25957 replies to this topic

[rmpeers]

for some people - not sure the percentage but it's small - the prospect of never working and just letting the state take care for you is very appealing. i suspect that in larger cities that prospect is pretty good.

i'm sure that nobody in winnipeg or regina or toronto goes without indoor shelter each night.

since our city has never signed onto the 211 united way funded real-time system i suspect it's also zero here but have no way of knowing. it's secret.

We can all make an educated guess, but what was Victoria's stated reason for not joining the 211?

[LJ]

They were scared they would have to show positive results and they couldn't do that with facts.

[Victoria Watcher]

A woman related to a police-involved incident in downtown Victoria on Christmas Day has died, according to the Independent Investigations Office of B.C. (IIO).

 

On Christmas night around 6 p.m., the Victoria Police Department was called to the 700-block of Pandora Avenue for report of an armed person causing a disturbance.

 

https://www.vicnews....ntown-victoria/

 

 

 

bring it on.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 31 December 2019 - 04:11 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

We can all make an educated guess, but what was Victoria's stated reason for not joining the 211?

 

no idea.  here is what the 211 website says:

 

The Shelter and Street Help Line – 2-1-1

 

The Shelter and Street Help Line is designed to assist people who are affected by homelessness in the Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley regional districts, as well as in Greater Victoria. We understand that a wide range of circumstances can result in homelessness so we provide information on a variety of programs and services.

 

The Shelter and Street Help Line calls Lower Mainland and Victoria shelters twice per day, and publishes the Shelter List, which details available shelter beds and mats for women, men, youth and families.

The Shelter List is updated twice per day at around 11:30 AM, and around 7:30 PM. Contact us to find available shelter beds and services in the Lower Mainland and Victoria: dial or text 2-1-1.

 

 

http://www.bc211.ca/help-lines/#sshl

 

 

 

but when you go to the list 94 shelters are listed but not a single one in greater victoria.

 

http://shelters.bc211.ca/bc211shelters

 

 

 

victoria news in late 2017:

 

 

 

Jen Wilde, regional co-ordinator for the Greater Victoria Extreme Weather Response Plan, said she is grateful to United Way for funding the program for the Capital Region.

 

“I look forward to alleviating the struggle of calling multiple resources to determine which facility would be right or accessible for those seeking emergency shelter services,” she said. “[The helpline] is a resource that just makes sense, both to the clients we serve and front line service providers who are trying to advocate for them.”

BC211 staff will call the 10 shelters, including year-round, seasonal and emergency shelters in Greater Victoria, twice daily and publish the bed and mat availability as an online PDF and on an interactive map. Both services are mobile-friendly. This information also gives front line shelter staff and police access to information to help locate available beds.

 

“You can look at things in real time throughout the day, so for the police, they encounter people on the street, they are able to pull something up on their phone or … [looking at the interactive map] … they will be able to see what’s available,” said United Way Greater Victoria CEO Patricia Jelinski. “Or they can just simply call standing there in the street and say, ‘hey, 211 what’s available, where can we send somebody?’”

 

VicPD Chief Const. Del Manak noted that his officers often are faced with helping steer people toward community resources beyond what they can offer themselves. He said the shelter and street helpline gives police another valuable tool to ensure people in need are connected to the help they need in times of crisis. On top of the other assistance provided by bc211 – finding housing or locating an addictions counsellor, for example – it will help free up officers’ time to attend other high-priority calls, he added.

 

https://www.vicnews....eater-victoria/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 31 December 2019 - 04:31 AM.

[spanky123]

Here's what I wonder - homelessness in larger centres definitely seems to have gotten worse.  What has happened in smaller cities?  For the province as a whole, are we better or worse than we were a decade ago relative to the entire population?  Are we just seeing a redistribution, or is this something that is just worse than it was, and if so why?  What amount of rental stock would be available if AirBnB was not an option?  What would that have done to the supply of rental housing?  What share of this is attributable to an opiod epidemic and other mental health problems?  How can people be moved out of a rut of unemployment and homelessness and moved into sustainable lifestyles?

 

Most small towns across Canada are struggling to maintain their populations as the trend for the past couple of decades has been for people to move to urban areas. Housing and house prices are not a problem. In addition to migration to urban areas, there has also been a trend for people to want to live by themselves. 30 years ago, 65% of residences were occupied by 2 or more people, today is is 35%. Canada has also vastly increased the number of immigrants it allows into the county since Trudeau was elected. The overwhelming majority of those people migrate to large cities and of course need housing.  

 

At the end of the day AirBnB may have an impact on the availability of housing in urban areas but it is certainly overshadowed by other trends. It is a huge waste of energy, resources and space allowing people to live by themselves without sharing. I wonder if the next socialist move will be to ban single occupancy?!

[Victoria Watcher]

CTV reports that there were several naloxone kits at the scene of the death. Multiple studies have shown that naloxone is over 90% effective at reversing overdoses in patients who have a pulse. However, an October BC Pharmacy Association report noted that new synthetic drugs such as fentanyl cause faster overdoses, and as a result the majority of people who overdose in BC do not have a pulse when found. In the first 10 months of 2019, 40 illicit drug toxicity deaths were recorded in Victoria by the BC Coroners Service. Read more at CTV.

[aastra]

 

It is a huge waste of energy, resources and space allowing people to live by themselves without sharing...

 

That's the "overhoused" crisis narrative, which contradicts the crisis narrative re: families and communities are being harmed because everyone rents rooms to strangers in order to pay steep mortgages.

 

Meanwhile, literally hundreds and hundreds of parking lots, underdeveloped sites, and even outright empty lots remain... nobody cares, nobody mentions it.

[Victoria Watcher]

our population density is literally 4 people per sq. km.  220th in the world.  we are not lacking space.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 01 January 2020 - 12:35 PM.

[Victoria Watcher]

Vancouver’s first homicide victim of 2020 was Jesus Cristobal-Esteban, a 62-year-old Guatemalan immigrant who lived on the city’s east side. Mr. Cristobal-Esteban died in hospital Saturday after being beaten up in Oppenheimer Park, which contains a large homeless encampment. He wasn’t a resident of the camp, but his death was predicted for months.

 

As recently as Dec. 13, after an accidental shooting in the park, Global News asked “Will someone have to die before the City of Vancouver acts to address an entrenched homeless camp in Oppenheimer Park?” A city councillor told the network: “I’m concerned that it’s only a matter of time before we unfortunately do see a death;” if every politician were this prescient, surely we would live in an earthly paradise.

 

I don’t live in Vancouver, but the particular species of governmental failure here is of interest to everybody who lives in a city. The law in B.C., since the Court of Appeal’s 2009 ruling in Victoria v. Adams, places a heavy burden on city officials who want to clear out tent cities and other encampments. The court in that case affirmed that a general bylaw outlawing “temporary abodes” in public parks was, in view of a chronic shortage of homeless shelter spaces in Victoria, an unjustifiable violation of the personal rights of the homeless to “take steps to provide themselves with adequate shelter.”

 

At the time the court was careful to say that it was not giving the homeless “a freestanding constitutional right to erect shelter in public parks.” The bylaw was found to have violated the Charter only in combination with a local shortage of free housing. In practice, the logic of the ruling is that a city government must take heroic steps to offer housing alternatives to residents of a tent city before it can send the cops in with truncheons and garbage bags.

 

So Vancouver tried to meet that standard in Oppenheimer Park. When conditions in the park started to get really awful in the summer, it found rooms and trailers for 130 residents. Others refused to leave, and some of the rehoused persons came back, having missed the “community spirit” of the place that outreach workers often tout.

 

Is it possible for someone in power to, at this point in time, say “Enough already: we’re going to turn this park back into a park?” Oppenheimer wasn’t created in the first place as a venue for rough sleeping and fatal affrays. City parks are, in their ultimate origin, supposed to be available for the convenience of the working poor, particularly their children. The people in the Oppenheimer neighbourhood who pay their own rent seem pretty confident that the park is no longer available for this purpose, and I suppose you could argue that Mr. Cristobal-Esteban found this out for himself, too.

 

https://nationalpost...o_autoplay=true

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 06 January 2020 - 02:18 PM.

[Nparker]

...some of the rehoused persons came back, having missed the “community spirit” of the place...

Community spirit = no rules and anarchy.

Edited by Nparker, 06 January 2020 - 02:30 PM.

[Greg]

"The court in that case affirmed that a general bylaw outlawing “temporary abodes” in public parks was, in view of a chronic shortage of homeless shelter spaces in Victoria, an unjustifiable violation of the personal rights of the homeless to “take steps to provide themselves with adequate shelter.”

 

At the time the court was careful to say that it was not giving the homeless “a freestanding constitutional right to erect shelter in public parks.” The bylaw was found to have violated the Charter only in combination with a local shortage of free housing"

 

 

If there is nowhere else for the homeless to sleep, of course we need to let them sleep in a park. Because people need to sleep, and poverty (or mental illness, or drug addiction) should not be criminalized.

 

But no one, especially the homeless, benefits from normalizing sleeping rough. If there are shelter beds available, they should be used.

[Mike K.]

Right.

And hasn’t one of the issues been that there are quite a number of shelter spaces available in our region?

[rmpeers]

Right.

And hasn’t one of the issues been that there are quite a number of shelter spaces available in our region?

Presumably why we don't have the website that shows available shelter spaces?

[A Girl is No one]

Vancouver’s first homicide victim of 2020 was Jesus Cristobal-Esteban, a 62-year-old Guatemalan immigrant who lived on the city’s east side. Mr. Cristobal-Esteban died in hospital Saturday after being beaten up in Oppenheimer Park, which contains a large homeless encampment. He wasn’t a resident of the camp, but his death was predicted for months.

As recently as Dec. 13, after an accidental shooting in the park, Global News asked “Will someone have to die before the City of Vancouver acts to address an entrenched homeless camp in Oppenheimer Park?” A city councillor told the network: “I’m concerned that it’s only a matter of time before we unfortunately do see a death;” if every politician were this prescient, surely we would live in an earthly paradise.

I don’t live in Vancouver, but the particular species of governmental failure here is of interest to everybody who lives in a city. The law in B.C., since the Court of Appeal’s 2009 ruling in Victoria v. Adams, places a heavy burden on city officials who want to clear out tent cities and other encampments. The court in that case affirmed that a general bylaw outlawing “temporary abodes” in public parks was, in view of a chronic shortage of homeless shelter spaces in Victoria, an unjustifiable violation of the personal rights of the homeless to “take steps to provide themselves with adequate shelter.”

At the time the court was careful to say that it was not giving the homeless “a freestanding constitutional right to erect shelter in public parks.” The bylaw was found to have violated the Charter only in combination with a local shortage of free housing. In practice, the logic of the ruling is that a city government must take heroic steps to offer housing alternatives to residents of a tent city before it can send the cops in with truncheons and garbage bags.

So Vancouver tried to meet that standard in Oppenheimer Park. When conditions in the park started to get really awful in the summer, it found rooms and trailers for 130 residents. Others refused to leave, and some of the rehoused persons came back, having missed the “community spirit” of the place that outreach workers often tout.

Is it possible for someone in power to, at this point in time, say “Enough already: we’re going to turn this park back into a park?” Oppenheimer wasn’t created in the first place as a venue for rough sleeping and fatal affrays. City parks are, in their ultimate origin, supposed to be available for the convenience of the working poor, particularly their children. The people in the Oppenheimer neighbourhood who pay their own rent seem pretty confident that the park is no longer available for this purpose, and I suppose you could argue that Mr. Cristobal-Esteban found this out for himself, too.

https://nationalpost...o_autoplay=true

From the same article... for thé Chrissy Brett fans...

« The Oppenheimer residents have a recognized spokesperson, Chrissy Brett, who told Global that the murder of a local man was above all an “opportunity” for the city to pour new services onto the vagrants. “We need safe supplies, we need more managed alcohol programs … we need to look at harm reduction and housing. We need more than just a mat on a floor in a shelter. We need modular housing, long-term housing. We need affordable housing for seniors.”« 

[A Girl is No one]

The murder of an innocent man is an opportunity....so sad...

[Midnightly]

maybe if you twist what she is saying it might come out a bit better... something like.. the murder of an innocent man is a sign that the government has failed to provide help for those that need it most, that police services did not keep this man safe,that violence runs free within the park. by not providing desperately needed services to clean up this area such as addiction and mental health facilities and allowing it to fall to this degree is a disgrace to us all, the community surrounding this park deserves better.. another person shouldn't have to die

 

another person shouldn't have to die for this to become a priority

[Mike K.]

It is clear we need more mental health treatment in our communities.

[Victoria Watcher]

It is clear we need different mental health treatment in our communities.

 

fixed that for you.

[A Girl is No one]

maybe if you twist what she is saying it might come out a bit better... something like.. the murder of an innocent man is a sign that the government has failed to provide help for those that need it most, that police services did not keep this man safe,that violence runs free within the park. by not providing desperately needed services to clean up this area such as addiction and mental health facilities and allowing it to fall to this degree is a disgrace to us all, the community surrounding this park deserves better.. another person shouldn't have to die

another person shouldn't have to die for this to become a priority

I don’t think so... read the whole article... this is Chrissy Brett after all. Not a care in the world for the innocent guy who was killed or the neighbours around the park. Only those living in tents in the park. And in that case, the word « care » is used very loosely... because I do believe that she is doing more harm than good to the people she claims to represent.

[Victoria Watcher]

Due to rising construction costs, the Capital Regional District is seeking municipal approval to borrow another $10 million in order to meet its goal of building homes for people dealing with chronic homelessness.

 

The district along with the federal and provincial governments have already committed $30 million each to a $90-million Regional Housing First Program with the goal of creating 2,000 units of affordable housing — including 400 that would be rented at the province’s social assistance shelter rate of $375 a month.

 

https://www.timescol...rget-1.24048941

 

 

“I think it’s been a surprisingly successful program,” she added. “Most people will remember when we brought forward the idea, it was pooh-poohed quite heavily.

 

 

it was probably pooh-poohed because you said this in 2018:

 

A $90-million partnership among federal, provincial and regional governments will build at least 2,010 rental units over the next four years and effectively end chronic homelessness in the region, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said Thursday.

 

 

https://www.timescol...-crd-1.23298248

 

and now it's gone from $90m to $120m and dropped from 2100 units to 2000.  and we'll see if it "effectively ends chronic homelessness in the region" soon enough i suppose.  i imagine it'll do nothing of the sort.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 09 January 2020 - 04:39 PM.