25959 replies to this topic

[JimV]

Juno, you show a shocking lack of compassion.  Your kids want it, so you should give them high quality candy three or four times a day.  That way they can sell part of it to other kids for pocket money.  This is the solution the pro-drug lobby advocates, so it must be correct.  (Admittedly, it wouldn’t have been a problem in the first place had they not fallen victim to the candy eating epidemic in school.)

[Victoria Watcher]

Province clears land, breaks up View Royal homeless camp

 

https://www.timescol...ss-camp-5277250

 

 

 

Amid the wreckage of the camp was heat ducting, propane tanks, bicycle parts, seating from a vehicle and camping and cooking gear.

 

Screech said he understands some of the campers have since been housed, though it appears at least one wanted no part of provincial social housing.

 

“That person had been offered housing multiple times over the years and had declined it,” he said. “The outreach team from B.C. Housing had been to that site several times over the years and tried to work with him and he just was not interested.”

[pontcanna]

Nanaimo city council approves $2.5 million downtown safety action plan

Apr. 20, 2022

Nanaimo City Council has green-lighted a new safety action plan for the city’s downtown at a cost of $2.5 million a year.

The goal of the plan is to better address the social disorder in the city’s core and help make it a safe destination for people to shop, visit and enjoy.

Nanaimo City Council’s new plan is the result of a Security and Safety Review it commissioned for the downtown core.

 

The plan will be phased in over three years with an annual operating cost of $2.5 million dollars a year, which is the equivalent of a 2 percent tax increase for property owners.

The safety action plan includes extra cleaning, a vandalism relief grant and the addition of 12 new Community Safety Officers. They’ll be working 19 hours a day, 7 days a week.

“They are trained in working with vulnerable populations and helping to de-escalate issues and helping to get people help wherever that help is available,” said Neilson.

Nanaimo City Council approved the plan Wednesday unanimously.

The plan comes on top of extra police resources Nanaimo City Council approved in November to help improve downtown safety.

More: https://www.cheknews...n-plan-1015512/

 

[Victoria Watcher]

Sooke Homeless Coalition seeks safety for people sleeping in cars

Emergency billeting idea would link homeless with property owners


https://www.vicnews....eeping-in-cars/


Billeting? The homeless have no money. Most are mentally ill and/or drug addicts. How would they pay for billeting?

Billeting is where families take in responsible youth that are perhaps athletes and make a positive effect on their families in return. And families are usually compensated.

Why the f*#ck would you billet a homeless person?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 April 2022 - 12:02 PM.

[Nparker]

...Emergency billeting idea would link homeless with property owners...

The madness is spreading.

[kitty surprise]

They are appropriating a word and in the process giving it a negative connotation and hurting the original intent. As they do.

[On the Level]

Screech said he understands some of the campers have since been housed, though it appears at least one wanted no part of provincial social housing.

 

“That person had been offered housing multiple times over the years and had declined it,” he said. “The outreach team from B.C. Housing had been to that site several times over the years and tried to work with him and he just was not interested.”

 

 

This is where we as a society are at a stalemate.  If someone that is homeless is self destructive and won't accept help, then what?  It isn't like this is a new dilemma.  It's like turning the movie "Groundhog Day" into a horror flick.  The same nightmare after nightmare with no-one doing anything concrete to stop it.

[Victoria Watcher]

Nanaimo looking to beef up patrols and security in a new approach to tackle downtown problems

 

A dozen community safety officers are being hired

https://www.timescol...roblems-5289404

[Victoria Watcher]

33 comments on a recent VV post on Instagram about a downtown crime:

Every single one says downtown is a crap show:

https://www.instagra...id=NDA1YzNhOGU=

[Victoria Watcher]

This is where we as a society are at a stalemate. If someone that is homeless is self destructive and won't accept help, then what? It isn't like this is a new dilemma. It's like turning the movie "Groundhog Day" into a horror flick. The same nightmare after nightmare with no-one doing anything concrete to stop it.

It’s not a stalemate.


If you are homeless and won’t accept housing you have a severe mental illness. And should be committed involuntarily under the Health Act.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 22 April 2022 - 04:43 PM.

[Nparker]

33 comments on a recent VV post on Instagram about a downtown crime: Every single one says downtown is a crap show...

If they aren't CoV voters, sadly it doesn't really matter. 

[Victoria Watcher]

Jeremy Caradonna:

 

 

 

 

2: Shelter every unhoused person in Victoria

 

A society as rich as ours should have zero people sleeping on the streets, and yet 100-200 people in Victoria are currently sleeping rough. One of the main sources of insecurity amongst Victorians is Pandora Street, which has become a neighborhood of concentrated instability. As Jane Jacobs showed decades ago, such urban zones rarely happen organically but are rather the result of poor planning and a purposeful concentration of poverty and social problems. 

 

To reverse the trends on Pandora requires sheltering as many unhoused people as possible. The best approach would be to franchise the “tiny town” model piloted in North Park—which has sheltered 36 unhoused people, at minimal cost, and with very little drama—and create 5-6 decentralized villages, with full support services and security, to serve as a pipeline into social and supportive housing. Further, the city could expand a current program to hire marginally housed Victorians to work as high-visibility street maintenance crews.

 

This sheltering strategy would also free up the Victoria Police Department and Bylaw, both of which are overwhelmed with mental health-, drug-, and homelessness-related calls. 

 

https://www.capitald...wntown-victoria

 

 

 

 

 

 

^ That's good reason to never vote for this guy.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 26 April 2022 - 04:15 AM.

[JimV]

Ah yes, the immortal words of Saint Jacobs.  It’s totally obvious that many of Victoria’s “homeless “ are so because the are drug addicts or mentally ill, or both.  Housing is only going to work for this segment if they are in rooms with locks on the outside.

[Daveyboy]

Jeremy doesn't appear to be very observant, forward thinking, or fiscally responsible......

[Nparker]

Jeremy doesn't appear to be very observant, forward thinking, or fiscally responsible......

Making him a veritable shoe-in for council.

[Midnightly]

i would not be so quick to call tiny town a success... out of the 36 people it has housed what is it only 3 have left (two moved on and one died if i remember hearing) and the people who are living in tiny town are people who were specially picked for tiny town not just any homeless person..

 

has he not learned anything from the pandemic tenting hotel mass buying disaster you can't buy and build your way out of this... there will always be another fresh group of homeless people happy to set up tents and wave the "homes not hate" signs

[Nparker]

"Housing first" was touted as a panacea for the opioid/addiction crisis, but has proven to be an abject failure, based on the increasing number of overdoses.

[kitty surprise]

"Buy and build our way out of this"

The government can easily buy/build housing in cheap real estate locations with the promise of low/no rules and cheap/free drugs.

Doing the same thing over and over with no improvement is 'more' insane than trying something bold instead.

[Victoria Watcher]

Workers at Our Place Society have voted to unionize and join the BC General Employees’ Union.

Our Place is a Victoria non-profit providing housing and other services for the homeless and vulnerable population. According to BCGEU, there are 260 workers newly signed up to the union across 10 sites around Greater Victoria, and BCGEU says an “overwhelming majority” voted in favour of the union.

“Every worker deserves the protection and power of a union, and it is really gratifying to see so many workers wanting to organize their worksites,” said Stephanie Smith, president of the union in a news release. “The BCGEU is one of the fastest-growing unions in B.C. and it is an absolute honour every time a group of workers votes to join our union.”

https://www.cheknews...-bcgeu-1018147/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 April 2022 - 09:26 AM.

[Nparker]

...Every worker deserves the protection and power of a union...

30+ years of paying union dues and I felt neither protected, nor powerful.