25980 replies to this topic

[Love the rock]

No. No. No. There is simply too much entitlement here.





Homeless people on the mid-Island say they’re being left out in the cold, literally, because Oceanside communities don’t have a dedicated place to stay warm.

Helen Hiltunen is relying on people for a warm place to sleep at night but during the day, she’s often cold. She lives in the Oceanside area, encompassing Parksville and Qualicum Beach, which has no cold weather shelters or warming centres.

“It sucks. It sucks big time. I’m cold all the time and now I have pneumonia,” said Hiltunen, who was released from the hospital last week but still requires medication for her pneumonia.

https://www.cheknews...e-to-keep-warm-

I wonder if the cigarette she was smoking with her buddies after doing the interview helped her pneumonia. 

Probably using it to warm up her lungs ,that must be it .

[mbjj]

My husband's aunt (now passed away) lived in Qualicum for a few years in a senior's complex. She was hardly wealthy! We visited her once. It was a tiny place, maybe a bachelor suite?

 

Yes, we noticed the cigarette too! 

 

The Cowichan District hospital was built with a lot of publicly-raised funds back in the 1960s. I have photos of my brother and his friend, I think they were riding their bikes in a parade and they were collecting funds. Lots of service clubs (my parents were in the Kiwanis Club) did a heck of a lot of fund-raising for it. I remember when it first opened it was a huge event and we went for a tour. 

Edited by mbjj, 08 December 2022 - 04:10 PM.

[Mike K.]

Port Alberni, $850,000 in annual funding for the facility, or $28,333 per unit. 3665 4th sold in 21, but BC Assessment won’t divulge the details. The other two parcels are not identified as having sold, but 3665 is identified as having sold with other properties, and to contact BCA via email for more information. First I’ve seen something like this.

More:

Construction has started on Port Alberni’s first tiny-shelter village, which will provide 30 homes for people experiencing homelessness in the community.

“We recognize the urgent need for safe and secure homes for vulnerable people in Port Alberni, especially for Indigenous people, who are heavily over-represented among British Columbians experiencing homelessness,” said Josie Osborne, MLA for Mid Island-Pacific Rim. “The creation of this new tiny-shelter village will help move people off the street or from unsafe living conditions into safe homes with supports so they can better begin to stabilize their lives. I thank the Port Alberni community, and each and every one of our partners for putting this project together so quickly. This initiative simply could not have been done without them.”

Located at 3665, 3675 and 3689 4th Ave., the Walyaqil Tiny Shelter Village will have 30 temporary modular housing pods, amenity space, washrooms, an office, bicycle parking and two outdoor gathering areas.

The Port Alberni Friendship Centre (PAFC) will operate the village and will have staff on site 24 hours a day, seven days a week to provide support services, including health and wellness supports, life-skills training and culturally appropriate services for Indigenous Peoples. Residents will also be provided as many as three meals a day.

“It is with great anticipation and a growing excitement that the Friendship Centre is moving forward with Walyaqil, our tiny shelter village,” said Cyndi Stevens, executive director, PAFC. “The community is embracing Walyaqil with open arms and we are eternally grateful to be one step closer to providing a safe place for those most in need that they can call home.”

The Province, through BC Housing, is providing approximately $726,000 for the project, including $75,000 in start-up costs, and will also provide approximately $850,000 in annual operating funding.

“We’re working to ensure people everywhere in the province have housing options no matter where they live,” said Ravi Kahlon, Minister of Housing. “This new village is another example of how our government is exploring new and creative ways to bring vulnerable people indoors, where they can access the supports they need to stabilize their lives. We will continue to work with partners in Port Alberni to ensure people have a good place to call home.”

The City of Port Alberni provided the land for the project, as well as ongoing municipal utility operating expenses and a $165,000 grant. The PAFC is contributing $226,000, while the Nuu-chah-nulth Employment and Training Program is supporting the setup of utilities at the site.

“We feel extremely fortunate to see this critical project that addresses substandard and unsafe housing in our community moving forward,” said Sharie Minions, mayor, Port Alberni. “Though the city was pleased to be able to contribute to this project through the provision of city-owned land and capital funding, we recognize that we would not have been successful without the partners who are on the Supportive Housing Task Force and have championed this project, and BC Housing who provided operating funding. I want to thank each of these groups for their dedication to providing safe, accessible and culturally appropriate housing in our community.”

Construction on the Walyaqil Tiny Shelter Village is expected to be completed in early 2023.

The project is part of B.C.’s 10-year, $7-billion housing plan. Since 2017, the Province has funded more than 36,000 affordable new homes that are complete or are underway, including more than 360 homes in Port Alberni.

[Sparky]

I wonder what Eby and Kim are going to announce today. When they crack down on tents on the sidewalks of East Hastings, we should prepare for some new vulnerable peeps on Pandora.

[IPH]

$850K per year for 30 tiny homes is $2,361/month for each unit.  How can the operating costs be so high?  These are shipping containers with a bunk in them and the land was donated by the city!  $2,361 is more than the average rent for a new one bedroom apartment in downtown Victoria where the landlord had to pay for the land, construction costs, financing, operating costs and also needs to make a reasonable profit on his investment.   

The bulk of the operating costs for these tiny village units is obviously going to all the poverty pimps bleeding the tax system dry, Woops! I mean all the wonderful selfless souls working tirelessly for the betterment of their fellow citizens!

[Victoria Watcher]

“Wraparound supports” and security. That’s where the money is going.

[Nparker]

And 90% of that is security.

[IPH]

Tomato, Tomoto!  Wraparound supports is just another phrase for pouring money into so called non profits that have executive directors and management staff that all earn 6 figure salary's and fractions of the money actually go to the intended purpose. 

[IPH]

how many security guards can they possibly have?  most of those guys make less than $30/hr.   

[Barrrister]

IPH  You are wrong, the intended purpose is to provide jobs for the friends of the party for pople that are often otherwise unemployable. But you can depend on them to come out for elections.  Its jobs for the boys and girls. 

[IPH]

Yes, Selfless Souls!

[Victoria Watcher]

how many security guards can they possibly have? most of those guys make less than $30/hr.

I suspect that at all times 24/7/365 there are at least 2 security people on. Then 2 or 3 social workers during daytime hours.

A year has 8,760 hours. So two people around the clock will eat up about $450,000 of that $850,000.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 14 December 2022 - 06:04 PM.

[IPH]

With the remainder going?  My point is that BC Housing provides the funding but they don't hire the security guards and social workers directly or run the place.  They give the money to a non-profit but the employees that work for the non-profit are not volunteers, Many of them make 6 figures and that pay comes from the facility's operating funds.  

[Victoria Watcher]

I’m guessing the service provider submits a budget.

Burdened wages plus some percentage for management.

So $100,000 might go to management and $300,000 to the full time dayside employees.

There might be food and supplies and utilities and repairs /maintenance/cleaning/insurance in that operating figure.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 14 December 2022 - 06:25 PM.

[Nparker]

If you can't make money off of poverty you're not trying hard enough.

[Love the rock]

If you can't make money off of poverty you're not trying hard enough.

I read somewhere that rang true in many circumstances.

“These days it’s fashionable to be a victim.”

[Victoria Watcher]

A day after Premier David Eby announced construction of 90 modular units to help address the housing crisis in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, critics said they worry such projects have become the de facto housing solution, as permanent developments await funding.

 

Municipal politicians in Nanaimo and Maple Ridge say modular housing in their communities did not have the promised wraparound supports, which led to a spike in crime and social disorder to the surrounding neighbourhoods.

 

And one UBC researcher worries modular homes could do more harm than good, putting people in an uncertain environment and worsening health outcomes.

 

Danya Fast, a research scientist at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, said while she supports creating more housing for people as quickly as possible, modular housing complexes can “actually deepen a sense of uncertainty in young people’s lives, especially when they’re temporary.”

 

“Yes, housing should come first,” she said. “But there is this crucial question of what’s next for these young people in this temporary modular housing?”

 

 

https://www.timescol...problem-6263320

 

 

“But there is this crucial question of what’s next for these young people in this temporary modular housing?”

 

 

 

What's next has to be life, jobs, etc.  But I'm not sure that if you put people into slums, full of people not working, doing drugs, and many with mental health issues, it's a path to living a normal life.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 December 2022 - 03:02 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Krog said two modular housing projects developed by B.C. Housing in 2019 to house 76 people living in a tent city in downtown Nanaimo were supposed to be temporary but are still operating three years later.

 

“There certainly were significant problems at both sites, including chop shops, drug dealing, incredible vandalism in the community and in the nearby neighbourhoods and that continued for quite a while,” Krog said. Chop shops are operations where stolen vehicles or bicycles are dismantled and re-assembled.

 

 

 

 

There has to be more RULES.

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

[Victoria Watcher]

“We’ve had fires, we’ve had fights, we’ve had deaths occur within these facilities,” said Yousef. “If anybody saw the conditions in some of these modular homes — I wouldn’t want any of my loved ones living there, quite frankly.”

 

Yousef said the community was promised wraparound services and that people would have a pathway to permanent housing. “That’s been absent for the most part,” he said.

 

 

There has to be more RULES.  Most of us that have lived with roommates, or lived in multi-family housing (apartments and condos) know that there must be rules.

 

 

I think there has to be some type of hierarchy in social housing.   There can be some low-barrier, and those will be the hell described in the quote here, but there should also be other levels, for more stable individuals. 

 

Quite frankly, a high percentage of the "hard to house" should never ne given a self-contained unit, they should be sleeping on cots and under 24/7 supervision.  When they have shown they can be trusted and responsible, they can get an independent unit.  Not until then.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 December 2022 - 03:07 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

According to Modeste, there were around 20 tents along Pandora Avenue alone, full of people struggling to stay warm on the night of Nov. 7.

“They battled all night to keep their tarps on,” she said at the time. “I heard people wailing and crying because they were just so done. The wind was so brutal, nobody could stay warm.”

 

 

The situation prompted city council to put EWR on their agenda right away and sort out who organizes and who funds extra indoor spaces during inclement weather. They expect that the EWR will need to be activated 10 to 15 nights this year, to be funded by BC Housing through a new agreement.

 

BC Housing will now pay for overnight warming centres for 12 hours at a stretch—including staffing, volunteer appreciation, cleaning, food, bus tickets, laundry, and first aid supplies—while the city is responsible for any capital or start-up costs (like supplying cots, mats, and blankets), as well as insurance, administration and rental or lease fees.

 

Unlike last time, the emergency measures were activated on Thursday morning, days before snow was expected to fall. The GVCEH noted on their website that they did so because of “forecast temperatures of lows of zero degrees overnight.”

 

 

https://www.capitald...eather-shelters

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 17 December 2022 - 06:40 AM.