Downtown Eastside - DTES Issues

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Crazy idea, but maybe they could go home to whichever province they came from for the free everything? To a place where they likely have family and people that hopefully care about them after all this time in Vancouver's Skid Row?

If that were to happen Greyhound would be back on business and business would be good.

That solves maybe a sixth of the problem - only 16-17% of Metro Vancouver's homeless are from another province (page 39).

Kicking out non-locals is one thing, because that allows us to shelter or rehab almost every Vancouverite... tearing down the shelters means the tent city crowd doubles.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by rofina

Tired trope, but this isn't rocket science. We know what will work, but don't do it. Its all actually quite simple. We don't need to invent anything, we don't need to create anything.

Run for office then. If it's that simple, you'll win and solve everything.

Originally Posted by rofina

Ill gladly take another 5% PST if it means the money is earmarked and goes specifically to make the DTES problem go away.

I call bullshit on this.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Crazy idea, but maybe they could go home to whichever province they came from for the free everything? To a place where they likely have family and people that hopefully care about them after all this time in Vancouver's Skid Row?

If that were to happen Greyhound would be back on business and business would be good.

So a possible solution of many to the DTES issues is to gentrify it = raise area rents for apartments and build condos and see tenants of private rentals lose their homes, close non-profits and kick out those that live in subsidized housing, increase the housing issue for those under the poverty line, leading to a likely increase in homelessness...

Then wag your finger at a majority of "homeless folks" who are Vancouverites and tell them to "move back to where they came from"? I'm very confused.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Run for office then. If it's that simple, you'll win and solve everything.

I put my work in over the last 2 years. I learned a lot.

Your view are representative of the Vancouver population; everything is too difficult and complicated. Change is desired, but not if it means we have to change. There is a shocking lack of diversity of opinion - its only acceptable to double down into already failed policies.

Vancouver will go the way of Portland and San Francisco. I made my peace with that, which is why I wont be staying here.

I also wont be spending my remaining time to try and make this better for Vancoverties since most seem uninterested in actual solutions.

I do maintain there is a solution here, its tenable and achievable on a 5-6 year timeline given the will to do so. But it wont happen.

I call bullshit on this.

If its earmarked for DTES, no problem. PST is a consumption tax anyway, personally it doesn't matter to me. Just don't touch incomes.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

So a possible solution of many to the DTES issues is to gentrify it = raise area rents for apartments and build condos and see tenants of private rentals lose their homes, close non-profits and kick out those that live in subsidized housing, increase the housing issue for those under the poverty line, leading to a likely increase in homelessness...

Then wag your finger at a majority of "homeless folks" who are Vancouverites and tell them to "move back to where they came from"? I'm very confused.

Ill speak for myself in reply to your post, not Klazu.

There is a lot of nuance missing here.

There are vastly different folks here;

- Homeless
- Addicts
- Criminals
- Mental unwell


Homeless = folks on low income, disability, etc. This is where current funding and housing allocation should be going to. These folks should be placed in modular housing and in some of the hotels that have been purchased. These are working people, struggling in need of assistance. This is logical, do not allow further deterioration and lend a helping hand.

Private non-profits can continue with food supply and food kitchens. This part of the system works relatively well, food supply is not an issue in the DTES.

Addicts = Voluntary treatment is the first step. If treatment is refused, so are services and housing. If they break the law to feed addiction, final shot at treatment is given, if not taken. Incarceration. Actions meet repercussion. Following incarceration, transition services provided to allow a new path.

Criminals = Probably a lot of overlap with addiction. Same as above applies. If its not addiction, its time for tougher sentences. It doesn't work nor make sense for the 99% of us to be assaulted and prayed upon by a few people that are repeat criminals.

Mentally Unwell = Use the existing DTES funding and reprioritize to house the large population that's likely permanently unable to look out for self. This could be for various reasons, drug abuse, brain damage, mental disorders.
Build a facility that's able to handle the load - don't place it in Downtown or adjacent to save on costs. For those that recover, they can move on to subsidized housing from the "homeless" category above. For the many that wont, facility is the end of the line.

[logicbomb]

No kidding. The homeless are the victims of gentrification and governments that refuse to address it by providing society with ample case managers to follow up with these individuals to place them into housing and rehabilitate them into the workforce.

The mentally unwell are the victims of a society that makes it optional to seek treatment and makes it impossible for loved ones to get their relatives or friends involuntarily admitted to hospitals for treatment. A person with psychosis or schizophrenia will usually not admit themselves for treatment.

The pure criminals with an extensive criminal records dating back to their teens are not victims and deserve to be locked up behind jail cells.

Somehow, we've enabled drug use and are now actively encouraging it out in the open, and allowed the pro-poverty pimps and anarchist to gain sympathy for criminals.

We should stop lumping them together. Start triaging and addressing the issue asap.

[GenWhy?]

So how does gentrification (a tool of many possible tools used alone or in conjunction with other) help people who rent in and around the DTES and the four other sub-groups of citizens you mentioned? That's what I'm confused about.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

So how does gentrification (a tool of many possible tools used alone or in conjunction with other) help people who rent in and around the DTES and the four other sub-groups of citizens you mentioned? That's what I'm confused about.

I'm not advocating for gentrification, specifically.

I do acknowledge that a side benefit of taking acting would be gentrification of the DTES, since its a very desirable location with some of the best character in Vancouver. Perhaps the only character left.

I outlined above how each group benefits from a cleaned up DTES; what can I clarify?

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Right, like how you think putting junkies out of sight and mind will magically fix everything. Incarceration is expensive - if we're going to just rip up fifty years' worth of human rights, we might as well cut to the chase and reintroduce the death penalty.*

Of course not. Riverview was a hospital from the 19th century that basically became an asylum for whoever Victorian Canada considered "undesirable;" you could literally be born, live and die inside without ever seeing the outside world. It's a good thing they shut it down; it's not a good thing that we didn't have the money for a replacement. Three wrongs don't make a right.

*I'm not advocating death for the mentally ill, I'm taking a ludicrous argument to its logical conclusion.

Your form of incarceration where pork chop is served is expensive. Don't you know what a labour camp is?

Don't be so dramatic as to suggest bringing in the death penalty. Funny you think making one work as a form of punishment equates condemning one to death. Perhaps with thinking like that explains why society has decayed to this stage.

[Vin]

Perhaps the Pre-Fab technology should be pursued for this country to house the many people who can't afford decent living.

• Video Link

[rofina]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

That solves maybe a sixth of the problem - only 16-17% of Metro Vancouver's homeless are from another province (page 39).

Kicking out non-locals is one thing, because that allows us to shelter or rehab almost every Vancouverite... tearing down the shelters means the tent city crowd doubles.

That doesn't appear to be correct.

There were 604 individuals or 35% who indicated they had lived somewhere else in Canada
before coming to their current community and 7% or 126 individuals who came from another
country.
• Settlement patterns vary strongly by community. For the two largest communities in Metro
Vancouver, of those who were interviewed in Vancouver, close to half (47%) reported coming
from somewhere else in Canada, while those in Surrey were more likely to have resettled from
within Metro Vancouver (43%).

That's 35% of the problem from outside of Metro Van, that's over a third.

And for Vancouver that number is a shocking 47%, or nearly half the respondents are not from Vancouver.

This is a Canada problem.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by rofina

I'm not advocating for gentrification, specifically.

I do acknowledge that a side benefit of taking acting would be gentrification of the DTES.

May I ask a question out of intellectual curiosity? If you are for the gentrification of the DTES - and I am sure a whole lot of people would be - what happens to the former residents of such?
Are they displaced to live elsewhere in the peninsula, are they dispersed throughout the city in general, or are they housed and "assimilated" to live within the DTES still?
As the majority of these people are (and in Paris there was a parallel situation, parallel arguments) mentally ill, damaged and unemployable, how are thyey handled by civic society?
'Pardon my French' is a cliché of course, but that seems to be the crux of it there, the "point incontournable" of it all. How are these people housed and cared for? Or are they?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

Your form of incarceration where pork chop is served is expensive. Don't you know what a labour camp is?

Don't be so dramatic as to suggest bringing in the death penalty. Funny you think making one work as a form of punishment equates condemning one to death. Perhaps with thinking like that explains why society has decayed to this stage.

So the death penalty is dramatic, but gulags aren't. I'm not the one with society-decaying thinking here.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by rofina

That doesn't appear to be correct.

That's 35% of the problem from outside of Metro Van, that's over a third.

And for Vancouver that number is a shocking 47%, or nearly half the respondents are not from Vancouver.

This is a Canada problem.

That's 35% of 47% who said they came from elsewhere; 0.35 x 0.47 = 16%. Granted, it's a very poorly-written summary and graph.

Edit: For further confusion, another 14-15% are from other parts of the metro and moved to where they are now, therefore counted in the "non-local" section. So that's 14-15% plus 52%, or 66-67% of homeless who're native to Metro Vancouver.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

May I ask a question out of intellectual curiosity? If you are for the gentrification of the DTES - and I am sure a whole lot of people would be - what happens to the former residents of such?
Are they displaced to live elsewhere in the peninsula, are they dispersed throughout the city in general, or are they housed and "assimilated" to live within the DTES still?
As the majority of these people are (and in Paris there was a parallel situation, parallel arguments) mentally ill, damaged and unemployable, how are thyey handled by civic society?
'Pardon my French' is a cliché of course, but that seems to be the crux of it there, the "point incontournable" of it all. How are these people housed and cared for? Or are they?

Questions are how we get to the bottom of a matter, I very much appreciate yours.

Perhaps I was not clear in my original post, but the approaches vary based on who we are talking about;

Homeless = folks on low income, disability, etc. This is where current funding and housing allocation should be going to. These folks should be placed in modular housing and in some of the hotels that have been purchased. These are working people, struggling in need of assistance. This is logical, do not allow further deterioration and lend a helping hand.
Private non-profits can continue with food supply and food kitchens. This part of the system works relatively well, food supply is not an issue in the DTES.

Funding from this should come primarily from the feds, but I would accept that Vancouver maintain some of its own funding with provincial help. I'm not asking to reinvent the wheel here, and I don't want to wait 20 years for Feds to act. So lets keep the properties we bought and built, and allocate them for folks on the edge. Continue developing temporary (permanent - who actually believes these sites to be temp?) modular housing too.

Addicts = Voluntary treatment is the first step. If treatment is refused, so are services and housing. If they break the law to feed addiction, final shot at treatment is given, if not taken. Incarceration. Actions meet repercussion. Following incarceration, transition services provided to allow a new path.

This is where my previously mentioned facility would come into play.
I envision a compound on some somewhat removed lands, of large size, various security, and various levels of housing and services. Riverview is an option, other areas exist. This can be funded by a tax increase on the PST specifically earmarked to DTES funding, or preferably, via spending cuts to non profits on the DTES and housing operators.

Criminals = Probably a lot of overlap with addiction. Same as above applies. If its not addiction, its time for tougher sentences. It doesn't work nor make sense for the 99% of us to be assaulted and prayed upon by a few people that are repeat criminals.

Maintain the system, but increase penalties for multiple offenders. Its either crime or its not. If we agree its not, lets cease this conversation right now. I believe repeat offenders should pay a price. I'm talking people who have been arrested 10, 20, 30 times for the same things. These aren't mistakes, these are lifestyles. Lifestyles that are not conducive to fitting in with our society. If a correction of said lifestyle is impossible, incarceration it is.

Mentally Unwell = Use the existing DTES funding and reprioritize to house the large population that's likely permanently unable to look out for self. This could be for various reasons, drug abuse, brain damage, mental disorders.
Build a facility that's able to handle the load - don't place it in Downtown or adjacent to save on costs. For those that recover, they can move on to subsidized housing from the "homeless" category above. For the many that wont, facility is the end of the line.

As I mentioned previously, reprioritize funding to build this facility. A large portion of these folks will need to be permanently housed here. Accept that, and plan for it. Budget it. Build it into a reality.

For the at risk folk; maintain the social services we currently have. The goal here is to clean up the neighborhood and to separate the wheat from the chaff. Maintain assistance and welfare programs for those that are DTES residents struggling to get by, long as criminality and addiction are not immediate issues.

I suspect that with the removal of the majority of criminals, dealers, and users the neighborhood would heal rapidly providing much more opportunity for all social strata's to profit.

I definitely acknowledge that this will cause displacement of some folks through increased rents and gentrification. I think this is not ideal, but cant let perfect be the enemy of good.

Our developments mandate social housing components, this could be included into Gastown developments as well to at the least maintain and hopefully increase the availability of affordable social housing.

In regards to paying for all the above; 2 actions. Reprioritize existing spending wasted on DTES initiatives and if required an increase to the PST.

Both could be well paid back via gentrification, increased tax base, etc, from the neighborhood renewal.

I'm completely sure the negatives of this plan are far outweighed by the positives, but welcome to differing opinions to fill my own blind spots.

I dislike speaking to Vancouverites about this because we have been corrupted here. We have rose colored glasses on.

Everyone knows this is a f*cked up sh*tshow, but we all tacitly allow it to go one by employing some tired and abused tropes; complicated, expensive, no simple solution, etc.

There are solutions, they are actionable, they are deliverable.

We are choosing to accept human misery, compound it, profit from it, and gloss over it under a few misguided tropes. That's the reality we all own.

DTES is a global embarrassment that should exclude Vancouver from ever finding itself on any desirability lists.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by rofina

... I dislike speaking to Vancouverites about this because we have been corrupted here. We have rose colored glasses on.

Everyone knows this is a f*cked up sh*tshow, but we all tacitly allow it to go one by employing some tired and abused tropes; complicated, expensive, no simple solution, etc...

In fairness, you'd probably have most Vancouverites on your side if it weren't for "defund the nonprofits and sell to developers" followed by "well, you can't make an omelette..." By all means, destroy Atira - it's rotting from top to bottom, but the director's literally in bed with BC Housing, so nothing can change - but for the most part trying to solve homelessness by getting rid of the homes is more than a little counterproductive.

We're rebuilding Riverview, which starts to address the problem cases, and the upcoming detox facility on Clark should help the addicts. We should be building shelters faster (and keeping them safer) so that regular homeless don't slide into the first two, and we definitely need new judges, but AFAIK anything more requires us to hold JT to the fire.

[Skook]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

In fairness, you'd probably have most Vancouverites on your side if it weren't for "defund the nonprofits and sell to developers" followed by "well, you can't make an omelette..." By all means, destroy Atira - it's rotting from top to bottom, but the director's literally in bed with BC Housing, so nothing can change - but for the most part trying to solve homelessness by getting rid of the homes is more than a little counterproductive.

We're rebuilding Riverview, which starts to address the problem cases, and the upcoming detox facility on Clark should help the addicts. We should be building shelters faster (and keeping them safer) so that regular homeless don't slide into the first two, and we definitely need new judges, but AFAIK anything more requires us to hold JT to the fire.

I think most who support gentrification as part of the solution envision unlocking some of the immense value of an under developed neighbourhood in the center of the city to fund housing for the current residents elsewhere. It is time for a different approach. The DTES is such an unhealthy environment that its mere existence perpetuates the problems that make it such a shitshow in the first place.

[Klazu]

I actually wish we would get the Olympics again. Firstly for all the fun they were, but also to see the idiots at City Council squirming in having to decide how to hide the awful truth that is Vancouver in serious decline from a global audience. It would be hilarious and who knows maybe the PR catastrophe could finally end the myth of Vancouver being an appealing and livable world class city.

[Klazu]

Interesting and in no way related story from Seattle where they are ahead of us in so many ways.

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/lar...CROJYGN6J2IPY/

[Architype]

Originally Posted by Klazu

I actually wish we would get the Olympics again. Firstly for all the fun they were, but also to see the idiots at City Council squirming in having to decide how to hide the awful truth that is Vancouver in serious decline from a global audience. It would be hilarious and who knows maybe the PR catastrophe could finally end the myth of Vancouver being an appealing and livable world class city.

I agree, but it doesn't affect most metro residents because they never go there. I live about 3 km away and manage to routinely avoid it. Are we more complicit because we live here, or is this a greater societal problem to be dealt with on a much larger scale? I don't think there are any solutions which would please everyone, and perhaps that is why it persists.