27642 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim has unveiled a plan to revitalize the city's Downtown Eastside that would halt the construction of net-new supportive housing units.

 

Sim told a Save Our Streets forum held by a coalition of groups concerned about crime and public safety in B.C. that the proposal is one of three key policy shifts being planned to transform the area once described as Canada's poorest postal code.

 

The mayor says Vancouver has 77 per cent of Metro Vancouver's supportive services, including housing and shelters, yet only about 25 per cent of the population, and pausing construction would allow the city to "focus on renewing and revitalizing the current aging housing stock."

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 January 2025 - 11:27 AM.

[Barrister]

I think the plan is to ship the druggies to Victoria which is happy to house them. 

[Victoria Watcher]

One man was arrested and a shelter was evacuated Tuesday night after a man claimed to have a bomb in his suite, located in the 500 block of Ellice Street in Victoria.   

 

Just before 6 p.m. on Tuesday night, Victoria Police told CHEK News it received a call from a man who said he had an explosive in his room at the Rock Bay Landing Shelter in the 500 block of Ellice Street. 

 

“Officers arrived at the scene and evacuated the building for the safety of the residents. BC Transit was contacted and provided buses for residents to shelter in while officers investigated the threat,” stated VicPD.

 

“Police attended and the man was taken into custody,” said VicPD. 

 

 

https://cheknews.ca/...oothly-1236338/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 January 2025 - 02:28 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

A lawsuit from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) aims to prove that prohibiting people from sheltering in public spaces in Vancouver during the daytime violates sections of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

 

"Shelter is a fundamental human right. It provides people with safety, security, community and is necessary, first of all, for survival," said Vibert Jack, litigation director for the BCCLA.

 

"What the city is doing to the unhoused community here in Vancouver is taking all of that away from them and killing them, frankly, and we want that to stop."

 

On Thursday, the BCCLA, along with three other plaintiffs with lived experience, filed the notice of claim in B.C. Supreme Court.

 

The challenge targets three city bylaws that "make it illegal for unhoused people to shelter outdoors during daytime hours." 

 

 

https://www.cbc.ca/n...ering-1.7446580

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 January 2025 - 09:27 PM.

[Beacon]

I  wager that if institutionalization becomes mandatory for the unhousable, all of sudden they will be magically able to pick and move each day.

[Victoria Watcher]

The City of Victoria is heading into the ninth consecutive night of opening up emergency warming centres as freezing temperatures continue.

 

It’s an unprecedented stretch for the city, which says its resources are stretched to the maximum.

 

“We are at the breaking point and we need more staffing resources. We need the province to step up and do more,” said Victoria Fire Chief Dan Atkinson.

 

To trigger the city’s warming centres to open, all shelters in Victoria have to be full.

 

“There’s no capacity,” said Atkinson.

 

The fire chief says each night they’ve been open, the city’s warming centres have also been full, meaning people are still having to tent in -11°C weather with windchill.

 

[...]

 

The city employs auxiliary workers to staff the warming centres. On the fourth day, the city began having issues staffing the centres.

 

It asked the province for help, but that was denied.

 

“EMCR (Ministry of Emergency Management Climate Readiness) notified us that they didn’t have staffing pool available, they said that the bulk of their staffing pool is with respect to the wildfire service, and that it was the offseason, they didn’t have the resources,” said Atkinson.

 

The city applied a second time for additional personnel. Again they were denied.

 

 

 

 

https://cheknews.ca/...d-snap-1238577/

 

 

 

 

 

The city has 1,000 staff and they could also call on volunteers.  Fail.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 12 February 2025 - 10:07 AM.

[Mike P.]

The city has 1,000 staff and they could also call on volunteers.  Fail.

 

 

This city also seem to think winter is a once in a century event. News flash: It comes every year. They should be better prepared. #doublefail

[Victoria Watcher]

Victoria warming centre closes overnight for lack of staff after extended cold snap

 

After operating for 10 nights during a prolonged cold snap, the warming centre was closed Thursday and Friday nights

 

 

 

 

 

 

After operating a warming centre for 10 nights during a prolonged cold snap, the City of Victoria was unable to open the space Thursday night due to a lack of staff, despite appeals to the province for help.

 

The space in the Cook Street Village Activity Centre, with capacity for around 30 people, was set to remain closed Friday overnight as well, leaving people out in the cold, said Victoria Fire Chief Dan Atkinson.

 

The warming centre has been over-capacity some nights and requires a minimum of three people to operate it, but the city only has a staffing pool of four to six people, and they had to make the difficult choice to give staff a necessary break, Atkinson said.

 

The work involves supporting people with addiction and complex mental and physical health challenges and is emotionally taxing, he said.

 

The city made two requests, on Feb. 6 and Feb. 10, to the province for staff support to keep open the centre, which provides space out of the cold but no shelter mats. Both requests were denied.

 

In a letter to Kelly Greene, minister of emergency management and climate readiness, Mayor Marianne Alto said she is “perplexed by these rejections.”

 

Alto said it’s routine for the province to ask other municipalities to send staff to support cities in an emergency situation, referencing in her letter a ministry policy for deploying emergency management staff from one jurisdiction to an emergency management operations centre in another.

 

 

https://www.timescol...d-snap-10240234

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 February 2025 - 04:25 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

https://x.com/Vancit...638221001826797

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I guess also in Victoria, when you ask your 1,000 staff members and 9-person council if just three of them can please work overnight in a warming centre, they all say "no".

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 February 2025 - 08:03 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Earlier this month, the City of Victoria faced a significant test of its emergency response capabilities when a prolonged cold snap brought temperatures in the region to sub-zero levels for 12 consecutive days.

The extended period of frigid weather pushed the city's shelter system and its staffing resources beyond their limits and forced the closure of its designated emergency operating centre on Cook Street. It also left city officials reviewing response tactics to extreme weather events and how they define emergencies as they relate to the city’s unhoused residents.

“There can be no more clear emergency than below-zero weather for extended periods of time that threaten the lives of persons without shelter,” said Victoria’s mayor, Marianne Alto, in a detailed letter sent last week to Kelly Greene, the provincial emergency management minister.

The missive was written following what the mayor said were repeated requests for staffing help to meet the emergency. The requests were denied.



https://www.capitald...ather-emergency




That’s comedy gold. “Significant test” was trying to find just 3 people to work overnight. And they failed the test. Lame.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 21 February 2025 - 06:10 AM.

[Beacon]

Weren't they (City of Victoria Council) recently trying to shame other municipalities to open up shelters saying they had the funding all they had to do was open the shelters and ask for funding?

 

What happened?  was it a lie?

[Victoria Watcher]

They have 1000+ staff. 9 councillors. NONE of them would work?

This City sucks.

[dasmo]

it's not their job to work. Work is for contractors. 

[Victoria Watcher]

3 people. And the Mayor calls it a crisis.

These people could barely man a popsicle stand.

[dasmo]

You mean misting station?

[Matt R.]

He means bike valet.

[Mike K.]

Not parking ambassadors? They just may be the most efficient and responsive

[Love the rock]

Do you mean Alto’s friend and mentor David Eby turned her down . Wow I wonder what he’s thinking about.

[Victoria Watcher]

A war museum in Courtenay dedicated to 59 men who died during the Second World War says it’s being forced to move because of problems with the area’s homelessness.

 

“The audience is just not coming because of the situation from next door,” said Lewis Bartholomew, founder and executive director of the HMCS Alberni Museum and Memorial.

 

“We have received phone calls, we have received letters or met people on the street, they don’t want to come down to see the museum.”

 

The museum on Cliffe Avenue at 6th Street is right next to the Connect Warming Centre for the unhoused, in a building leased from the city.

 

The museum says visitors and donations have decreased dramatically because people are intimidated by the unhoused population that hangs out on the sidewalk and in the shared parking lot.

 

“We’ve actually had people die in our hallways right in front of our museum, we’ve had people defecating on our front door step,” Bartholomew added.

 

https://cheknews.ca/...o-move-1241906/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 05 March 2025 - 03:43 AM.

[Mike K.]

Oh yeah, it’s real bad there. Like a mini Our Place situation and a mini Pandora. It’s hard to imagine what is happening there can be good for business.