27613 replies to this topic

[Benezet]

Wasn't the argument it would be cheaper to house everyone since emergency service calls and police incidents would be less, i mean they all just needed a home, right?

I actually heard this argument years ago from a wealthy businessman. He personally felt housing and support should be provided not out of compassion, but out of economic sensibility.

Anyway, here are some numbers for those inclined to look deeper:

https://victoriahome...per21092012.pdf

[Mike K.]

That’s an ancient report, though. Published in 2012.

We were still in the Disneyland-esque phase of believing we could ‘end’ homelessness by pushing people with severe addictions and mental health problems into apartments.

[Matt R.]

Wasn't the argument it would be cheaper to house everyone since emergency service calls and police incidents would be less, i mean they all just needed a home, right?

People are still saying this with a straight face.

[Matt R.]

I actually heard this argument years ago from a wealthy businessman. He personally felt housing and support should be provided not out of compassion, but out of economic sensibility.

Anyway, here are some numbers for those inclined to look deeper:

https://victoriahome...per21092012.pdf

I can wrap my head around how it might possibly be cheaper, but the half measures currently in place end up costing everyone more because we just go around and around without fixing anything, not a single thing. I guess that ageless living pharmacy guy got rich selling methadone and the iron fence companies must be doing ok, so not all bad.

[Nparker]

And the poverty industry has never been wealthier. How many 'compassionate' Executive Directors are pulling down $75K+ annually?

[Beacon]

I can wrap my head around how it might possibly be cheaper, but the half measures currently in place end up costing everyone more because we just go around and around without fixing anything, not a single thing. I guess that ageless living pharmacy guy got rich selling methadone and the iron fence companies must be doing ok, so not all bad.

 

And Purdue found out how to make money on all sides of the equation: Naloxone, Dilaudid and all the other prescriptions

[Victoria Watcher]

And the poverty industry has never been wealthier. How many 'compassionate' Executive Directors are pulling down $75K+ annually?

I’m certain Cool Aid, Our Place, and AVI, PHS, SOLID are closer to $200,000.

[Nparker]

I’m certain Cool Aid, Our Place, and AVI, PHS, SOLID are closer to $200,000.

I was giving the benefit of the doubt, but you're probably right.

[Nparker]

It is not easy to get comparable figures on the expenditures of the local poverty industry, but I was able to glean the following:

• AVI - salaries and benefits = $3,156,998 (March 31, 2020)
• Cool Aid - salaries and benefits $24,584,176 (March 31, 2023)
• Our Place Society - administration $2,144,354 (March 31, 2023)
• Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness - payables & accruals $528,568 (2021)
• Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness (ACEH) Society
  Financial Growth: 
  - 2019 Revenue = $391,194
  - 2020 Revenue = $561,926
  - 2021 Revenue = $2,274,847

 

In 2019, Canada spent $30 billion on an estimated homeless population of 200,000. That is $150,000/person. I get by on less than 1/3 of this amount annually. As a country and community, the results for what we are spending are abysmal.

[Victoria Watcher]

Ya it’s hard to get individual and especially executive salaries with the private contractors.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 19 July 2024 - 05:45 PM.

[Mike P.]

Ya it’s hard to get individual and especially executive salaries with the private contractors.

 

It should all be made public, as public money funds them.

[Victoria Watcher]

Since 2019, California has spent about $24 billion on homelessness, but in this five-year period, homelessness increased by about 30,000, to more than 181,000. Put differently, California spent the equivalent of about $160,000 per person (based on the 2019 figure) over the last five years. With this level of spending, it was reasonable to expect that homelessness would decline substantially. What went wrong?

 

 

https://www.hoover.o...d-what-happened

[Dickens Cider]

UVic says protest campers are trespassing, asks camp to leave after 81 days.

About time!

[Nparker]

Too little, too late.

[Dickens Cider]

I'd have been telling them to leave, that they didn't have a legal, nor moral, leg to stand on, on day 1, not day 81, had l been the relevant authority.

[Dickens Cider]

These protesters sit up there with their iPhones, never considering that actual, occuring this day, slavery is used to mine the cobalt needed for an iPhones battery. No, an imagined genocide is their highest calling. To hell with the lot of them l say from my wing chair in the Club downtown, peevishly puffing on my reliable old friend, my Meerschaum pipe.

[jrm]

It all boils down to the fact that all we do is enable these people.  My husband (deceased) who worked with the homeless and addicted and who himself was an ex addict, said this and he was so right! Until we stop doing this, the problem will always be there and will only get worse.

[Dickens Cider]

100% agree

[Beacon]

It all boils down to the fact that all we do is enable these people.  My husband (deceased) who worked with the homeless and addicted and who himself was an ex addict, said this and he was so right! Until we stop doing this, the problem will always be there and will only get worse.

 

What you permit, you promote

[Sparky]

Happened to be driving down by the Pandora Campground yesterday at noon.

 

Lots of action there. Ambulance, Fire Truck and a half dozen 5-O cruisers with lights flashing.

 

 

Lots of first, second and third responders standing around in one spot.

 

 

Quite the camp set up there if you can overlook the crap.