“Homelessness & Affordability Crisis”

There is so much wrong with America’s cities, it’s hard to see why any contributing member of society would live and/or work in one of them. Some of the issues arise from far-Left local governance while others are generated by more widespread Leftist policy. These are coupled with an organic workforce evolution, as the United States transitions from an industry-based to an information-based economy. The result is urban areas caught in a downward spiral — and, as with any sinking vessel, threatening to suck everyone nearby down with them.

Striking tenants who are refusing to pay big rent increases in several buildings in Toronto’s west end say they’ve been flooded with support from across the country.

York South-Weston Tenant Union organizer Bruno Dobrusin said support for their rent strike has been “overwhelming.” Not only are people paying attention, but he said they’re interested in learning how to organize themselves.

“It’s a hopeful sign that people are rising up and fighting back,” said Dobrusin.

I suspect any such populist movement would be compromised by hardcore communists in about a minute.

Outreach worker helping library grapple with concerning incidents

Since the city hired a community outreach worker for the Orillia Public Library last fall, the number of concerning incidents has dropped dramatically and library staff have a newfound sense of ease carrying out their work, officials say.

The position was approved last year by city council to address ongoing social issues at the library and in the downtown core — whether related to homelessness, mental health, addictions, or other issues — which staff were unequipped to address and often prompted the need to call the OPP.

h/t Sweetpea

A growing number of Canadian couples and singles live in homes with vacant bedrooms, a phenomenon that is coming to light as local governments across the country grapple with acute housing needs.

The percentage of singles and couples who live in homes that have a minimum of three bedrooms increased to 29 per cent in Canada in 2021, according to an analysis by The Globe and Mail of census numbers for that year. That compares with 26 per cent in 2006, according to the corresponding census.

It’s camping season in Canada — but not in the usual sense. From Penticton to Prince Edward Island, urban landscapes have become dotted with tent cities. Homeless encampments have been “visibly rising” according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Statistics Canada reports that on a given night, 25,000 to 35,000 people may be experiencing homelessness, and more than 235,000 people are homeless during a given year. According to a report by the Office of the Federal Housing Advocate, at least one encampment has been set up in a majority of Canada’s 25 largest municipalities since the COVID-19 pandemic started in March 2020.

Not gonna happen in Chowtown.

In London, Ont., a city of about half a million people, hundreds are sleeping rough each night, many of them clustered in tents along the Thames River.

In Charlottetown, a 50-bed shelter opened in January, doubling the island’s total shelter capacity – but it’s still not enough, with the most recent end-of-year count identifying at least 114 people experiencing homelessness in the city.

MONTREAL – Rooming or boarding houses are regaining favour with some Canadian cities as a way to offset a lack of affordable homes, but experts warn there are pitfalls to the once-popular form of urban housing.

On Tuesday, Montreal executive committee member Benoit Dorais told reporters that the city was applying its right of first refusal to purchase about 100 privately owned rooming houses, in which a person rents a single private room, and shares amenities such as bathrooms or kitchens. The move means the city has the right to match an offer to purchase them if they come for sale.

He said Montreal had already purchased four of the homes and was looking to buy more, describing them as “the principle solution to fight homelessness.”

Garth Gorrel and his wife, Debbie Houghtaling, have been camping along the Okanagan Rail Trail at the north end of downtown Kelowna, B.C., for two years.

Gorrel, a former steelworker in Kamloops, and Houghtaling, who used to do online clerical work for an Alberta-based janitorial service, both lost their jobs due to layoffs at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hoping to find employment, the couple relocated to Kelowna but had no luck. Unable to afford a rental apartment, they made the decision to shelter outdoors.

The “Official argument” seems to be “We put our homeless in a designated outdoor homeless zone.”

BARRIE — There have been so many police calls and overdoses in the dining room that the McDonald’s in downtown Barrie walled it off from the public.

You can see the tables through the window, but cannot sit there. There is drywall and a locked construction door next to the main ordering area.

They are leaving the cities they grew up in and putting off marriage, children

More than a decade of sky-high housing prices is changing society, according to a new report by Desjardins Group.

Terrible housing affordability is forcing adults aged 34 and younger to flee the cities in which they grew up, the report said. Younger Canadians also are putting off marriage and waiting longer to have children, decisions Desjardins chief economist Jimmy Jean and his team said relate to the instability of renting or residing with family.

When the police fail to protect the citizenry, vigilantism is the inevitable response. Self-defense is not only a natural, God-given right, it is an imperative that drives behavior, even in the face of adverse consequences. The well-publicized arrest of Daniel Penny for protecting fellow subway passengers in New York City did not deter passengers on Chicago’s’ Blue Line subway at Grand Station from forcibly subduing an apparently deranged man, who apparently had turned violent.