[flar]

I'll repeat it again, but I think Hamilton has significantly fewer panhandlers than most other cities. However, Hamilton does have a large number of homeless people. One reason why there may be fewer visible panhandlers is that Hamilton has some of the best organized social services of any large city in Canada.

A note about the homeless: the stereotypical "bum" with the ragged clothes and wild beard, chugging listerine, makes up only a small proportion of the homeless population. Many of the people using homeless shelters are families and women with children, some even have jobs, many are only homeless for a short period of time, or only once in their entire life. Somewhere between 3000-4000 people use a homeless shelter in Hamilton each year. Maybe 20% are chronically homeless.

As for drugs, I don't care if somebody sells pot out of their home, which is how the majority get it. Selling drugs on the street is another matter, preying on the desperate, ripping people off and introducing a high concentration of undesirable elements to the downtown area. I would like to see pot legalized. Drugs like crack are a scourge and major social problem that need to be treated from an addiction standpoint rather than a legal one. There are too many crack dens in and around downtown Hamilton, and too many people suffering from addictions.