25959 replies to this topic

[spanky123]

But who is going to care of the neighbourhoods into which these housing units are placed?

 

I doubt there will be many 'clients'. The homeless don't want places with rules and they can't be forced to get treatment.  This is why the treatment centre in Vic West was never more than 50% full.

[JimV]

^Agree.  The government is deliberately peddling the fantasy that drug addicts want treatment.  For many, if not most, of them drugs are not a problem, they are a solution.  What they really want is free and better drugs.

[Victoria Watcher]

What they really want is free and better drugs.

 

And probably some to sell on the side too, for extra cash.

[Nparker]

Despite all their "expert" advice, government completely fails to understand how addiction works.

[Victoria Watcher]

The City of Prince George, B.C., has apologized for the harm it caused to vulnerable people when it removed their structures from a homeless camp. 

 

The city also says in a separate statement issued Thursday that it is withdrawing its appeal of court decisions that had refused to issue injunctions against homeless encampments. 

 

The city says it is now re-evaluating its approach and response to homelessness and the sites where people camp. 

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...ss-camp-5195467

[Barrrister]

Remind me not to move to Prince George.

[Victoria Watcher]

Or Kelowna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A man has been charged with attempted murder after attacking a Kelowna RCMP officer with a knife.

 

Shortly before midnight on March 26, Kelowna RCMP received an unwanted persons call regarding people camped on private property in the 1000-block of Ellis Street.

 

An officer arrived on scene approximately thirty minutes later, and engaged in conversation with a male related to the call.

 

A short time later, an emergency notification went out from the officer’s radio to dispatchers, requiring immediate assistance. The man allegedly pulled a knife on the officer, leaving the officer with a serious stab wound above the eye.

 

In an attempt to gain control of the situation, the officer discharged their firearm, though no harm was done via the firearm. However, the suspect then began to harm himself with the knife.

 

https://www.maplerid...elowna-mountie/

 

 

 

 

 

Construction of a three-storey downtown Kelowna building to house homeless people will proceed without a rezoning or a public hearing.

 

In an unusual move, the NDP government and the City of Kelowna have agreed to eliminate the opportunity for members of the public to comment on the project.

_________________________

 

The two properties, at 1055 and 1063 Ellis St. in the downtown north end, are currently zoned Industrial 4. Housing is not a permitted use in this zone.

 

https://www.kelownad...523248c847.html

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 29 March 2022 - 03:11 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Homeless? You can park for free

I just drove along Elk Lake Drive at midnight. Across from the Beaver Lake Park entrance were parked about a dozen or more camper vans and motor homes.

 

They are obviously there overnight, “camping” for free! Now, I’m not in favour of the homeless camping willy-nilly where they please, but why can the “rich homeless” park wherever they please?

 

Norma Huff
Colwood

[Victoria Watcher]

We've talked about Michael Shellenberger here before.  This is one of the best interviews I've watched with him.

 

How Progressives Ruined San Francisco: Michael Shellenberger

 

 

The author of the new book "San Fransicko," says the homelessness crisis is an addiction and mental health crisis enabled by policies that permit open-air drug scenes on public property and prevent police from enforcing laws

 

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/4tF5DzLWwcw

 

He talked briefly about the Birmingham, AL study.  Here are some details worth considering:

 

Solutions to the Homelessness Crisis

• In the past, governments and nonprofits had sometimes required homeless people to earn an apartment unit through sobriety, work, and, when appropriate, compliance with taking their psychiatric medicine. This is called the “contingency” approach, linear approach, or staircase approach, since one must earn the next step through good behavior.

•  

• The contingency approach works. Researchers have found ways to use contingency housing to reduce addiction. Between 1990 and 2006, researchers in Birmingham, Alabama, conducted clinical trials of abstinence-contingent housing with 644 homeless people with crack cocaine addictions. Two-thirds of participants remained abstinent after six months, a very high rate of abstinence, compared to other treatment programs. Other studies found that around 40 percent of homeless in abstinence-contingent housing maintained their abstinence, housing, and jobs.

•  

• In a randomized controlled trial, homeless people were given furnished apartments and allowed to keep them unless they failed a drug test, at which point they were sent to stay in a shelter. Sixty-five percent of participants completed the program. Three similar randomized controlled trials also found moderate to high rates of completion. And participants in abstinence-contingent housing had better housing and employment outcomes than participants assigned housing for whom abstinence was not required.

•  

• It turns out that over longer periods of time, Housing First may not even outperform contingency in terms of keeping people housed. In the spring of 2021, a team of Harvard medical experts published the results of a fourteen-year-long study of chronic homeless placed into permanent supportive housing in Boston. Most studies of permanent supportive housing, including the Kushel study conducted in Santa Clara, only study the newly housed homeless for a span of around two years. The study found that 86 percent of the homeless, who were referred based on length of time living on the streets, suffered from “trimorbidity”—a combination of medical illness, mental illness, and substance abuse. The authors found that after ten years, just 12 percent of the homeless remained housed. During the study period, 45 percent died. The authors concluded that, because the chronically homeless had such higher rates of physical and mental illness, “the supportive services, essential to the PSH model, may not have been sufficient to address the needs of this unsheltered population.”

 

https://environmenta...atment programs.

 

 

 

 

^ that last paragraph is quite something.  After 10 years, only 12% of "housing first" tenants remained housed.  And 45% died.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 04 April 2022 - 05:11 AM.

[spanky123]

^ You mean that 88% remained clients (revenue) for the poverty pimps!

[Victoria Watcher]

^ You mean that 88% remained clients (revenue) for the poverty pimps!

 

Yes, that's interesting.  I started thinking this morning, is there ANYONE that thinks people sleeping on streets or congregating or open drug use or filth is good?   For the public, the businesses, or the vulnerable people themselves?  YES, the poverty pimps, it keeps them top of mind and top of funding for politicians.

 

Look at the City; they are hiring or did hire someone without even knowing what they will do.   But they knew first how much this person would earn.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 04 April 2022 - 05:21 AM.

[Mike K.]

It is Victoria's biggest industry, after all.

[Victoria Watcher]

A low-barrier housing facility in Port Alberni was damaged by an overnight fire.

Mike Owens, fire chief for the Port Alberni Fire Department, said crews were paged out at 3:42 a.m. on Thursday, April 7 to a structure fire at Phoenix House, which is located in the 3600 block of Fifth Avenue. Because the building is a multi-family residence, crews from Cherry Creek Volunteer Fire Department and Sproat Lake Volunteer Fire Department also responded. Beaver Creek Volunteer Fire Department was on standby.

“When we arrived on scene, multiple suites on the first floor were fully involved,” said Owens. “We began an aggressive interior attack in order to suppress the fire in the building.”

https://www.campbell...ousing-complex/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 08 April 2022 - 10:25 AM.

[Mike K.]

Was the Alberni news guy covering Campbell River while the Campbell River guy was covering Alberni?

[Victoria Watcher]

“I’m born and raised in this province, paid taxes here and now here I am an old fart, ­alcoholic, drug addict with ­multiple health issues and ­addiction issues and no one cares that this is where I’m going to die,” he said. “We don’t have faces, we don’t have names.”

https://www.timescol...ic-high-5249654

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 09 April 2022 - 03:11 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

McKenzie, 54, who has been homeless for four years, has been living under a blue tarp on a small patch of grass just off Grant Street for the last four months.

He said Friday that he had no intention of moving until he is offered a viable alternative — and he’s not holding his breath for that.

McKenzie has developed a distrust of outreach ­services over the last four years, ­claiming he was “screwed around” by B.C. Housing for more than two years when he was told they were trying to find him suitable accommodation.

He said they technically ­considered him “housed” because he was in a temporary shelter, so they never bothered to find him a suitable longer-term home. So he ended up on the street again.





Entitled much? This guy seems like a waste of skin.

[Victoria Watcher]

“Brody and Juliette are the nicest people but they aren’t like the rest of the residents of the shelter,” said Doyle as she waited with a neighbour for Victoria police to respond to their call for service. “Certain residents have made it a living hell since it opened in May 2021, with calls to police up 400 per cent this year.”

She rattled off a litany of unpleasant experiences, including illicit drugs being consumed, fights, screaming in the middle of the night, tires being slashed and being accosted in her parking area.

“This was once a great space, a safe neighbourhood. But it’s not safe anymore. Dropping an emergency shelter in a dense residential neighbourhood is immoral,” said Doyle. Still, she said that she has “no issue” with Victoria fast-tracking supportive housing. “Just next door to us we have a subsidized housing complex run by the CRD and they are just the sweetest neighbours you could ask for.”


https://www.timescol...ariness-5272322

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 April 2022 - 02:40 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

The original plan was for the village to house people temporarily — perhaps for a few months — before B.C. Housing could place them in more permanent facilities. “We had the best of intentions in that regard,” says McKenzie.

The reality, however, is that few new permanent vacancies have opened up elsewhere. Of the original group of residents who moved in, only three have left. Of those, one died from an accidental overdose and one had mental-health problems that required more complex care than the operators could provide. Only one found alternate living arrangements.

https://www.timescol...mmunity-5272341


So with a plan so thoroughly flawed, why is the organization running it still in control? They have failed 100% in their intended deliverable. Who is accountable for this 0% success rate?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 April 2022 - 03:28 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

So just to review… there are 30 residents, of which 27 are men. 27 have been there for a year. Of the original residents, one died from a drug overdose, one was too tough to house there (no indication of where they went) and one found other unspecified arrangements.

And the village is supposed to be dismantled this fall.

But it would appear it needs at least 10 years to process everyone through it, at the current pace.

This is exactly why this City council and all the service providers and Aryze ought not to be trusted.

They always use this kind of “temporary” project as a wedge. They aren’t truthful, or they are wilfully ignorant.

Either way, they have shown why they are not to be trusted.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 April 2022 - 05:47 AM.

[Awaiting Juno]

^Agree.  The government is deliberately peddling the fantasy that drug addicts want treatment.  For many, if not most, of them drugs are not a problem, they are a solution.  What they really want is free and better drugs.

 

My kids want more candy, and bigger candy - that doesn't mean it's my job to provide them with what they want. They'll get balanced meals - fruits, veggies, protein and from time to time some ice cream or candy.