27484 replies to this topic

[LJ]

Ya but they can’t be brand new apartments with 2 daily meals at $500/mo.! That’s what some/many are getting here.

Exactly, cots in a dorm room with rules and regulations, break the rules - no more welfare payments.

[Victoria Watcher]

Denver paid nearly $150 million between January 2022 and March 2024 for non-migrant shelter-related expenses that a city department has not been tracking, a recent audit report found.

 

Denver’s Department of Housing Stability has been unable to provide a comprehensive breakdown of an estimated $149.6 million in taxpayer funds spent in the two-year time frame, according to a 51-page audit published Thursday by the Denver Auditor’s Office.

 

“Although we asked Housing Stability multiple times for documentation identifying all shelter-related expenses from Jan. 1, 2022, through March 31, 2024, the department was unable to provide this information,” the report states.

 

The expenses were paid through 1,599 invoices. Of the 40 invoices that Denver auditor Timothy O’Brien reviewed, 55 percent were submitted late for expenses and 30 percent were submitted past the deadline for reimbursement requests.

 

“Housing Stability’s poor organization is negatively affecting operations at Denver’s shelters,” O’Brien said in a statement, according to local news outlets. “These issues need to be addressed because vulnerable populations are at risk.”

 

https://www.national...-audit-reveals/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 27 November 2024 - 06:05 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

A shopping mall and office complex in downtown Montreal is being criticized for using the popular children's song Baby Shark to discourage unhoused people from loitering in its emergency exit stairwells.

 

At the mall Thursday morning, the catchy children's song — versions of which have been viewed and streamed hundreds of millions of times online — was playing from speakers in at least one of the mall's stairwells, on a loop and at various speeds.

 

Complexe Desjardins, named after financial services company Desjardins, which owns the mall and the three office towers that sit above it, has been playing the music for one year in the stairwells to respond to "security issues" involving people experiencing homelessness, spokesperson Jean-Benoit Turcotti said Thursday.

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...shark-1.7396051

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 28 November 2024 - 11:15 PM.

[Matt R.]

That is cruel.

[Victoria Watcher]

‘We’re going to act’: Central Saanich to stand up warming centres when needed

 

https://cheknews.ca/...needed-1226527/

[Barrister]

So after spending tens of millions how many drug addicts are now clean and sober for a year, two years, five years due to our programs? Basically how successful have the programs that we have spent tens of million on actually been. What are the numbers?

[LJ]

2

[Victoria Watcher]

One man is dead and a suspect remains at large following a Saturday afternoon shooting in Kitchener.

At around 3:55 p.m., Waterloo Regional Police received a report of a shooting at 49 Ardelt Ave., the home of A Better Tent City, which provides tiny homes to those experiencing chronic homelessness.


https://kitchener.ct...-city-1.7129419

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 December 2024 - 11:28 AM.

[Sparky]

Don’t forget to pay your dealer kids.

[Victoria Watcher]

 

https://x.com/Charle...282326362309097

[Victoria Watcher]

A small group of people set up tents outside Victoria City Hall on Sunday in protest of city bylaws that regulate where people are allowed to shelter overnight in the municipality.

 

For close to a week, encampment organizer Martin Girard had been advertising plans for an encampment at the Victoria courthouse grounds in protest of city bylaws that restrict overnight sheltering in city parks.

 

On Sunday afternoon, it did not appear that he had the people or the equipment needed for a camp at the courthouse, where there were newly erected fencing and signage informing visitors that overnight sheltering was not allowed.

 

About 60 people showed up to the 2 p.m. pre-encampment rally at Centennial Square but few brought camping gear.

 

Only one person raised a hand when Girard asked the crowd who was ready to stay the night.

 

That number rose to five willing campers when Girard took another poll of the crowd 90 minutes later and announced that he was changing the encampment location to the grassy area next to Victoria City Hall.

 

Half a dozen police officers who were on scene for the anticipated march left when it became clear that no one was headed to the courthouse.

 

By 6 p.m., four tents were set up near the fenced-off sequoia tree in Centennial Square.

 

Close to a dozen people were in and out of the tents, chatting and resting. Music played from a nearby speaker and the glow from the Lights of Wonder installation reflected onto tent tarps.

 

Girard said about 10 people were prepared to stay the night.

 

Two officers on bikes came by after the initial group of officers left about 4:30 p.m., but there had been no bylaw officer presence so far, he said.

 

“When they do come, well, we’ll have to challenge them,” he said.

 

City of Victoria spokesperson Colleen Mycroft confirmed to the Times Colonist in a statement that city staff would be attending to anyone sheltering in Centennial Square “first thing in the morning.”

 

Asked whether the encampment would be taken down, Mycroft said sheltering is not permitted in Centennial Square.

 

 

https://www.timescol...-bylaws-9890881

[Victoria Watcher]

UPDATE: Tents set up outside Victoria City Hall on Sunday in protest of city bylaws regulating camping in parks had been dismantled by Monday morning. 

 

At 9 a.m., three people with their packed belongings were sitting near the former campsite. 

 

Encampment organizer Martin Girard said in a statement Monday morning that there were no plans to return to the site on Monday night. “We’ll start over with a fresh plan instead,” he said. 

 

 

https://www.timescol...-bylaws-9890881

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 02 December 2024 - 01:24 PM.

[LJ]

Encampment organizer Martin Girard said in a statement Monday morning that there were no plans to return to the site on Monday night. “We’ll start over with a fresh plan instead,” he said.

 

Do you think they could possibly come up with a plan like "hey, maybe we get jobs, get paid and provide for ourselves?"

[Victoria Watcher]

Cool Aid's new $50M complex combines supportive housing with rentals

The supportive-housing section will have a separate entrance controlled by an adjacent office. On the rental-housing side, 70 per cent of the units will be subsidized.

 

 

 

 

The $50-million building was built next to the former Tally-Ho hotel with funding from B.C. Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Ministry of Education and Childcare, the City of Victoria’s housing reserve fund, Infrastructure Canada, Fortis BC and Island Health.

 

The hotel, which was purchased by the province for $9.3 million and has been owned and operated as a Cool Aid supportive-housing facility since 2017, is being transferred back to the province as part of the financing conditions.

 

Cool Aid has submitted potential redevelopment plans for the Tally-Ho property but the fate of the site will be up to B.C. Housing. There are currently still 22 people living in the Tally-Ho.

 

Out of the 100 rental-housing units planned at Crosstown, which include everything from studios to three-bedrooms, 20 are being rented out at the shelter rate of $500.

 

Of the remaining 80 units, 30 will be rented at market rates while the rest will be subsidized rentals geared to 30 per cent of a renter’s monthly income.

 

The building’s studio and one-bedroom apartments will rent for $500 to $1,600 a month, according to Cool Aid’s website. Two-bedroom apartments will rent for $1,250 to $2,200, and three-bedroom apartments rent for $1,625 to $3,000 a month, the website said.

 

A short walk from the rental side of Crosstown, entry into the complex’s separate 54-unit supportive housing facility is controlled by an adjacent office.

 

Inside, the hallways are covered in protective siding and the cove joints slope into the walls. There are floor drains in every bathroom for flood protection.

 

Associate director of housing and shelters Angela Moran said the building’s supportive-housing section features “an incredible purpose-built design” tailored to the needs of people experiencing homelessness.

 

“You’ll have all the main amenities, which will be food services, the dining hall, an area outside for people to safely use and consume their substances,” said Moran during a recent media tour, pointing to a second-floor balcony accessible only to residents and staff of the facility.

 

Many of Cool Aid’s supportive-housing facilities have some form of outdoor space for people to use drugs, with drug users increasingly favouring inhalation over injection, she said.

 

In a follow-up statement, Cool Aid spokesperson Tracey Robertson said the organization is still working with partners to decide how to incorporate harm-reduction practices into Crosstown’s supportive-housing site and that no details — location or services provided — have been confirmed so far.

 

Most of those moving into Crosstown will be residents of the nearby Tally-Ho supportive-housing site as well as those on a list of people provided through B.C. Housing, not people “directly from the streets,” Robertson said.

 

Cool Aid is planning for supportive-housing residents to move in by March or April, pending discussions with B.C. Housing, Moran said, adding the organization has a 95 per cent occupancy rate at its supportive-housing sites.

 

 

https://www.timescol...rentals-9894813

 

 

 

 

In a follow-up statement, Cool Aid spokesperson Tracey Robertson said the organization is still working with partners to decide how to incorporate harm-reduction practices into Crosstown’s supportive-housing site and that no details — location or services provided — have been confirmed so far.

 

 

Of course.  

 

“You’ll have all the main amenities, which will be food services, the dining hall, an area outside for people to safely use and consume their substances,”

 

 

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 02 December 2024 - 10:16 PM.

[Barrister]

These people are aware that if the Conservatives win the next election the drugs will be recriminalized. That is assuming that Trudeau does not do that sooner after his chat with Trump.

[Victoria Watcher]

$325,000 per door.

 

Plus ongoing operational costs and subsidies.  Can we spend our way out of homlessness?

[Barrister]

No one is addressing the real issue here which in most cases is addiction (and to a lesser extant mental illness). Most of these poor souls are seriously brain damaged and allowing them to use more drugs just furthers their damage. This has become a enormus political jobs for the boys program.

[Victoria Watcher]

Are you saying that 155 people using drugs living together will not solve the drug problem?   

 

We legalized it, didn't that fix it?  

 

OK, maybe it did not fix it, but it must have freed up police resources for other patrols and safety initiatives, right?  Police and police budgets are not under stress now, right?  

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 03 December 2024 - 06:23 AM.

[Mike K.]

It definitely saved the medical system money, right?

[Victoria Watcher]

I'm sure it did all the things we were promised it would, since I think drug addiction is a thing of the past now.