I'd bet even per capita, Vancouver has a much bigger homeless issue than us, and way more drugs.
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Originally Posted by esquire
Revitalization was a major selling point at the time. Obviously that isn't the WRHA's mandate, but the rhetoric coming from the provincial government played that angle up. If it had only been about services to the local community, a much smaller facility (without offices and the huge parkade) would have sufficed.
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The WRHA did kind of make it their mandate though – they were planning to include ground floor CRUs that likely would have kept some of the momentum going. Then in classing Winnipeg fashion, they dropped them at the final hour. It's bad when the government allows private corps to do it, even worse when they do it themselves.
What happened on north Main, with most of the blame going to CV, is exactly what has happened anytime a megaproject has been thought to be the end-all of a problem (look at Portage Place). What was making the Main Street revitalization happen organically was the availability of small, cheap, pedestrian-friendly storefronts. Then the WRHA and United Way went and wiped all that out, replacing it with suburban fortresses.
United Way and WRHA actually made the conditions worse for the most vulnerable people they claim to be serving. If they didn't come and put all progress to a halt, we may have a completely different north Main now, one that gives opportunity to many of the less fortunate that live around there, in shelters or on the street.
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