Downtown Eastside - DTES Issues

[djmk]

Originally Posted by Vin

Stamping vehicle license plates would be a good start. Painting municipal fire hydrants, creating road signs, environmental clean-ups, etc. etc. Much can be done through the prison system.



More work = more food (otherwise you only get boiled broccoli for meals).

More work = more gym time.

More work = more TV time.

More work = early parole.

Perhaps that would motivate the inmates to wok harder? Instead on harping on how prison fails and is very expensive, maybe a cleverer society can reinvent the prison system on how to motivate people to be more productive.

I find Vin's post on productivity hilarious. How much time do you spend on the internet making unproductive posts? More boiled broccoli for you Vin!

[GenWhy?]

I see we're back to putting drug addicted humans in gulags.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

I see we're back to putting drug addicted humans in gulags.

I have no idea how the conversation always devolves down to this. But its sadly rather typical.

That said.

The current condition for street folk on the DTES are not better than gulags.

We just like to feel better about "freedom's."

Were killing people just the same.

You and I are to blame for allowing it to happen, along with every other poster in this thread.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

If they can't sit in a library or a restaurant without random screaming and violence, they definitely won't produce license plates that can actually be used by the public. And if they were motivated by those kinds of motives, then logically they wouldn't be problem cases to begin with and could be rehabbed.

Doesn't matter how little you feed the inmates when the expensive part ($78k of $110k, to be precise), is paying people to live in the middle of nowhere and guard criminals. Actual professionals on the subject are already trying... to do what we're doing. None of their solutions involve what's effectively slave labour, and none of them are asking opinions from a Karen with zero knowledge of the actual subject, only its symptoms.

Are all inmates always screaming and "full of violence"? So I suppose you don't feel anyone could be rehabbed.


I suppose releasing them to rot in the streets makes hard-core addicts and drug-related criminals "better people" and fianancially more beneficial to society then?

I don't get your logic here.

Originally Posted by djmk

I find Vin's post on productivity hilarious. How much time do you spend on the internet making unproductive posts? More boiled broccoli for you Vin!

Everyone deserves a little break, like what you are doing now.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

Are all inmates always screaming and "full of violence"? So I suppose you don't feel anyone could be rehabbed.

I suppose releasing them to rot in the streets makes hard-core addicts and drug-related criminals "better people" and fianancially more beneficial to society then?

I don't get your logic here.

Explain your logic. You're the one always posting sensationalist headlines about assaults; if those weren't "full of violence," then you wouldn't be suggesting gulags for them.

Originally Posted by rofina

I have no idea how the conversation always devolves down to this. But its sadly rather typical.

Oh, I'm sure we can guess...

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Explain your logic. You're the one always posting sensationalist headlines about assaults; if those weren't "full of violence," then you wouldn't be suggesting gulags for them.



Oh, I'm sure we can guess...

To explain my logic: some people need discipline. It's a work camp, not a gulag. Huge difference!

And your solution for street lawlessness and violence is?

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

To explain my logic: some people need discipline. It's a work camp, not a gulag. Huge difference!

One of us is very confused. A gulag was 'a forced labour camp'. That's the defintion of a gulag. Your idea is that people are forced to be in these 'camps', they're not voluntary? And once there, they're forced to work. It's not an option, is it? In what way is there a difference?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

To explain my logic: some people need discipline. It's a work camp, not a gulag. Huge difference!

And your solution for street lawlessness and violence is?

If you want a prison that has lower conditions than minimum security, and where the prisoners are forced to make things, then there's no difference at all. What do you think the Soviets called the gulags? That's right: "corrective labour camps."

More shelters. More detox sites. Reopen Riverview, this time not as a lunatic asylum. Nothing that requires twice the $$$ per person that we're already spending.

[officedweller]

Construction begins on Downtown Eastside's largest social housing project ever
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/58-w...coastal-health


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/58-w...coastal-health


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/58-w...coastal-health

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Construction begins on Downtown Eastside's largest social housing project ever
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/58-w...coastal-health

A few details from the article:

There will be 231 units for individuals experiencing homelessness and low-income families within the upper seven levels, including 120 supportive housing units.

A total of 181 units will have rents averaging at $563 per month, which is equivalent to 41.5% of the median market rent. The remaining 50 units will still be below-market at about $1,080 per month.

I have a feeling a lot of homeless people won't be able to afford that...

Additionally, over the first two floors, the building will have a new 48,500 sq ft integrated health centre developed and operated by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH). It will offer health services and provide easy access to the unique needs of neighbourhood residents, including those in need of specialized mental health and addictions treatment.

That'll get a lot of use.

Just across the street at the northeast corner of Abbott Street and West Hastings Street, the surface parking lot will be redeveloped by Holborn Group into a 10-storey building with 132 market rental homes and 6,000 sq ft of retail and restaurant space. Vancouver City Council approved this project in 2018.

Bosa Properties and the Cohen family recently made public their plans to redevelop the large former Army & Navy site. Early concepts for this redevelopment include rental-only housing, office and retail spaces, and public spaces.

I can almost hear people yelling 'gentrification!' already.

[jollyburger]

I wonder where they're going to move that "market".

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Sheba

I have a feeling a lot of homeless people won't be able to afford that...

No, but people who're about to be homeless, might. Always good to nip these things in the bud.

[Conrad Yablonski]

Late to this party but FWIW modern forest firefighting is done by well paid trained staff not conscripts-not can it be done by conscripts I say this as a high school kid who was drafted to fight a fire and almost lost my life 3 times in 7 days.

That was ages ago firefighting is much more organised and 'down 'n outers' would never be welcomed or even considered.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

I wonder where they're going to move that "market".

It has been operating for a while at a site next to Pigeon Park Savings, a block further east. That market location is also soon to be redeveloped as non-market housing, so a replacement site has been created by demolishing the abandoned Con Jones building on the same block (originally built as a billiards hall, then The Only Cafe, and closed in 2009). No doubt that site will get redeveloped, possibly with the BC Housing building next door to the east.

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by FarmerHaight

As for the idea of work camps, what unskilled manual labor would be performed? I don't think work camps would be all that more affordable than the status quo, more likely a number of unprofitable make-work projects would need to be imagined. And that is before considering the optics and humanity of these "camps".

Interestingly this came up in an article recently covering PM Boris Johnson's new plan to deal with more petty criminals. The usual corners strongly oppose it as dystopian and targeting minorities.

Among the proposals, designed to relaunch the prime minister’s domestic agenda, was a pledge that offenders doing community service will wear hi-vis clothing as they clear canals or clean graffiti. The plan will also trial the use of alcohol tags, which detect alcohol in the sweat of offenders guilty of drink-fuelled crime, on prison leavers in Wales.

“If you are guilty of antisocial behaviour and you are sentenced to unpaid work, as many people are, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t be out there in one of those fluorescent-jacketed chain gangs visibly paying your debt to society. So you are going to be seeing more of that as well,” Johnson told reporters.

...

Human rights groups including Liberty and criminal justice NGO Fair Trials said the powers were “discriminatory” and “repeatedly lead to the racist profiling of Black and other racially minoritised ethnic groups”.

Johnson, a long-time proponent of the tactic since his time as mayor of London, said he disagreed.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-of-crime-plan

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

One of us is very confused. A gulag was 'a forced labour camp'. That's the defintion of a gulag. Your idea is that people are forced to be in these 'camps', they're not voluntary? And once there, they're forced to work. It's not an option, is it? In what way is there a difference?

As usual, wrong again:

"The Gulag was a system of forced labor camps established during Joseph Stalin's long reign as dictator of the Soviet Union"

There were often tortures and murders in these camps by authorities, as there were many WW2 German soldier inmates as well as political prisoners.

Huge Difference!

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

If you want a prison that has lower conditions than minimum security, and where the prisoners are forced to make things, then there's no difference at all. What do you think the Soviets called the gulags? That's right: "corrective labour camps."

More shelters. More detox sites. Reopen Riverview, this time not as a lunatic asylum. Nothing that requires twice the $$$ per person that we're already spending.

Funny, but if you think these people won't be productive at working camps, what makes you think they can improve at the shelters, detox sites, etc.? For me, they all come hand-in hand. I believe that people can be cleaned up at detox centres, and the ones who commit crimes should spend time detoxing as well as contributing back to society via working in camps after they get better instead of being bitter in regular prisons or even set free to rot on the streets once again.

Originally Posted by MIPS

Interestingly this came up in an article recently covering PM Boris Johnson's new plan to deal with more petty criminals. The usual corners strongly oppose it as dystopian and targeting minorities.

Like here, those are only pretend bleeding hearts devoid or bankrupt of solutions intent on opposing anything that can help solve the crisis. Well at least in the UK there are no neighbourhoods that even remotely resemble the extents of the decay at the DTES or Granville Street. And yet they enforce their laws so well, and are always intent on improving them.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

It has been operating for a while at a site next to Pigeon Park Savings, a block further east. That market location is also soon to be redeveloped as non-market housing, so a replacement site has been created by demolishing the abandoned Con Jones building on the same block (originally built as a billiards hall, then The Only Cafe, and closed in 2009). No doubt that site will get redeveloped, possibly with the BC Housing building next door to the east.

Legit businesses pay hefty rents and businesses taxes to the City, risk thier stores vandalized or broken into, and close due to the pandemic, while at the same time drug addicts, petty traders and even criminals are allowed to sell stolen goods, break Covid measures and flout every street by-law imaginable, etc. on the streets of DTES. Yet City of Vancouver takes no actions to shut these markets down. So much for a "world class" city.

Those who approve or even tolerate this brokenness says how far Vancouverites have become immune to it. Only people who are genuinely shocked and walk away wide-eyed are the occasional tourists who venture too far from the boundaries of Chinatown and Gastown, and stumble upon such horrors only this city can tolerate.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Construction begins on Downtown Eastside's largest social housing project ever
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/58-w...coastal-health


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/58-w...coastal-health


https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/58-w...coastal-health

10 years of consultation, planning and review! Oh my God.

I suppose even if a new one were to be proposed today, it will be another decade, and plus another 4 years to get it built?

[GenWhy?]

I think they formally applied for rezoning in 2017 and just now got funding. I think it was bloody ten years ago by now that the City offered up the land maybe? Before my time here.

Standard biggest hold back for these is the funding from design all the way up to construction finance and then of course operations. Lots of hoops with 3 tiers of government.

[GenWhy?]

I think today, if the money was in place already, it might take 4 years to go through rezoning and maybe completed construction. I think the SHORT program is fairly decent from what I've interacted with it in a minor way.