25965 replies to this topic

[pennymurphy2000]

We ran into the same issues with the courthouse tent city. Calls for service went through the roof but if no charges are laid it doesn't get recorded officially as a crime stat. Frustrating. There has to be a better way to accurately record the real impact these facilities have on neighbourhoods.

[martini]

B.C.’s housing minister is being criticized for wrongly stating there’s been no crime increase around Nanaimo shelters, despite police statistics showing a major spike in drug trafficking and street disorder.
Housing Minister Selina Robinson wrote in an April 4 letter to B.C. Liberal MLA Rich Coleman that his suggestion that crime has increased around supportive housing sites in Nanaimo was incorrect. “I have received confirmation from Nanaimo RCMP that there has been no increase in crime at the sites at 250 Terminal Avenue and 2020 Labieux Road,” she wrote.
However, on April 8, Nanaimo RCMP Supt. Cameron Miller told Nanaimo council that calls for service around the Terminal Avenue shelter had increased 66 per cent when comparing the period Nov. 20, 2018 to March 25, 2019 to the same period a year earlier.
Calls for service around the Labieux Road area increased by 150 per cent versus the same time frame a year earlier.





https://www.timescol...mmed-1.23790553

Jesus. All you have to do is visit Nanaimo. Talk to residents. It's bad!

[Cassidy]

Jesus. All you have to do is visit Nanaimo. Talk to residents. It's bad!

Shelters always turn into festering boils for one or two blocks in every direction, and they do so by intelligent design.

 

Let's take every drug addict and mentally ill person in town, and condense them into a one block space, then lets count them and discover that there are 50 shelter beds available for 200 people seeking them, then let's be surprised when the 150 people who can't get a bed hang around a three or four block radius from the shelter, 24 hours a day, doing what assorted miscreants who have no income, but who always need money wind up doing.

[Nparker]

...Let's take every drug addict and mentally ill person in town, and condense them into a one block space...

While offering little-to-no treatment options or incentives to get better. Instead, we actively promote self-medication in the guise of "harm reduction".

[Cassidy]

Every time I drive along the 900 Block of Pandora, I don't see the makings of a disaster, I see an actual disaster already underway. 

 

I usually then wonder to myself (or wonder out loud if my daughter is with me) why the COV allows such a hellish scene to play out over an entire city block on a daily basis.

I'm never able to formulate any sort of reasonable answer to that question.

[Nparker]

Every time I drive along the 900 Block of Pandora, I don't see the makings of a disaster, I see an actual disaster already underway. I usually then wonder to myself (or wonder out loud if my daughter is with me) why the COV allows such a hellish scene to play out over an entire city block on a daily basis...

As the saying goes, follow the money.

[spanky123]

Every time I drive along the 900 Block of Pandora, I don't see the makings of a disaster, I see an actual disaster already underway. 

 

I usually then wonder to myself (or wonder out loud if my daughter is with me) why the COV allows such a hellish scene to play out over an entire city block on a daily basis.

I'm never able to formulate any sort of reasonable answer to that question.

 

Talk to businesses at the Mayfair mall and ask them how the PHS facility at the old Super 8 is working for them. Pandora is more visible downtown but it is no better elsewhere.

[Mike K.]

There is also the Tally Ho facility nearby.

[Nparker]

Talk to businesses at the Mayfair mall and ask them how the PHS facility at the old Super 8 is working for them...

Now why did I immediately read that as PoS facility?

[mbjj]

I rarely drive on that stretch of Pandora but sometimes my husband does and he never fails to comment on the "zombies walking out into the road" that he almost hits with his car. My daughter goes to the conservatory of music in the evening and is glad to get out of the area.

[Matt R.]

A while ago on salt spring, we had a derelict concrete hulled houseboat torched on the harbour, right in the middle of town. Some of you might remember, it made the news. Total cluster.

Last night, the lady who owns the boat got into her truck and rammed the squat of some guy (Roger) who was, essentially, living on the MOTI ROW in front of her trailer, a block off the main drag in Ganges. Buddy had a wood burning stove outside of his tent, and I don’t mean a fireplace. Rammed it over and over, apparently. No one was hurt, but it’s a huge mess.

What is happening out there these days? Used to be people like that lived on their boats or in the bush.

Matt.

[GabriolaGirl]

Jesus. All you have to do is visit Nanaimo. Talk to residents. It's bad!

A friend of ours who lives in Brechin where the new shelter is, is on the neighbourhood committee, he says calling it bad is an understatement.  Anything and everything has been taken from balconies, back yards for blocks around the new housing, people don't feel safe in their own yards.  The law office behind the new housing has put in even more cameras than they had before due to so much damage done to property.  There is 24/7 security in/out of the compound.  Every time we drive by the RCMP are there.

It's a shame really, it was such a beautiful neighbourhood full of people who really took an interest in their part of the city.   

[Mike K.]

For those may not be familiar with Nanaimo, Brechin is immediately west of the downtown BC Ferries terminal. The neighbourhood isn’t much different from Gordon Head.

[Cassidy]

This is where the Charter of Rights got it Wrong.

 

Every Canadian most definitely isn't equal, and it's a great misfortune for all Canadians that the Charter, when it was drafted, couldn't anticipate a time when those who experience homelessness, mental illness, and brutal drug addiction would be seen as equal in every way to the working family woman or man ... equal at least in the eyes of the law and of local politicians, and now a time where fear of trouncing on the rights of a junkie or a thief becomes an overriding concern at all levels of government, such that they can now literally set up a home in the playground your child plays in.

 

It's way past time to amend the Charter, and to start to undo the negative consequences of unbridled SJW's and their efforts to manipulate the working class into being the sole means of financial support for the junkies and thieves who walk among us ... literally walk among us, on our streets, in our back yards, on our decks and balconies, and in many cases inside our fricking homes.

[pennymurphy2000]

 

B.C.’s housing minister is being criticized for wrongly stating there’s been no crime increase around Nanaimo shelters, despite police statistics showing a major spike in drug trafficking and street disorder.

Housing Minister Selina Robinson wrote in an April 4 letter to B.C. Liberal MLA Rich Coleman that his suggestion that crime has increased around supportive housing sites in Nanaimo was incorrect. 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.timescol...mmed-1.23790553

 

Quite the flip flop for Rich Coleman who assured us over and over again that crime was NOT going up around Mt. Edwards when Cool Aid moved in. 

[Nparker]

Quite the flip flop for Rich Coleman who assured us over and over again that crime was NOT going up around Mt. Edwards when Cool Aid moved in. 

This sort of hypocrisy is why I have zero faith in anyone elected to public office.

[On the Level]

The "housing first" strategy doesn't appear to be working very well.  "Fact based" solutions obviously work best when you pick the facts you want and ignore the others.  

 

2013

 

The Coalition's goal is to end homelessness in our region by 2018; it is working toward this goal by increasing available supportive and affordable housing.

https://victoriafoun...homelessness-2/

 

2015

 

A contribution of roughly $11 per household, for 15 years.  That is all it could take to eliminate homelessness in Victoria and the surrounding region, says Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and two city councillors.  Helps and councillors Ben Isitt and Jeremy Loveday have submitted a motion to council suggesting the Capital Regional District borrow $50 million to build 367 housing units for the chronically homeless.

https://www.cbc.ca/n...sness-1.3231056

 

2017

 

For the last decade, the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness has tried to fulfill its goal without much success but that’s beginning to change.  “For the very first time since 2010, we’re very happy to report a slight decrease in the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness in the region,” says Victoria mayor and coalition board co-chair Lisa Helps.

https://www.cheknews...ictoria-368560/

 

2018

 

“Thanks to today’s investment and our collaboration with partners at the provincial and municipal levels, we’re going to make homelessness history in Victoria,” said Jean-Yves Duclos, Federal Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.

https://www.vicnews....ss-in-victoria/

 

 

The Capital Region has seen a drop in the number of unsheltered homeless people.  “There is a silver lining,” said Helps. “For the first time in a very long time, from both the federal government through the national housing strategy and the provincial government for their commitments, there is oodles of money in order to build housing.

https://vancouverisl...urvey-1.4026612

 

2019

 

the number of homeless per 100,000 people jumped to 398 from 304, well above the peer-city average of 299

https://www.timescol...sues-1.23796606

[Nparker]

 

the number of homeless per 100,000 people jumped to 398 from 304, well above the peer-city average of 299

A direct result of the "bring it on" strategy.

 

How much should reasonably be spent in an attempt to house 0.4% (that's right, less than half a percent) of the CoV's population?

[Victoria Watcher]

A direct result of the "bring it on" strategy.

 

How much should reasonably be spent in an attempt to house 0.4% (that's right, less than half a percent) of the CoV's population?

 

$60,000 per year per person or whatever helps used  to say our taxes would go down after housing was introduced for them.

[spanky123]

2019

https://www.timescol...sues-1.23796606

 

You have to take these reports with a grain of salt. If you look at the full report, the peer cities selected by staff were all in Ontario and Quebec except for Surrey and only 1 had a population anywhere near that of the CRD. If you want to show Victoria in a positive light for walking, biking, hiking and other outdoor activities then for sure compare it with cities that are snowbound 6 months of the year. 

 

None of the data sources are referenced in a such a way that anyone can validate the figures being used. There is simply a description of the metric they are measuring and a source (ie "municipality" or "region"). Normally reports like this provide comprehensive referencing so that readers can make their own interpretation of the source data.