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Victoria homelessness and street-related issues


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#23761 Nparker

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Posted 16 June 2022 - 05:21 AM

What makes them think the "campers" will be any different this time?

#23762 JimV

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Posted 16 June 2022 - 08:40 AM

Four parks for 32 campers is a pretty generous allotment of real estate.  I guess they’re planning for population growth.  Talk about own goal.  



#23763 dasmo

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Posted 16 June 2022 - 08:53 AM

 

Responding to what city staff are calling a “homelessness crisis,” Halifax city council has agreed to open four parks to camping for a total of 32 people without homes.

 

The plan approved unanimously in a council meeting Tuesday night is a first for the city, which last year saw tensions flare when temporary wooden shelters built on municipal property by a community organization were removed at the city’s direction.

 

Coun. Lindell Smith said the goal is to provide added safety for people sleeping rough. Those camping at the four parks and green spaces will “not have to fear that we’ll be removing them because they’re staying there,” Smith said in an interview Wednesday.

 

The city hopes to prevent “any future issues or potential conflicts like we’ve seen last year,” Smith said, referring to the removal by police last August of wooden shelters and tents used by homeless people.

 

 

https://www.timescol...y-parks-5484669

 

The missing bottom.... 



#23764 Midnightly

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Posted 17 June 2022 - 08:47 PM

 

Responding to what city staff are calling a “homelessness crisis,” Halifax city council has agreed to open four parks to camping for a total of 32 people without homes.

 

The plan approved unanimously in a council meeting Tuesday night is a first for the city, which last year saw tensions flare when temporary wooden shelters built on municipal property by a community organization were removed at the city’s direction.

 

Coun. Lindell Smith said the goal is to provide added safety for people sleeping rough. Those camping at the four parks and green spaces will “not have to fear that we’ll be removing them because they’re staying there,” Smith said in an interview Wednesday.

 

The city hopes to prevent “any future issues or potential conflicts like we’ve seen last year,” Smith said, referring to the removal by police last August of wooden shelters and tents used by homeless people.

 

 

https://www.timescol...y-parks-5484669

 

been there done that smelled the stink in the park, have the long list of police incidents and large bills for parks repairs... not interested in repeating it.. a dozen times was enough..  i wish them luck... though i would not be surprised if it gets shut down soon after (remember the wonders of topaz park? all safely set up new tents properly spaced out, staff around regular meals delivered all that jazz? it lasted barely a month before it had to be shut down and atleast 1 person died )



#23765 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 18 June 2022 - 05:13 AM

Capital Daily:

 

 

 

 

Over one third of downtown businesses support the decentralization of shelter and social services.
But does this serve those in need?


Downtown businesses identified homelessness, mental health and addictions, and open drug use as the top safety and security issues that affect downtown, according to a recent Downtown Victoria Business Association’s (DVBA) report.

Over a third of businesses support decentralizing shelter and social service providers as a way to move vulnerable citizens away from the downtown core. This means that instead of having services agglomerated on Pandora Avenue, they would be spread throughout the Capital Region. Whether decentralization would actually serve Victoria’s unhoused population and people with addiction and mental health concerns, however, is up in the air.

Jeff Bray, DVBA’s executive director and also the co-chair of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, thinks that it would. As low-income housing is built throughout the region, he believes that services should follow.

“It diminishes the impact [that] those services have in the surrounding area, and it places services closer to where individuals are going to be housed,” he told Capital Daily.

But Julian Daly, the chief executive officer of Our Place Society, disagrees. While he understands why businesses are concerned, he says that whether or not social services are in the downtown core, vulnerable citizens will be.

“I don’t think [we] create need, we meet need.”

Daly doubts that people would follow the services if they were moved out of the downtown, and doubts that other communities would welcome them.

Further, dispersing them could make accessing them an issue for people who don’t have the means to travel around Greater Victoria.

And even if decentralization was a solution, Daly notes that it doesn’t address the underlying problem—it just displaces it.

Many businesses also want increased mental health and addictions treatment, with half of those surveyed supporting it.

“By decentralizing services, the… mental health and addiction needs of folk, and the housing needs of folk don’t go away. They just move somewhere else. And that’s what we need to address.”

By Hanna Hett with files from Martin Bauman


#23766 Nparker

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Posted 18 June 2022 - 06:23 AM

Why are the needs of taxpaying businesses not given any consideration?

#23767 Midnightly

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Posted 18 June 2022 - 11:35 PM

 

Capital Daily:

 

 

 

 

Over one third of downtown businesses support the decentralization of shelter and social services.
But does this serve those in need?


Downtown businesses identified homelessness, mental health and addictions, and open drug use as the top safety and security issues that affect downtown, according to a recent Downtown Victoria Business Association’s (DVBA) report.

Over a third of businesses support decentralizing shelter and social service providers as a way to move vulnerable citizens away from the downtown core. This means that instead of having services agglomerated on Pandora Avenue, they would be spread throughout the Capital Region. Whether decentralization would actually serve Victoria’s unhoused population and people with addiction and mental health concerns, however, is up in the air.

Jeff Bray, DVBA’s executive director and also the co-chair of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, thinks that it would. As low-income housing is built throughout the region, he believes that services should follow.

“It diminishes the impact [that] those services have in the surrounding area, and it places services closer to where individuals are going to be housed,” he told Capital Daily.

But Julian Daly, the chief executive officer of Our Place Society, disagrees. While he understands why businesses are concerned, he says that whether or not social services are in the downtown core, vulnerable citizens will be.

“I don’t think [we] create need, we meet need.”

Daly doubts that people would follow the services if they were moved out of the downtown, and doubts that other communities would welcome them.

Further, dispersing them could make accessing them an issue for people who don’t have the means to travel around Greater Victoria.

And even if decentralization was a solution, Daly notes that it doesn’t address the underlying problem—it just displaces it.

Many businesses also want increased mental health and addictions treatment, with half of those surveyed supporting it.

“By decentralizing services, the… mental health and addiction needs of folk, and the housing needs of folk don’t go away. They just move somewhere else. And that’s what we need to address.”

By Hanna Hett with files from Martin Bauman

 

 

yes please let them move somewhere else, if they move on, it might be a little harder to get the drugs if it isn't centralized, people will be in smaller groups which has often proven to work better for mental health, healing, and recovery.. it can also remove triggers


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#23768 Mike K.

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 07:03 AM

What you find, though, is the economies of scale of providing services are not there, leading to challenges in providing said services. Be it employment challenges, to challenges with support services for the social services themselves.

And the drugs will follow the users. That’s a fundamental part of the drug business.

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#23769 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 07:12 AM

What are the statistics on 40 year old drug users moving on to gainful employment?

#23770 Nparker

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 07:15 AM

...And the drugs will follow the users. That’s a fundamental part of the drug business.

It is entirely for the benefit of the enablers to concentrate the homeless/addicted.


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#23771 Mike K.

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 07:28 AM

It makes the whole social services machine operate more efficiently, that is true. Sort of like why so many medical clinics and services are clustered around the Jubilee.

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#23772 Nparker

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 07:30 AM

It makes the whole social services machine operate more efficiently, that is true...

If you can call what is currently being done for the homeless/addicted a "service".
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#23773 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 07:35 AM

If the services are working so “efficiently” why is the homeless population growing at the same time as record staff shortages?

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 June 2022 - 07:36 AM.

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#23774 E2V

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 07:45 AM

I remember one of the “guests” in a container home at RAP saying it was such a comfortable set up he was was going to go out and get a job. I wonder how that’s working out for him.

#23775 Mike K.

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 07:52 AM

If the services are working so “efficiently” why is the homeless population growing at the same time as record staff shortages?


Induced demand.

Probably for the same reasons why so many people are retiring here.

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#23776 kitty surprise

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 09:56 AM

What you find, though, is the economies of scale of providing services are not there, leading to challenges in providing said services. Be it employment challenges, to challenges with support services for the social services themselves.

And the drugs will follow the users. That’s a fundamental part of the drug business.


If the argument for decentralization is to (overtly or covertly) increase the "developmentability" of a certain area by making it more appealing,

And if taxpayer funded services are most efficiently spent when centralized/economies of scale,

Then the answer, as I've always said all along, couldn't be more plain.

Build a dedicated/centralized housing & services development in a cheap real estate location - unaffected by these other pesky competing demands like downtown business, tourism, building developments, children, seniors, etc etc.
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#23777 Nparker

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 10:04 AM

....Build a dedicated/centralized housing & services development in a cheap real estate location - unaffected by these other pesky competing demands like downtown business, tourism, building developments, children, seniors, etc etc.

Land is still relatively cheap in Port Renfrew, right?



#23778 Mike K.

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 10:49 AM

It is, but then what?

Is every service provider or consultant to a provider expected to drive 1.5 hours one-way? Will they need to build a hospital out there to service such a facility? Will police need to have a station there, since they’re likely to have to visit on a very regular basis?

I know we’re all wanting solutions but there is also the practicality of a solution that we need to consider. Even jails are centralized, for the most part, because they require supports from a lot of other agencies.

Until we re-write the charter to allow government to decide when a person is no longer able to make the best decisions for themselves, the services have to be provided where they’re are going to have the maximum impact, if we agree that our society should be providing those services.

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#23779 Victoria Watcher

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 10:57 AM

Until we re-write the charter to allow government to decide when a person is no longer able to make the best decisions for themselves, the services have to be provided where they’re are going to have the maximum impact, if we agree that our society should be providing those services.

 

I don't believe this.  If the free one bedroom apartments and 3 meals delivered each day are in Prince George, rather than Victoria, that's where they'd go. 

 

At one time, we thought moving them away from downtown and potentially destroying business was a good idea, that's why Rock Bay Landing was built where it was.



#23780 kitty surprise

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Posted 19 June 2022 - 11:11 AM

It is, but then what? Is every service provider or consultant to a provider expected to drive 1.5 hours one-way?


Of course not. Workers' accommodations could be provided. Or, because it is a cheaper real estate location, they can purchase a home there easily. Many services are already provided remotely.

Workers work where the work is needed. No different from mining, farming, forestry, etc.
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