^ Yes it's okay for you to ask. No it's not something that I want to see happen here. I do want something to happen here because the direction that this city is going....is breaking my heart.
I used to believe that harm reduction and treatment and reaching out to people that need help was in fact a solution. It still might be for some.
Now however, (after tent city and the glory buss from Vancouver) I am starting to believe that there is a sinister sense of entitlement at play here that might require a dose of tough love in order to protect the hard working Victorians who are too Canadian to fight for the safety of their streets.
I have spent the last 6 days in a well-to-do area of the excited States of America. I have not seen one incident of begging (that's what it is) one drug deal, or one tent. (that didn't appear to be where it wasn't supposed to be).
I will try and find the reason for this while I am here, but I somehow doubt that left wing co-dependent socialist politics is at the core.
Pretty much this; as of January I started commuting via bus and working downtown again for the first time in almost 6 years. Since I sold my Fairfield condo I really have/had little need to venture into CoV core.
Now that I am getting off the bus at Douglas and Yates in the morning at 8am and reversing and catching it outbound at 4:45pm, I am frankly shocked at the sights and sounds and smells I routinely encounter each day, and the general shoddy state of the street level activities downtown. And I'm not talking about Rock Bay here but the middle of the "financial" area near the Island Savings/RBC/TD Trust/Coast Capital savings stretch on Douglas and Broughton and two blocks over to Government street where my office is.
People, many of them clearly with addiction and/or mental health issues are yelling and swearing and consummating dope deals not in back alleys at midnight but morning, noon and night on these main arterial and "business" streets often in plain sight, seemingly with no concern or fear from enforcement or of "getting caught".
They congregate near ATM's or corner coffee outlets particularly, where quite obviously they figure patrons of both might be easy marks for tossing them some change. Many are quite forceful about it too and some become agitated and aggressive if no handout is forthcoming. As I am physically fairly imposing I am unconcerned for my personal safety however I can certainly understand how others - women, and retirees particularly, or tourists - would have an altogether different reaction.
And all the while no evidence of any police presence whatsoever, no "uniforms" walking a beat that I can discern. Nothing at all - and why not? Perhaps the police are stretched and their 'street' emphasis is solely on the Pandora strip. I don't know, and call it a resource crunch, or entitlement, or 'enablement' or the soft stick approach.....whatever you will - but its not working. And it does nothing to assist those that clearly need the most assistance, nor does it do much for the image of the city.....