25965 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

It’s not so much the on-site workers, but the rest of the services that aren’t there full time. I also don’t believe we can necessarily operate facilities out in the middle of nowhere, as out of sight too easily leads to abuses. And you wouldn’t want to be prohibitively far so that family can’t access individuals in care.

We can all agree the new drugs are a major problem. We’re turning to more liberation of drug use as the solution. Is that in our best interest?

[Nparker]

...out of sight too easily leads to abuses...

Because the highly visible and centrally located services have been a model of respect and obedience.

[Nparker]

...We can all agree the new drugs are a major problem...

Except the people who make the rules don't agree. They have bought into the (misguided) concept that more and eventually taxpayer funded drugs are the answer to addiction, unless the drug is tobacco of course, in which case stigmatizing is the solution.

[aastra]

If artificially centralizing the issues and services (over a period of several decades) was never controversial in the slightest then why should some degree of de-centralization be controversial? There is no necessary connection whatsoever between the issues and - for example - the chunk of downtown and also now the chunk of Burnside/Gorge where we choose to concentrate the issues. If Oak Bay Avenue was a part of town that nobody cared about then the issues and services would have been concentrated there.

 

It's self-evident & undeniable that these issues are grown out in the larger community & in cities and towns far and wide. These issues were not spawned from within the comparably tiny and often lightly populated commercial/industrial districts where we try to dump them. Obligating troubled people to migrate from areas far and wide into the hearts of the largest and most expensive cities is counterproductive in the extreme. It's a recipe for complicating and compounding the challenges. So then why has the system been so eager to encourage people to relocate from their familiar suburban municipalities & small towns even if they don't want to? This approach has done nothing to mitigate the issues, but by peculiar coincidence this approach has also caused the support services to grow like crazy. If an issue doesn't need to be urbanized then don't urbanize it. If you truly and sincerely want to solve a problem then don't add unnecessary new layers of complication. It's like when Mike K. tells us to mop the floors, but then also tells us we have to do it with one hand while blindfolded and wearing roller skates. Are we trying to get the floors clean or are we trying to create disruption and chaos?

 

 

Times-Colonist
March 26, 2001

West Coast cities attract street kids from far and wide: Study finds one-third of homeless in Victoria came from outside B.C.

The vast majority of kids living on Vancouver streets are from outside British Columbia, often having moved to escape family situations where they felt abused, neglected or misunderstood, suggests a report by the McCreary Centre Society.

Some 61 per cent of street kids in Vancouver and 33 per cent of those in Victoria who completed a survey last year were from other provinces, says the report titled No Place to Call Home, which is to be released today.

There is also a steady stream of adolescents from suburban and non-urban centres in B.C., who begin street life in their home communities on a part-time basis but later migrate to the larger cities where they become more entrenched, more at risk and harder to reach. Only 24 per cent of those surveyed said they were originally from Vancouver.

The difference between the urban and non-urban communities is significant to those who are trying to help these vulnerable young people, says Dr. Roger Tonkin, the centre's executive director and a leading B.C. authority on adolescent behaviour.

"The kids in smaller communities are still connected to school, family and agencies," he said in an interview.

Edited by aastra, 19 June 2022 - 03:19 PM.

[Nparker]

Wasn't keeping people in their own communities part of the rationale behind the closure of large scale mental health facilities back in the 1980s and 1990s?

[Mike K.]

Why do we have downtowns in the first place?

What is it about the very design and fabric of a downtown that makes it a great place to get drunk? Or rev your motor at 2AM? Or throw trash on the sidewalk? Or scream in joy, or frustration, at 1AM? Why do people go downtown to party? Or why do 20-somethings rent their first apartment there? Why are the biggest events there? Why do sports teams situate there?

[Mike K.]

We design these central nodes for:
- employment
- entertainment
- culture
- anonymity
- high density, highrise residences
- tourism
- sports
- opportunity

Then we wonder why people cluster there.

[Tom Braybrook]

https://www.youtube....h?v=Zx06XNfDvk0

[Belleprincess]

The impact that the current council and the drug use/ crime issues that we see on victoria is very impactful to the core. It’s the perception of downtown more than anything. I’ve noticed things getting better in recent months. It begs the question of what still needs to be done. 1) a new council who focuses solely on this issues within our city 2) changing the penalties for habitual criminals. I don’t necessarily mean jail but people who are committing crimes on a regular basis need to be monitored and held accountable. I watched a documentary about a drug court they have in Virginia and what they’re doing there is incredible. Downtown is slowly getting better but we still have the issues of those who are committing crimes with impunity, untreated mental health issues and addiction

[Mike K.]

There needs to be more investment into cleanliness and bylaw enforcement. You can’t have groups of people sprawled out on Douglas Street with their dogs running around and passers by being heckled, with sidewalks stained from who knows what, and the smell of urine in doorways.

The aesthetics of downtown make it feel like it’s tired and burned out, or just not a priority like it may have been in decades past for municipal maintenance. Downtown should be a jewel in every respect.

[spanky123]

There needs to be more investment into cleanliness and bylaw enforcement. You can’t have groups of people sprawled out on Douglas Street with their dogs running around and passers by being heckled, with sidewalks stained from who knows what, and the smell or urine in walkways.

The aesthetics of downtown make it feel like it’s tired and burned out, or just not a priority like it may have been in decades past for municipal maintenance.

 

If the plan is to kill of tourism, devalue downtown properties so that they can be acquired for rentals, and drive out business then the plan is working out well.

[Barrrister]

Only rich people own housing and they are settlers that need to be punished and forced to get out.

[Mike K.]

I met a woman from San Jose the other day who was driving around the Island on a solo trip. She said she had visited Victoria a couple of times before via cruise ships, but had never ventured out beyond the city. One can only wonder what she’ll think of such a “quaint little city.” She asked where the best place for an English breakfast was.

I don’t even know what that is, or where to get it.

[Nparker]

Only rich people own housing and they are settlers that need to be punished and forced to get out.

You say that sarcastically, but you know it is at least partially true according to the woke.

[kitty surprise]

There needs to be more investment into cleanliness and bylaw enforcement. You can’t have groups of people sprawled out on Douglas Street with their dogs running around and passers by being heckled, with sidewalks stained from who knows what, and the smell of urine in doorways.

The aesthetics of downtown make it feel like it’s tired and burned out, or just not a priority like it may have been in decades past for municipal maintenance. Downtown should be a jewel in every respect.

That just moves things temporarily.

Yes the root causes (addiction, mental health, etc) need to be solved but that will take forever.

In the meantime, (feeling like broken record here), we need to build a dedicated/centralized housing & services development in a cheap real estate location.

We have seen that holding the rest of society hostage is causing more harm to greater society.

[Mike K.]

You will not have that sort of behaviour on private property.

 

Where you will have it, is where it is tolerated.

[JimV]

You will not have that sort of behaviour on private property.

 

Where you will have it, is where it is tolerated.

Kind of a thin line between private and public downtown.  Are addicts leaning against the drugstore on Douglas on public property because there bottoms on the sidewalk?  Are bums crouched in the doorways of open businesses on public or private property?

[Mike K.]

In the doorway it’s private if it’s an alcove. On the sidewalk it’s public (most of the time).

Still, police would routinely cruise downtown streets early in the AM once upon a time and wake people sleeping in those private alcoves. They did this so the business owner wouldn’t be faced with a potentially angry individual, and eventually require police to attend.

[Mike K.]

My point is though that people don’t loiter at Uptown because that’s not tolerated. They loiter on Douglas at View because it’s tolerated.

[JimV]

I must say that, despite their problems with the street environment, some business owners don’t make an effort to do anything.  One Saturday a few months ago we were walking down Government.  There was a tent pitched on the wide sidewalk just across the street from Rogers.  This was about 10:00am.  When we walked back, around 1:00 pm, it was still there.  I took a picture and sent it to bylaw with a complaint.  About 20 minutes later I got an email from bylaw saying they had attended and the tent was removed.

 

That tent must have been visible to at least a dozen businesses in the area.  Yet apparently none of them could be bothered to send in a report.  Pretty pathetic.