25925 replies to this topic

[Nparker]

Has Ms Grimes invited any homeless to live with her in Fairfield?

[Victoria Watcher]

We need to help some of these people find a sense of purpose. At least the ones camped out downtown. And I don’t mean setting them up as paid “peer support” or otherwise.

[dasmo]

What is a bigger problem is work from home when you have 2 roommates and a 1 bedroom apartment.

[dasmo]

Or work from home when you have an brutal home life

[Victoria Watcher]

Very, very few “at risk of homelessness” people have suitable skills for most work-at-home positions.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 05 January 2023 - 09:18 AM.

[dasmo]

Like the home part….

[dasmo]

One of the most vicious workers I ever hired was a homeless guy. Saw him working at another work site. Got his number. He slept at one of the builders work sites as security. He was an interesting fellow. A bit of a cage with golden bars kinda guy. But man…he helped clean like a mega boss.

Edited by dasmo, 05 January 2023 - 09:39 AM.

[dasmo]

Very, very few “at risk of homelessness” people have suitable skills for most work-at-home positions.

During my first real tech job I lived with a roommate who was a cook. Worked nights. He loved listening to death metal loud. Working from home would have been brutal.

[Victoria Watcher]

Seattle Credit Union to shut down locations over crime, cratering foot traffic

'I think the city in the last few years has kind of let the people down,' one Seattle resident said


https://www.foxbusin...t-traffic-crime

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 05 January 2023 - 10:01 AM.

[LJ]

I think we make it too easy to be homeless, we provide them with everything they need and they provide nothing. Making them work for their housing and food by helping cook/prepare/serve meals and janitorial service to the building would start at least some of them on the road to getting back into society. 

Also, some rules, first one I would put in place - you damage your room or any other part of the building - you are out, permanently.

[Victoria Watcher]

At the end of his day, Lucas Philips drives to his home overlooking Spanish Banks Beach in Vancouver, near some of the most expensive real estate in Canada.

 

He climbs out of his black Tesla and soaks up what he calls his "million-dollar view."

 

But Philips is no wealthy property owner. His home is a Vanguard campervan berthed in a beachside parking lot.

 

 

He spends most of his life on wheels, working as an Uber driver in his leased Tesla. He's trying to get ahead, and lives in his "sweet motor home" while taking online courses in the hope of getting a job in computer science.

 

Philips, who immigrated from Turkey five years ago, thinks himself lucky to share the view with mansion owners without draining his savings.

 

He's a member of a community of Vancouverites living in vans, trailers and other recreational vehicles parked across the city. 

 

Some, like Philips, use it as an economic strategy to cut costs as they plot a course to prosperity.

 

Others have opted for a nomadic lifestyle, and plan to move on.

 

But more people are sleeping in vehicles as a last resort, as they try to stave off full-blown homelessness in the notoriously expensive city.

 

Philips said in an interview in November that he used to pay monthly rent of $1,600 for a one-bedroom suite in North Vancouver. When his rent went up to $2,300, he decided it didn't make sense.

 

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...mmunity-6335778

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 January 2023 - 05:17 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

At the same time, BC’s minimum wage ($15.65 per hour) is far below the current cost of living in Greater Victoria. The hourly wage required for a family of four to subsist in the city is now $24.29—more expensive than Vancouver—driven by rising food prices on Vancouver Island.




“The homeless” are extremely rarely families of four.

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




In fact they are overwhelmingly single with no dependants.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 January 2023 - 06:26 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Historical data backs up the observation that a percentage of unhoused people in Victoria have always been from out of town. The 2020 PiT count found that 12% of homeless people had been in Greater Victoria for less than a year, while 64% had lived in Victoria for five or more years.



So 36% had moved here in the last 5 years. That’s extreme in-migration.

[spanky123]

^ I love how the CD attempts to contradict VicPD's assertion that "hundreds of homeless" have recently moved here from the lower mainland by using data from a survey conducted 3 years ago! In addition, I note that UVIC and our local poverty pimps declined to conduct a homeless count last year even though it would have been funded by the Feds.

 

Eby has said that he plans to clean up the downtown eastside. What he didn't say was the plan was to move them to Victoria so he could claim a win.

Edited by spanky123, 06 January 2023 - 09:13 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

So many white knight / saviour syndrome people involved in the poverty pimp industry. Mostly women. Helping a population that’s disproportionately men.

I wonder why that is.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 January 2023 - 08:42 AM.

[aastra]

I hate to sound unsympathetic but I can imagine thousands of missed breakfasts and plenty of missed showers because I was running to catch a bus very early in the morning.

[Victoria Watcher]

“We’re bursting at the seams here, we’re bursting at the seams at our old facility. Everyone involved with working with the homeless is bursting at the seams. There’s not enough capacity in our community. So what we need is more operators, not less,” said Myron Jespersen, board chair of the Port Alberni Shelter Society.

But according to shelter resident Richard Eubank, widespread drug use at the shelter could be behind the decision.

“It’s getting way too out of control. There’s way too lax and things like that, and it definitely needs to get straightened out that way. Stricter rules with BC Housing,” said Eubank.


https://www.cheknews...ntract-1131303/



Absent drugs, we probably don’t have a homeless problem.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 10 January 2023 - 03:51 AM.

[dasmo]

Interesting that this is happening everywhere at the same time as everywhere implements think tank policies… San Fran:

“ But this “harm reduction” approach is obviously failing. Cities already do a good job taking care of temporarily homeless people not addicted to drugs. Drug dealers stab and sometimes murder addicts who don’t pay. Women forced into prostitution to support their addictions are raped. Addicts are dying from overdose and poisoning. The addicts living in the open drug scenes commit many crimes including open drug use, sleeping on sidewalks, and defecating in public. Many steal to maintain their habits. The hands-off approach has meant that addicts do not spend any amount of time in jail or hospital where they can be off of drugs, and seek recovery.

Now, even a growing number of people who have worked or still work within the homeless services sector are speaking out.”

https://michaelshell...s-insider-tells

Edited by dasmo, 11 January 2023 - 01:52 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

The underlying problem with Housing First is that it enables addiction. “The National Academies of Sciences review [which showed that giving people apartments did not improve health or other life outcomes] you cited shows that. San Francisco has more permanent supportive housing units per capita than any other city, and we doubled spending on homelessness, but the homeless population rose 13%, even as it went down in the US. And so we doubled our spending and the problem got worse. But if you say that, you get attacked.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the claims made by defenders of the open drug scenes is that people who live in them are mostly locals who were priced out of their homes and apartments and decided to pitch a tent on the street. In San Fransicko, I cite a significant body of evidence to show that this is false, and that many people come to San Francisco from around the U.S. for the city’s unusually high cash welfare benefits, free housing, and tolerance of open drug scenes.

The insider agreed. “People come here because they think they can. It’s bullshit that ‘Only 30 percent [of homeless] are from out of town.’ At least 20,000 homeless people come through town every year. Talk to the people on the street. There’s no way 70 percent of the homeless are from here. I would guess it’s fewer than 50 percent. Ask them the name of their high school and they guess, ‘Washington? The one around the corner?’ But you can’t even talk about that without being called a fascist.” 

 

________________

 

The people living on the street suffer from serious addiction, this person said. “During the first point in time count [census of homeless population] in 2007, one-third had a disability, mental illness, or addiction, while last time, it was over two-thirds. The population fundamentally changed, whether from the drugs, or the time on the street.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 11 January 2023 - 01:24 PM.

[Nparker]

Victoria: The San Francisco of the North.