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Originally Posted by TheRitsman
I don't think literally anyone is saying that. People are pretending that if you go downtown you'll be accosted, raped and all your money taken. It's just not true. Businesses are flourishing and opening every week (I actually live here so I pay attention and have spoken to multiple business owners, including ones that haven't opened yet). Downtown has a problem if visible homelessness and people doing drugs, but acting like a dude smoking meth is gonna kill you is bananas, and while it's not optimal, the absolute disgust some people see towards these people like they're vermin is disgusting in its own right. They're doing drugs, not diddling children, relax.
Myself and dozens of my friends live downtown and we feel perfectly safe because we live here, know what it's like and actually read the stats. We know that every city is going through a crisis right now. Most of the people that became homeless didn't do it as a lifestyle choice. We also know that rates of violence remain incredibly low compared to historic highs, and remain lower than dozens of other cities we'd feel safe walking around in like Chicago, New York and Boston.
I'm glad the city is funding additional shelter spaces and the Tiffany/Barton temporary outdoor tiny home shelter. There's only around 400 people living in visible homelessness so the increase in capacity by the city will put a massive dent. But we continue to need access to temporary and transitional housing so people can stay somewhere temporarily being able to get a good night's rest with support to find a new home or a new job without turning to drugs to numb the suffering that is living on the street.
Hamilton isn't in a unique situation and I find it interesting that Hamiltonians especially don't recall their own city from 20 years ago when half of James and the downtown was boarded up, buildings LITERALLY COLLAPSING, and major commercial strips were non-existent. Have a little hope in your city and work on the solutions, damn.
The people complaining about how bad it is, are almost never out there working to make a difference. Get involved, and when you meet some of the great people this crisis is happening to, you may gain a bit of empathy. Are there bad homeless people? Sure. But that's a people problem, not a homeless problem. There's shitty people everywhere.
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Homeless/druggies are not vermin and some of them may be the salt of the earth, but that is not really relevant when discussing this problem. Open air drug use might not be "diddling", but it is still not something that people want to be exposed to or have their children exposed to. These people do still commit crimes. They do steal. They do frighten women, children, men. They pee and poop where people should not pee and poop. They smell bad. They yell. They fight with one another. They stand in the middle of live traffic. They lie unconscious on the sidewalk. They are also far more likely to do some of the other "bad" things you mentioned than are people from the general population.
Even if you were to learn that all of these down-on-their-luckers have hearts of gold, they would still represent a problem. They make for an unpleasant/uncomfortable/potentially unsafe experience, whether you have sympathy/empathy for them or not.
And this particular problem may well be continent-wide, but it is still a major problem that just means that it is a shared major problem. And it is particularly visible/acute in Hamilton. And people can be concerned about the problem and/or turned off by it without being obligated to take individual action to try to help fix it. And they do unquestionably make for a more difficult business climate. And they do threaten the future vibrancy/prosperity of downtown Hamilton.
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