“Homelessness & Affordability Crisis”

As the poison drug crisis grows more lethal and visible, hence becoming more politically and socially untenable, politicians and policy-makers are grasping for new solutions.

Both B.C. and Alberta, for example, are promising to expand involuntary treatment – essentially forcing some drug users into treatment, whether they want it or not.

This get-tough approach has obvious appeal.

The random acts of violence that are happening on our streets and in our transit systems in cities across Canada are also making their way into public libraries.

Local branches of all sizes are reporting an increase in verbal and physical violence. And for some, the pandemic made it even worse.

Over the past two years, one person died and six others were injured in a mass stabbing in a public library in North Vancouver. Last December, 28-year-old Tyree Cayer was killed during a visit to Winnipeg’s Millennium Library. Four teenagers were charged in his death. And two branches of the Saskatoon library were closed temporarily because of concerns about staff safety.

Shocking revelation – Libraries are now ad hoc homeless shelters!

Wander around the downtown streets near the state capital buildings, and you marvel at how pristine they are. No homelessness problem here, you think.

But venture a little further afield, closer to the borders of the downtown core, in the parks and overpasses that ring California’s sixth-largest metropolitan area (population: 525,041) and that image changes. You begin to see in jarring detail just how pervasive homelessness is in Sacramento, Calif., ranking it among the worst in the state.

The numbers are staggering.

In big cities across America, homelessness has been so bad for so long that many have given up on ever ending it entirely.

Last year, federal agencies counted a staggering 582,462 homeless people nationwide – up nearly 20% since 2015.

It’s not the same everywhere.

Last month, the New York Times ran a story exploring the poverty, drug and mental health crisis engulfing the city of Phoenix, Ariz., through the eyes of a sandwich shop owner whose restaurant sat across from one of the largest homeless encampments in America.

It was an eye-opener.

Unexpected resolve in Vancouver.

The patients at the Red Fish Healing Centre for Mental Health and Addiction are here after failing all treatment options at B.C. hospitals, with more than two thirds also having become violent either with health care staff or while committing a crime on the street. All of them are battling severe addictions to drugs.

And more than half of the 100 or so patients are here against their will after being certified under British Columbia’s civil Mental Health Act.

It is the best option available to solve the “homeless crisis.”

City of Vancouver officials say they plan to deploy “quick response teams” if people try to set up tents again on East Hastings Street, even as scrutiny of their enforcement actions intensifies.

Canada’s federal housing advocate is calling for a moratorium on dismantling encampments, telling Postmedia she worries deaths could increase from the displacement of Downtown Eastside residents.

It will be interesting to see which side wins.

In Austin, Texas, in a 24-hour period in March less than a mile apart, a woman was punched several times and sexually assaulted, suffering a split lower jaw and bruises over her body; then a building was burned down, damaging adjacent buildings, causing about $1.5 million in damage. The common thread: Homeless men living on the street are the accused.

The homeless are on the streets because they don’t have homes — or so many of their so-called advocates claim. They see homelessness as a disease and prescribing housing as the first step to a cure — with housing seen as a right, like they believe health care should be.

An extreme fire risk and escalating crime have made a tent encampment in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside a deadly hazard and it must be closed, the city’s mayor, fire chief and police chief say.

City officials held a news conference Tuesday as Vancouver police officers and city staff were dispatched to dismantle the tent encampment along Hastings Street.

Mayor Ken Sim said the longer the street camp continues, the higher the odds more people will lose their lives and even more people will lose their homes to the fire hazard.

The dismantling of the #DTES encampment on E Hastings has begun. Vancouver police blocking access from Columbia to Gore. Folks down here not happy. More to come @CityNewsVAN pic.twitter.com/EqzOvpnlFJ

— Michael Williams (@MikeWillsTake) April 5, 2023

They did the right thing. Now will they stick with enforcement?

Officials must recognize that behavioral issues are the primary cause of homelessness.

Politicians, government officials, and academic “experts” from coast to coast have been insisting for years that homelessness is a “national crisis,” as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass both claim. That is a misdiagnosis, deflecting responsibility away from cities that should fix their own problems.

Every case of homelessness is tragic and complicated. According to new data, however, homelessness has reached crisis proportions only in a limited number of areas across the country, especially in California.

Smoke bellows skyward near an overpass on the outskirts of this Pacific Northwest city.

Flames become evident as you get closer, as do the fire trucks and the firefighters putting out the blaze at the centre of a homeless encampment that is affixed, favela style, to the under-shoulder of the crossing.

A good article on Seattle, it bodes ill for Toronto and elsewhere in Canada as does the following Star report on the Homeless camp clear-outs, one of the things Tory got right.

Forces are at work to make Toronto’s homeless camps as big and ugly as they are in the US.

The goal? Millions of dollars will flow to the hucksters who promise to deal with the very “crisis” they perpetuate.

Process behind 2021 encampment clearings ‘unacceptable’, finds ombudsman report

The clearings of three large Toronto homeless encampments in the summer of 2021 prioritized speed over the well-being of homeless people, Toronto’s ombudsman has found.

In the report, which comes nearly two years after the city-led, police-and-security-enforced operations, ombudsman Kwame Addo found the process by which city hall displaced people from Trinity Bellwoods, Alexandra Park, and Lamport Stadium was “unacceptable” — pointing to “unclear, confusing” and insufficiently transparent communication. It noted the city’s operational plans made no mention of the mental health of displaced people.

The camps were cleared quickly and efficiently with a minimum of activist triggered violence. This is why Toronto can’t have nice things.

Because it’s better to have drug addicted mentally-ill people wandering your streets. They add colour!

Legal group in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside cautions B.C. against involuntary care

A legal group representing marginalized people on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside has issued a stern rebuke of the provincial government’s plans to force mental-health and addictions treatment on people who present a danger to themselves and others.

Pivot Legal Society released a report Thursday calling on British Columbia to halt its proposed expansion of “involuntary care” beds, arguing such treatment is an outdated approach that is harmful, degrading and often discriminatory.