[andyt]

The article doesn't say, but this may be a "wet" or low barrier housing for people who won't work on their recovery. This is way different than what the Sally Ann or Gospel City Mission do for instance. These places are needed too - see Curt's videos about the housing first concept.

It's not a rehab/recovery house:

$1:

The project was funded under the Provincial Homelessness Initiative (PHI) program which provides a continuum of housing and appropriate social and health support services to help people break the cycle of homelessness. It contributes positively to the diversity of the surrounding new and growing South East False Creek neighbourhood.

The project provides 147 units of housing to help people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness move beyond temporary shelter to more secure housing, gain greater self-reliance and achieve appropriate employment. Support services for the project are provided by RainCity Housing and Support Society.

Again, if you think they should be giving more support, support your provincial government to spend more money on this sort of thing.


The location is the issue. This is prime real estate, so actually I think it was a mistake to build this here. Not because I have so much empathy for the well offs living around the site, why should they be immune from the scourge we're dealing with? But because they could have got way more bang for the buck at a lower cost site. This was city land, so they could sell this to a developer, take that money and build somewhere cheaper. I say out in the suburbs where land is cheap. Right next to OTI's house.

[Benn]

Lemmy Lemmy:

If you don't want shit like this beside your home, don't live in a city. If you choose to live in a city, you choose to have city problems in your neighbourhood. There's an easy way to have NIMBY...go somewhere where there's nothing in your backyard.

Exactly. I don't see why how much you pay for your home (=income level in most cases) means you more, or less, deserve to avoid these places. So it is ok for a family struggling to stay middle class to have this building next to them but someone who is upper middle class should not have to deal with it?

As someone else said, at least a lot of them are there to deal with their problems. Here in Winnipeg, Manitoba housing has a policy to spread out subsidized housing across the city and many people using them have drinking and drug problems but are under no obligation to deal with them. And yes do have a housing complex in my area as well as a centre for at risk youth and don't really care.

[RNG]

When I lived in Calgary it really pissed me off when people would buy a new house built near the airport then bitch about the noise. It's a lot different if you buy a house in a quiet neighbourhood and then they build something like an airport or even this. Not the same thing.

[andyt]

This place was built concurrent with the other condos, so due diligence would have let people know what`s being planned. In fact I recall it was all in the news when it was built, because of the expensive land it sits on. While I agree with dispersing these sorts of places, building them on prime real estate just seems like a waste - they could build a lot more for the same price on cheaper land.

[Freakinoldguy]

andyt andyt:

What's your solution? Are you seriously asserting that wet houses cause more police problems than just leaving the alkies to their own devices, when all experience proves the exact opposite?

There is certainly an argument to be had about putting these places in more affluent neighborhoods. But the people for it have some very good arguments, the people against are basically just NIMBIs. That said, I wouldn't be thrilled living next to one of these places either.

The status quo it not working well. Do you have any solution or suggestion to doing something different besides "we can't know with 100% certainty it will work" and "it's not a perfect solution?" Isn't better good enough?

Since these people would carry out their actions no matter where they were housed it only stands to reason that there are the same number of instances it's just that with wet houses being placed in residential areas all over the city those police resources are now spread out.

LOL Sure I have ideas but alot of people won't like them.

Mandatory rehab and yes I know you can't make an addict stop unless they want to but it's worth a shot even if we get a few off drugs it's a win for us. It's just like the people who claim giving needles to addicts is a win for society because it give the addicts options for getting help and keeps them from getting sick. Same thing for mandatory rehab the only difference would be that you have to be arrested for a crime before you obliged to take the treatment and upon completion of treatment you'll be given a place to live in a dry house and have the support needed to stand a good chance of not being a relapse.


How about getting the Gov't to reopen the institutions that they closed so the most mentally challenged have a safe place to live, be monitored and receive treatment since what we're doing now sure isn't working. The only difference this time is that we make the Gov't monitor them so they don't become warehouses to dump peoples problems.

These things may or may not work but they'll never be put into place since it's easier and far less expensive to build wet houses all over the are and spread the problem out so it doesn't look so bad for the city.

So, under the guise of caring the out of site out of mind policy seems to have become the new byword.

[Freakinoldguy]

andyt andyt:

This place was built concurrent with the other condos, so due diligence would have let people know what`s being planned. In fact I recall it was all in the news when it was built, because of the expensive land it sits on. While I agree with dispersing these sorts of places, building them on prime real estate just seems like a waste - they could build a lot more for the same price on cheaper land.

Can you say In Camera Council Meetings. Sorry but over here they're building 2 new crack houses and the Province and City didn't even have the balls to tell the residents of the area until the MLA was blowing his own horn and let it slip. So I suppose the residents who already lived there and weren't informed are just a bunch of NIMBY's whose concerns should be ignored for the greater good?


The only question I have is why do you think it's better to spread the misery around? It seems like the prostitution problem where it's much easier to move the problems around rather than deal with it and besides it cleans up the downtown for tourists which makes the mayor look like he's doing something about crime and homelessness when the reality is something totally different.

BTW I'm not against supportive housing in residential areas I'm against drug houses being run by the Gov't in residential areas.

[andyt]

The residents didn't already live there, that's what the term concurrently means. This was publicized before the places were ever built.

As for your solutions - it's been proven that providing this sort of support is far better than doing nothing and costs the health and justice systems far less. But as I said, doing more would be great - time to pressure your pols to do so. Probably have to raise taxes to do it tho.

[Freakinoldguy]

andyt andyt:

The residents didn't already live there, that's what the term concurrently means. This was publicized before the places were ever built.

As for your solutions - it's been proven that providing this sort of support is far better than doing nothing and costs the health and justice systems far less. But as I said, doing more would be great - time to pressure your pols to do so. Probably have to raise taxes to do it tho.

I don't think we'd have to raise taxes. The cost of reduced police services and health services should almost cover the costs. But like I said, I doubt it'll happen since there are alot of people politicians and police included using these peoples misery as a cover to keep their iron rice bowl topped up.

[andyt]

That's true, on boths sides of the spectrum. The political problem is that it would take lots of upfront money, ie raise taxes or run a deficit. The voters vote you out next election, and the next party gets the benefits of the lower police and especially health costs.