-- like 1500 for Victoria's 750 homeless (or 200 for Victoria's real 100 homeless)-- then crisis resolution work (ER staff, police, drug rehab, soup kitchen, etc.) would be pushed into these positions.

We're spending the money regardless (wages, property theft, diminished revenues from businesses in affected areas): why not spend it on a remedy?

[TheVisionary]

San Diego discovered that 15 chronic, homeless street people followed over 18 months cost the city and county

$3 million, or on average $200,000 each in health and law-enforcement costs. To their chagrin, the expenditures did not resolve their homelessness or their cycling into expensive systems.

I read something about this. Homeless people don't need to be cut loose to fend for themselves. They basically need to be shadowed and have every possible decision made for them.

If you have a couple of case workers per person-- like 1500 for Victoria's 750 homeless (or 200 for Victoria's real 100 homeless)-- then crisis resolution work (ER staff, police, drug rehab, soup kitchen, etc.) would be pushed into these positions.

We're spending the money regardless (wages, property theft, diminished revenues from businesses in affected areas): why not spend it on a remedy?

===============================================

A solution to the socially hard to house and deal with? Persons have written to the Times Colonist, News Group, and Monday Magazine papers suggesting forcefully putting the socially broken people into armed guarded work camps. I saw a similar post to the CBC national comments.

From the description that they described, there would be fenced in and defended boundaries with sensors, armed guards, dogs, defence barriers to keep the inmates in and outsiders out. It would be a 1984 Orwellian style society where Big Brother is always watching you. Would this solution work? :evil: :evil:

[gumgum]

Are you endorsing this idea or shunning it? ^

[Caramia]

Supportive housing is much more like what we do for the elderly. The level of restriction depends entirely on capacity to cope... therefore, someone who is psychotic and prone to violent episodes would yes, be guarded. Someone who is just kind of sad and aimless in their mental illness or addiction would have a regular routine and the appropriate medical and psychological help available. Someone who manages to transition into a functional lifestyle can check out anytime. This is help, not prison. You'd have a choice to be there. Only if you are a danger do you get curfews and locked doors. And I don't have a problem with that.

[TheVisionary]

Are you endorsing this idea or shunning it? ^

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I would prefer not have to lock up any person in a state run forced labour camp with mean looking armed guards and defence barriers. However, I can't entirely rule out that possibility if civilization continues to descends farther into chaos and unruleliness. As a means of keeping order and the barbarians from bringing down all of civilization, I would support any means necessary to this task. Letting things slide as it has been doing is unacceptable. :evil:

[Holden West]

Meanwhile, back in Realityland...

[gumgum]

He's full of crap. Nobody in their right mind would believe such horseshit in this day and age.
V, either stop pulling our leg, or get some professional help.
Just stop wasting our time with your complete and utter nonsense.

[TheVisionary]

He's full of crap. Nobody in their right mind would believe such horseshit in this day and age.
V, either stop pulling our leg, or get some professional help.
Just stop wasting our time with your complete and utter nonsense.

=================================================

Horseshit? You can read those comments in the TC newspaper and Monday. Those people's frustrated and extreme comments should still be in a back issue.

This day and age, or another day and age is irrelevent. Human nature remains basically the same in all human history, only the names and players change. There's a very fine line between civilization and unbridled chaos. If Victoria had a severe natural disaster, end of the world ****, I don't think all you "civilized citizens" would remain civilized for too long before you too start to loot, rape, and pillage.

As for "professional help", I am the professional! I have a Uvic Social Sciences degree in Political Science/Sociology. Hey while I'm at this, I have a Retail Sales Business Certificate from Camosun College, Travel Counsellors Techniques Certificate from BC Ministry of Tourism too. Anything else you like to know? :?: