27927 replies to this topic

[Sparky]

^ That’s the same staff that presented the “doctored” discoloured photos of Centennial Square on the COV website.

[Mike K.]

Yes. Who do we believe green lighted road dieting of Victoria’s thoroughfares, turning them into a right mess?

Poor quality of life was attributed in that survey to transportation, too. Up from 10% to 17% over the span of a year.

[Victoria Watcher]

Comment: Victoria is the weird kid we try to avoid

Like that kid in the neighbourhood who insists on being “different” in all the wrong ways, Victoria wonders why nobody wants to hang out anymore

https://www.timescol...-avoid-11442039

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 November 2025 - 03:17 AM.

[Beacon]

It’s not empathy; it’s negligence disguised as progress.

And the rest of the region has noticed.

Rather than acknowledging its own missteps, Victoria’s leadership has turned to blaming neighbouring communities for failing to “share the burden,” as if the region’s reluctance to adopt the same failed approach were the problem.

Just like that weird kid in the neighbourhood, Victoria keeps wondering why nobody wants to hang out anymore.

 

 

So true

[Victoria Watcher]

‘I am desperate’: North Cowichan street is home to addiction and housing crisis

https://cheknews.ca/...crisis-1288145/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 November 2025 - 07:26 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

‘I am desperate’: North Cowichan street is home to addiction and housing crisis

https://cheknews.ca/...crisis-1288145/

 

 

North Cowichan orders Lewis Street property owner to clean up vacant lot

 

Read more at: https://cowichanvall...-up-vacant-lot/

 

 

 

Well, if you watch the CHEK video above you will see the situation is all up and down the public street not just the vacant lot.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 07 November 2025 - 01:24 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Additional Extreme Weather Response (EWR) shelter spaces will be available in the District of Saanich this winter to support unhoused residents.

Broadview United Church (3703 St. Aidan’s Street), in partnership with Our Place Society, was recently approved to provide an EWR shelter at its facility. This initiative is supported by the District and funded through BC Housing’s EWR Program.

“By providing a safe, warm and comfortable space during the toughest nights of the year, these new EWR shelter spaces will make an incredible difference to people in need,” says District of Saanich Mayor Dean Murdock.

The EWR program is a weather driven program and EWR sites open nightly only when and Extreme Weather Alert has been issued.

On top of the 20 new EWR shelter spaces being provided by Broadview and operated by Our Place Society, the Victoria Native Friendship Centre recently added 25 additional temporary winter shelter spaces.


https://islandsocial...ces-in-saanich/



Public warming centres in Saanich:

The public is welcome to warm-up at any of the District’s recreation centres and municipal hall during operational hours.

Recreation centre locations:

Saanich Commonwealth Place (4636 Elk Lake Drive)
Gordon Head Recreation Centre (4100 Lambrick Way)
Cedar Hill Recreation and Arts Centre (3220 Cedar Hill Road)
G. R. Pearkes Recreation Centre (3100 Tillicum Road)

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 07 November 2025 - 03:47 AM.

[lanforod]

So was it open the last two nights? We had a warning, no? I dunno if it was in that extreme category.

[FawltyVic]

‘I am desperate’: North Cowichan street is home to addiction and housing crisis

https://cheknews.ca/...crisis-1288145/

I was in Cowichan this past week. What a difference there was between now and 10 years ago.

 

My first stop was in Cowichan Bay. I went to the water's edge to take in the view only to find a guy wedged into the rocks below with a crack pipe still clutched in his right hand. I thought he was dead or soon would be (if he remained passed out in the cold). Fortunately, I managed to wake him.

[Mike K.]

The Globe has published a follow-up to its Pandora article:

https://www.theglobe...e-homelessness/

[Mike K.]

City spokesperson Colleen Mycroft declined to make either Ms. Alto or Ms. Wilson available for an interview. It is “too early” for these conversations, she said.

What hasn’t changed is the city’s “housing first” approach, which offers people unconditional housing without requiring them to address substance or mental health issues.

This is where critics believe Mayor Alto’s efforts will fall down.

“We have a generation of people who are now permanently brain-injured from repeated fentanyl overdoses. These are not repairable injuries,” Mr. Bray says. “This is not like a stroke. You can’t fix it. They don’t need a crappy hotel room.”

[Victoria Watcher]

Classic:


A condo on Pandora Avenue gives Linda Hughes a bird’s-eye view of the Victoria street, where homelessness and fentanyl have turned it into one of the largest open-air drug markets in Western Canada.

______

Firefighters at The Harbour, a supervised consumption site, learned they had arrived for a false alarm. Overdose-related calls have been steadily rising on Pandora over the past decade: Fentanyl, which this man is smoking from a pipe, is a major factor in that.

______

On a recent visit to Pandora, The Globe encountered people lying prostrate on the sidewalk, soaked by the driving rain. Others sat slumped against walls or stood bent in half, heads lolling, necks twisting, seemingly in and out of consciousness. Someone appeared to be screaming through the throes of psychosis. But to the people who know the Block best, this is progress.


_____

Fiona Wilson, the new chief of the Victoria Police Department, responded to the motion by requesting funding for an additional 16 officers, noting the city’s disproportionate problem with homelessness and street disorder.

Mayor Alto has said she is leaning toward supporting the request.

City spokesperson Colleen Mycroft declined to make either Ms. Alto or Ms. Wilson available for an interview. It is “too early” for these conversations, she said.






What a ****ing clown show of losers. All of them.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 09 November 2025 - 11:24 AM.

[Mike K.]

Still, in the past few weeks, the situation along Pandora has been slowly improving, says Linda Hughes, who lives in a condo overlooking the Block: it’s “inconsistent, gradual, but noticeable.”

“Our fingers are crossed. We just hope that what looks like a light at the end of the tunnel isn’t actually a returning freight train.”

[Mike K.]

Less than a year out from the next civic election, Marianne Alto seems to be staking her mayoralty on the fate of the Block, as the stretch of Pandora is widely known. She has promised her compassion-weary electorate they will see “significant changes” to the street by December. A high-profile failure there could doom her re-election bid before it truly begins.

[mbjj]

I was in Cowichan this past week. What a difference there was between now and 10 years ago.

 

My first stop was in Cowichan Bay. I went to the water's edge to take in the view only to find a guy wedged into the rocks below with a crack pipe still clutched in his right hand. I thought he was dead or soon would be (if he remained passed out in the cold). Fortunately, I managed to wake him.

I grew up there in the 1960s. What I see on the news is unreal. That area where the homeless shelter is, I went to all three schools in that area. We used to roam all over on our own, even trick or treating nearby. My best friend's dad, who is in his nineties, still lives not far away. My dad was born in Duncan in 1920. Probably rolling in his grave. That's bonkers about Cowichan Bay, yikes. The most "homeless" guy we knew back then was Old Tony who used to shuffle around town with a burlap sack collecting beer bottles and even he had a ramshackle house. He was harmless of course. A sad state of affairs in little Duncan. 

[aastra]

 

She has promised her compassion-weary electorate they will see “significant changes” to the street by December. A high-profile failure there could doom her re-election bid before it truly begins.

 

A high-profile political failure on the homelessness/addiction front would certainly be embarrassing. Although it seems odd that the first-ever occurrence of such failure would happen within the confines of Victoria proper. The rest of the world is quite large by comparison, for those who might not be aware. But then again I suppose the first ever occurrence had to happen somewhere, so why not here?

[Victoria Watcher]

Mayor Cliff McNeil-Smith said at the Sept. 8 meeting that he believed that council and staff could have done a “better process” of consulting with the manor residents and the community at large, while acknowledging that staff had “pretty much exhausted the options” available in Sidney for an EWS. “We recognized from the outset of this initiative that finding a suitable location and a qualified non-governmental organization to operate an overnight shelter would be challenging. Staff explored numerous sites, including churches, community centres, municipal spaces, and potential non-governmental partners, and brought the proposal for an Extreme Weather Response Shelter at Wakefield Manor, operated by Beacon Community Services, forward for consideration. There are no other viable options being pursued at this time,” he said in a statement to PNR. Staff previously addressed that after months of research and consultations, other spaces were eliminated as possibilities for the EWS due to operational challenges or not meeting safety codes.

Read more at: https://vicnews.com/...cold-challenge/






As much as I do not believe in these “warming centres”, it’s quite hard to believe that in all of Sidney, after “months of research and consultations”, no other site can be found. Although I find it entirely plausible that officials have put in place rules and protocols that make a simple task all but impossible. That’s officialdom for you.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 November 2025 - 06:12 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Church challenges Sidney mayor to spend night outdoors after shelter plans nixed

St. Andrew Anglican Church members are planning to camp out at Beacon Avenue and Highway 17 to raise funds for a group that hands out aid to the homeless, and they want Sidney’s mayor and council to join them.





https://www.timescol...-nixed-11492314


No alternative site for the shelter has been proposed for this winter, so anyone in Sidney looking for an emergency weather shelter this year will have to go to either Victoria or Saanich.

St. Andrew Anglican Church on Fourth Street had been considered a potential site but wasn’t selected by town staff.





WHY? Come on reporter, ask somebody this question. Even if you get a lousy answer. It’s what we are all wondering. This church is calling out the Mayor and council, but nobody is saying why they can’t or won’t host the shelter.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 November 2025 - 06:29 AM.

[Sparky]

^ I would think Sidney turned this idea down because Churches require specific land use zoning, and is subject to the uses that are approved in a Church Zone.

[Victoria Watcher]

Well most places get around that with a temporary use permit which is usually good for three years.