Condo buyers upset at antics around addictions-support facility

Once again we see that by enabling drug addicts and not properly treating the mentally handicapped all is working as it should.

In case anyone hasn't noticed. These wet housing units don't fekin work despite what their operators want you to believe. Perhaps we should be looking for alternatives to treat these people that doesn't involve ruining the lives of other productive members of society who are footing the bill.



If I did things like these poor downtrodden people and their dealers are doing my home would have been declared a nuisance property after about the 5rd visit.



How's that working out for the owners and taxpayers in those Condo's and likely the area?

What do you want to do, put all these people in jail? Otherwise you will have this problem.

It's more than treating the mentally ill, they need ongoing support, since our treatments are not very effective. It has been shown by pilot projects that providing housing with inhouse supports way cut down the problems these people had and caused. Unfortunately, your boy Harper cut the funding for these places, throwing them back out on the street.

I'm not sure how providing supportive living for addicts is a worse alternative than doing nothing. Again, unless you want to throw them all in jail, where they can get drugs no problem and cost a hell of a lot more.

The thing with the harm reduction approach is that it is not pretty. You recognize you will have addicts and try to reduce the harm they cause themselves and others. But it seems to be better than whatever else we come up with. Wishing there were no addicts/drugs in society won't make it so.

People are mad because the city isn't just concentrating all these place in the DTES, spreading it into tonier neigborhoods. But concentrating the problem all in one place doesn't seem like a good idea either.

I just haven't heard any good ideas how to actually solve this problem from anybody, left or right. The US approach isn't working for them, and even the right there is pushing to reduce the incarceration rates related to drugs, because it's expensive and hasn't been helpful. If we want to get as tough as China, we're going to have to change our whole approach to human rights - anybody want to live in China? So harm reduction seems like the only thing left to try. It will never get rid of the problem, just reduce it's impact a bit. Better these people are getting some support than them just bouncing around the city without any, seems to me.

What do you want to do, put all these people in jail? Otherwise you will have this problem.

It's more than treating the mentally ill, they need ongoing support, since our treatments are not very effective. It has been shown by pilot projects that providing housing with inhouse supports way cut down the problems these people had and caused. Unfortunately, your boy Harper cut the funding for these places, throwing them back out on the street.

I'm not sure how providing supportive living for addicts is a worse alternative than doing nothing. Again, unless you want to throw them all in jail, where they can get drugs no problem and cost a hell of a lot more.

The thing with the harm reduction approach is that it is not pretty. You recognize you will have addicts and try to reduce the harm they cause themselves and others. But it seems to be better than whatever else we come up with. Wishing there were no addicts/drugs in society won't make it so.

People are mad because the city isn't just concentrating all these place in the DTES, spreading it into tonier neigborhoods. But concentrating the problem all in one place doesn't seem like a good idea either.

I just haven't heard any good ideas how to actually solve this problem from anybody, left or right. The US approach isn't working for them, and even the right there is pushing to reduce the incarceration rates related to drugs, because it's expensive and hasn't been helpful. If we want to get as tough as China, we're going to have to change our whole approach to human rights - anybody want to live in China? So harm reduction seems like the only thing left to try. It will never get rid of the problem, just reduce it's impact a bit. Better these people are getting some support than them just bouncing around the city without any, seems to me.


Call it what you will but it's still a form of warehousing and it isn't working. The only thing it's doing is pissing off the taxpayers and homeowners who are suffering because of these poorly thought out decisions by their elected leaders.

You can put wet houses in more affluent neighbourhood but that doesn't mean the problems aren't going to exist and in reality all you're doing is stretching your police services to the limit trying to deal with the carnage that these supposedly well intentioned politicians have created.

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?

What do you want to do, put all these people in jail? Otherwise you will have this problem.

It's more than treating the mentally ill, they need ongoing support, since our treatments are not very effective. It has been shown by pilot projects that providing housing with inhouse supports way cut down the problems these people had and caused. Unfortunately, your boy Harper cut the funding for these places, throwing them back out on the street.

I'm not sure how providing supportive living for addicts is a worse alternative than doing nothing. Again, unless you want to throw them all in jail, where they can get drugs no problem and cost a hell of a lot more.

The thing with the harm reduction approach is that it is not pretty. You recognize you will have addicts and try to reduce the harm they cause themselves and others. But it seems to be better than whatever else we come up with. Wishing there were no addicts/drugs in society won't make it so.

People are mad because the city isn't just concentrating all these place in the DTES, spreading it into tonier neigborhoods. But concentrating the problem all in one place doesn't seem like a good idea either.

I just haven't heard any good ideas how to actually solve this problem from anybody, left or right. The US approach isn't working for them, and even the right there is pushing to reduce the incarceration rates related to drugs, because it's expensive and hasn't been helpful. If we want to get as tough as China, we're going to have to change our whole approach to human rights - anybody want to live in China? So harm reduction seems like the only thing left to try. It will never get rid of the problem, just reduce it's impact a bit. Better these people are getting some support than them just bouncing around the city without any, seems to me.

Curious to how welcoming to the idea you would be if you paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for your place only to have this place destroy your quality of life and your property value.

So what is the cutoff for what you pay where you don't have to be bothered by this anymore? Everybody in Vancouver pays hundreds of thousands of dollars for a condo - we have to put these places somewhere, and concentrating them in a ghetto is counter productive. Even the ghettos are continually being gentrified - so where to put these people? I know, let's move them to the suburbs, where property values are less. Let the nobodys that live there deal with these people, they didn't pay enough for their condo.

These facilities shouldn't be smack dab in the middle of a residential zone. This is a medical facility....or should be classified as such.

This warm and fuzzy approach of sticking hundreds of mentally ill people and drug users in 1 building that's not a hospital/clinic setting is an awful idea regardless of where it's located. It has to be monitored, secure and not disrupt the entire neighbourhood. Adding some rent-a-cop and security cameras is not the solution.

So you'd be fully supportive if one of these buildings was right beside you?

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.

Guess what, the medical facilities I know about are all in the middle of residential zones. Sure, hospitals are big enough to create a bit of space around themselves, but they're still next to where people live. Probably a bit of annoyance around them too with ambulances and such.

And, these are facilities. This is where people live, so of course they're not going to be in some industrial wasteland. It's the same with mental health care homes - nobody wants them in their neighborhood either. But those people too, need somewhere to live.

What facilities like this do is concentrate the problem in one spot, instead of having many dispersed problems. Overall, there are way less problems created by a facility like this than just allowing the people to bounce around the neighborhood, but because it makes the problems more visible people complain. Same deal with homeless shelters. Just closing them doesn't make the homeless disappear, it just seems that way.

I made that decision long ago. This is what my backyard looks like.

Thanks for dodging my question.

Medical facilities aren't a problem as they are highly controlled and the people are being treated for their problems 24/7. Growing up, I lived a block from a facility that held mentally ill men and it was very controlled with little problems.

That's far different than throwing a bunch of homeless people into a building with mental and drug problems with little support and security and thinking you've done a good job.

While I agree these people need somewhere to live and proper treatment, the problem isn't the idea of getting people off the streets and inside, it's how they've gone about it.

Wonderful news story FOG.. Thanks for the post.









Good to see people are doing something about homelessness.

I didn't dodge your question, I already stated I wouldn't be thrilled either, but that's the deal.

Mentally ill homes face the same discrimination from neighbors. We applied for rezoning for a property we wanted to turn into a mental long term care home, and were refused. But guess what, the people were already living there, (along with at risk youth and seniors) but since there was no funding for them except welfare, we were only able to provide food and basic housekeeping. Certainly not a better solution.

If you are arguing this building needs more support and treatment workers, that's great. Better no elect an anti-tax govt tho, because that takes a lot more money. We desperately need more facilities like that tho.

But, not everybody is willing to go into treatment, and we can't currently force them. So the need is still there for facilities like this, that reduce some of the harm to the residents and to everybody else. The reason it gets noticed is because it's concentrated, but the overall harm is less than doing nothing. If we want to go to forced treatment, that's another thing, probably have to re-write human rights legislation to do it tho.

The building, and the program are completely mis-managed. Properly programmed, staffed, and managed, this concept works very well. The tenants are expected to be working on their own recovery. Reaching out to become members of the community, giving back rather than 'taking from'.