Downtown Eastside - DTES Issues

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

The Portuguese are culturally more family-oriented, and being a smaller country, have more cohesive families or relatives, and the attention of government, being close by. Even they are having a hard time controlling drugs, although the signs are improving. We are an individualistic society where one can get lost in this vast country, away from friends and relatives, and where the rights of individuals trumps over the society as a whole, or at least increasingly so. These facts alone will make the free choice of taking drugs turn us into a madhouse. And we keep letting this happen, which is why DTES, Granville Street and large parts of the city and province are getting worse now.

The differences aren't so great - except Portugal's death rate from overdoses is 1/10 that of BC. Portugal decriminalized possession of drugs for personal use over 20 years ago, and introduced supportive treatment services.

Portugal still has an estimated 33,000 high risk opioid users [source] in a population of 10 million and had 307 overdose deaths in 2018.

British Columbia has half the population (5 million), an estimated 15-23,000 fentanyl users (90% of illicit drugs in BC contain fentanyl) [source] and saw 1,500+ deaths from overdoses in 2018.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by Changing City

The differences aren't so great - except Portugal's death rate from overdoses is 1/10 that of BC. Portugal decriminalized possession of drugs for personal use over 20 years ago, and introduced supportive treatment services.

Portugal still has an estimated 33,000 high risk opioid users [source] in a population of 10 million and had 307 overdose deaths in 2018.

British Columbia has half the population (5 million), an estimated 15-23,000 fentanyl users (90% of illicit drugs in BC contain fentanyl) [source] and saw 1,500+ deaths from overdoses in 2018.

Plenty of articles written on how the Portuguese system is very different.

Portuguese system gets distilled to "legalized supply," what it really is a stern and committed approach to maintain the 4 pillars.

The safe supply wont work in Vancouver, and anyone using Portugal as an example of why it would is being very disingenuous about how Portugal actually handles addiction.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jlousa

It's going to take a multi faceted approach and yes likely locking certain people up, hospitalizing some and actively encouraging others to move somewhere else along with the services they require post rehab.

As others have said, nobody wants to pay for this. It's hella expensive.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by rofina

Plenty of articles written on how the Portuguese system is very different.

Portuguese system gets distilled to "legalized supply," what it really is a stern and committed approach to maintain the 4 pillars.

The safe supply wont work in Vancouver, and anyone using Portugal as an example of why it would is being very disingenuous about how Portugal actually handles addiction.

It is a very different system. The numbers I posted suggest it's a much more successful system. I haven't seen anybody suggest that Portugal has a legalized supply of drugs. They don't, but they decrimilalized possession for personal use, which Canada could do too. They also have more comprehensive treatment options than we do. They also still have a large number of high risk opiate users, so their system doesn't necessarily elimiate drug taking, but the consequences seem to be less harmful.

Moving to offer a safe supply is a response to how unsafe the supply is here. It might reduce some crime, related to getting funds to buy unsafe drugs. It won't necessarily reduce many of the high numbers of overdose deaths we see in BC, as most of those occur at home, outside the DTES, among people using alone. Decriminalization might help remove the fear and stigma that leads to users dying in those circumstances.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

As others have said, nobody wants to pay for this. It's hella expensive.

I will be willing to pay for better rehab (cold turkey ) centres, as well as hard labour centres for criminals. Who knows, perhaps the latter can even turn a profit for BC!

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Vin

I will be willing to pay for better rehab (cold turkey ) centres, as well as hard labour centres for criminals. Who knows, perhaps the latter can even turn a profit for BC!

You ok with PST at 15%?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

You ok with PST at 15%?

If we're paying that much in sales taxes, we better be getting a Hastings-North Shore, Willingdon AND King George SkyTrain instead of a bunch of stupid concentration camps.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

If we're paying that much in sales taxes, we better be getting a Hastings-North Shore, Willingdon AND King George SkyTrain instead of a bunch of stupid concentration camps.

The labour camps are doable, the treatment from trained medical professionals and doctors is the expensive part.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

You ok with PST at 15%?

Or... hear me out.

Stop spending money on all the programs that keep people in poverty, instead reprioritize the spending on actual rehab programs and facilities for those who need help.

For those that don't want to go into rehab and clean themselves up, thats a choice also. Stop subsidizing their lifestyle. Broken law means a prison sentence. If its not safe to lock them up due to usage issues that sounds like mandatory rehab before incarceration.

Help the people that want and need help. Stop wasting resources on the others.

The active spend on the DTES, daily, was over a million a day a decade ago.

Assuming that hasn't changed, that's a billion every 3 years.

6 years of spending pays for the most luxurious 2 billion dollar facility imaginable and the staff to run it for a half decade.

[jlousa]

I believe Canadians don't mind paying taxes for things they can see the results of, educations, healthcare, public transit etc. The complaints come in where they don't see results from their taxdollars. Seeing what is it now? $1.5M/day pumped into the dtes and not seeing improvements is what irks them. There is probably enough in that existing pile to be redistributed to more rehab/detox. Even if we had to jump that number to $2M/day for the next couple of years while we worked thru backlogs and we saw marked improvements I think most Canadians would be in favour. It's the more of the same that can't continue

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by jlousa

I believe Canadians don't mind paying taxes for things they can see the results of, educations, healthcare, public transit etc. The complaints come in where they don't see results from their taxdollars. Seeing what is it now? $1.5M/day pumped into the dtes and not seeing improvements is what irks them. There is probably enough in that existing pile to be redistributed to more rehab/detox. Even if we had to jump that number to $2M/day for the next couple of years while we worked thru backlogs and we saw marked improvements I think most Canadians would be in favour. It's the more of the same that can't continue

Sure everybody uses that big number to say "we could do better". Easier said than done. It costs ~$100k/year to house somebody in a jail. Maybe more. No doubt it would be the same or higher for a rehab facility.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

If we're paying that much in sales taxes, we better be getting a Hastings-North Shore, Willingdon AND King George SkyTrain instead of a bunch of stupid concentration camps.

Worried? Every drug-peddling criminal is a potential man-slaughterer, and they all have a special place to go to in order to repay their debt to society. If you're not involved with man-slaughtering crimes, you have nothing to worry about.

Don't call those places concentration camps, because those were used to gas Jews by the Nazis, which we are not advocating.

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

Worried? Every drug-peddling criminal is a potential man-slaughterer, and they all have a special place to go to in order to repay their debt to society. If you're not involved with man-slaughtering crimes, you have nothing to worry about.

Worried about what? The forum's pointed out multiple times that camps are expensive and the War on Drugs doesn't work. Much better to spend that much tax money on the 99% of Vancouverites that aren't animals.

Originally Posted by Vin

Don't call those places concentration camps, because those were used to gas Jews by the Nazis, which we are not advocating.

Why do you always need to bring up the Nazis? Concentration camps have been around before and after the Holocaust; the word also applies to Xinjiang, Gitmo, North Korea, Chechnya's gay prisons, the Carrot-in-Chief's detainment facilities... oh yeah, and that one time BC treated its own Japanese citizens as enemy spies. We're not doing that again - Riverview's right here.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Sure everybody uses that big number to say "we could do better". Easier said than done. It costs ~$100k/year to house somebody in a jail. Maybe more. No doubt it would be the same or higher for a rehab facility.

Not a personal attack on you, but you are repeating some pretty tired and frankly disappointed tropes that are so pervasive in Vancouver culture.

1. We could do better = easier said than done. Do you have relatives that live out of town, preferably out of country? Next time they are over, drive them through the DTES and ask them what they think. Outsiders are flabbergasted at the sheer immensity of the f*ck up we have allowed to fester. They are also amazed at out inability to deal with it. 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.

2. Jlousa already said this, but Ill gladly take another 5% PST if it means the money is earmarked and goes specifically to make the DTES problem go away. Not to general revenue, not to pet projects. I don't want non profits being given a penny, and I want all the housing societies and charities dismantled. The non profits make a mockery of poverty; I been invited and contributed to one too many dinners thrown by these folk. I know who many of them are, and I know they wont be solving anything in this City.

3. Yes - this wont be cheap, definitely costly. But considering the amount of land and building the City owns, and considering the state they are in, considering the actual possibility to clean up and sell off these properties to developers, there's funding for this. Easily. The DTES with its waterfront, character, and proximity to DT could easily be the best part of town if cleaned up and looked after. Capitalize on that to fund the clean up and medical facilities for these people.

4. Lastly, I have a little bit of first hand experience dealing with the folks who run a lot of these facilities and organizations. They wont fix this. Its not in their mandate to fix this. Everything you see implemented today is harm reduction at best if were being generous. Its designed to perpetuate the state of things, that's the guaranteed outcome.

Its super depressing talking to Vancouverities about this because the whole thing has become so normalized and accepted. There is a culture of non questioning and once questions the same tropes come back, "its complicated."

Not really. It will just take upsetting some people and probably a one term government to do it. Hopefully someone steps up and takes care of it before it consumes us.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Worried about what? The forum's pointed out multiple times that camps are expensive and the War on Drugs doesn't work. Much better to spend that much tax money on the 99% of Vancouverites that aren't animals.



Why do you always need to bring up the Nazis? Concentration camps have been around before and after the Holocaust; the word also applies to Xinjiang, Gitmo, North Korea, Chechnya's gay prisons, the Carrot-in-Chief's detainment facilities... oh yeah, and that one time BC treated its own Japanese citizens as enemy spies. We're not doing that again - Riverview's right here.

Well, people just throw stuff on the forum. When they say camps are expensive, you buy that because it's already deep in your believe system. I've never seen anyone attempting to show proof about this. All I know is that our current system doesn't work, full stop.

You do acknowledge that our system is failing by bringing up Riverview. That's right on. The closure of Riverview made the situation here worse. And by the way, Riverview isn't a concentration camp either.

[Vin]

Guess what guys, the guy who stabbed the security guard multiple times was arrested in the DTES. Another proof that most of the problems found downtown originate from there.

https://www.citynews1130.com/2021/07...bbed-west-end/

Such a person should be working in a hard labour camp.

[GenWhy?]

Where would all the people go that live in homes in the DTES go if non-profits don't run housing / they are dismantled, and gentrification is given a boost?

[Migrant_Coconut]

Originally Posted by Vin

Well, people just throw stuff on the forum. When they say camps are expensive, you buy that because it's already deep in your believe system. I've never seen anyone attempting to show proof about this. All I know is that our current system doesn't work, full stop.

You do acknowledge that our system is failing by bringing up Riverview. That's right on. The closure of Riverview made the situation here worse. And by the way, Riverview isn't a concentration camp either.

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.

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

Where would all the people go that live in homes in the DTES go if non-profits don't run housing / they are dismantled, and gentrification is given a boost?

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.

[SpongeG]

this video is inside the story following

• Video Link

Dan Fumano: First look at Downtown Eastside’s Army & Navy property development
Analysis: Cohen and Bosa, scions of Vancouver business empires, have high hopes and lofty ambitions for Downtown Eastside development. But they also expect scrutiny and criticism

Author of the article: Dan Fumano
Publishing date: Jul 19, 2021


Army & Navy CEO Jacqui Cohen with Bosa chief executive Colin Bosa as they discuss plans for the redevelopment of the historic Downtown Eastside Army & Navy property in Vancouver. PHOTO BY NICK PROCAYLO /PNG

...

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-...ty-development