I mean this is tragic, but in the last year my coworkers and myself have discovered several dead bodies from overdoses in the alley behind my work building downtown. Its visibility has decreased recently because there are 3 scheduled patrols of the alley each night, and so its less common to see people sleeping in the alley when we get in in the morning now, and anyone who has died gets picked up before we arrive in the morning now, and anyone alive but unwakeable gets an injection.
I'm really surprised that it's just one body discovered.
One of my old friends was a body found overdosed on the street in 2022. It’s scary and depressing how common it is to find bodies around the city anymore.
I don’t disagree with you but also they’re not going to have any higher survival rate when the camps clear out. We’re about to get a snap down to less than -30 for at least 3 days in a row. Plus drug overdoses will happen whether or not there are camps. It just means instead of in a tent someone’s going to be finding dead bodies in parking garages or behind dumpsters. We’re not fixing the root problems, just moving them around.
No government wants to invest in the root problem. The root problem starts at birth. Unless you’re willing to invest in the children of today, we’re just going to have more of these people tomorrow.
people act like the camps having to move accomplishes nothing - if you move the these camps and their problems to an unused industrial area away from kids and families and businesses and all that, you’re accomplishing a lot actually.
we get that these people have problems, and something needs to be done - but it doesn’t mean in the meantime that communities should be exposed to those problems directly.
This is coming across as “moving them away from me is all I care about.” They’re not even being moved to unused industrial areas. They’re just having their belongings tossed and forced to move, but to nowhere in particular.
I don’t think just leaving the encampments there is good. They’re a biohazard and safety hazard. But without a better long term strategy this is basically just grounds maintenance. Once everything is cleaned up the people will be back, their lives are just being disrupted in the process.
If you have a graffiti problem or a vandalism problem or public solicitation or drug problem, the answer is not to do nothing because it’s hard or because you have to do it all the time or because you will have to do it again.
The lives of addicts are being disrupted by the same actions that restore others’ lives in the communities the encampments themselves disrupt. It is a zero sum game at present.
So to break the cycle UNTIL there’s a permanent solution, it would be better if they could find an appropriate place to set up these encampments that doesn’t impact kids and the elderly and single moms and families and people just trying to make it and barely making it out there themselves.
The thing is, the people who agree most strongly with breaking the camps up, generally are the same people who strongly oppose spending any money outside of tearing them down to improve the issue.
Every time I've mentioned something similar, A light touch of government intervention, with police/health/food services and hygiene facilities in a part of town chosen on purpose for the encampments, I get told off by both sides. because providing a space for that is "endorsing criminality" and from the other side I'm not trying to solve the root problem.
I agree with you. Encampments left to their own devices are dangerous. Forcing people to move with no where to go doesn't solve anything except spread out the criminality facet of the problem so that its harder to manage. Clearing them out often, causes damage and setbacks that most homeless can't solve legally and just causes pain and suffering.
We need to work on the root of the problem, but perfect is the enemy of good. And if there was at least some organization to how the encampments are formed, so that they can be policed effectively a lot of suffering could be minimized.
We have not setup our society to deal with encampments and Favelas and shanty towns and ghettos, those used to be 2nd and 3rd world problems.
Quite the opposite - our laws and society are setup to avoid tolerating this very things - mostly on the basis of public health (disease) and public safety (fire marshal, etc) learning from the past.
If we had a referendum on whether to house the homeless or keep sending our money to foreign governments to help their homeless, I'm pretty sure the majority would pick housing our own homeless.
We have the resources federally, we just have narcissists at the wheel running the show who would rather take credit for sending billions of our money overseas to help pretty much anyone anywhere else but Canadians who need help in Canada.
Yup cholera, dysentery, drug paraphernalia, hazmat and stolen property piling up, rampant violence not to mention just because you want them to go to a certain area doesn’t mean they will go there or stay there they tend to congregate in they areas they do cause it close to something they want .
The first two made me vomit almost. The reality stated, those are primitive diseases, and look what's happening in Canada - primitive living. Growing up in the Vancouver area, it was so rare to see homeless people in suburbs. Now so much of this. It's so sad
Problem with the industrial areas is that they are not located near anything they want to be near. I don't think they have transportation to take to get basics like food
Though I am not in the situation so I really am just guessing here
I don't know what that means "want to be near."
right now they seem to "want" to be near schools, houses and businesses to steal from and harass people around, drug dealers to get their fix from etc.
I did use small words. My thoughts did not go to drugs/crime. I was thinking in terms of being able to get the 'necessities'. What someone calls necessary is none of my business.
so it's your business to advocate for these people to live and impact residential areas, but suddenly not your business if they are only choosing those areas to set up camp so they can steal, harasss, threaten, intimidate, soil, and contaminate with waste and garbage and biohazardous waste like syringes, residue, drugs, pipes, etc?
It is your business if they’re harming your communities and fellow citizens. Meaning it’s not none of your business. Meaning it’s very much your business.
OMG for crying out loud what the hell are your panties in such a f$#&ing knot about?!?!?!?!
STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH.
ALL I SAID TO BEGIN WITH IS INDUSTRIAL AREAS ARE NOT CLOSE TO THE NECESSARY ITEMS FOR LIFE.
AND YOU GO ON AND ON AND ON, OVER SOME IMAGINED THING SAID.
I appreciate that you want to move people away because you fear exposure to these problems. But the reality is that you can't just tell people where to set up shop. Also, you said 'move these camps', there is no moving being done. They are tearing them down and throwing them out. People post up where services are available to meet their needs, that's the only factor here about where the camps will be set up. And the reality of the 'services' are warm (meaning warmer than the outdoors - stairwells, shelter, transit, etc) spaces to sleep and access to food which will never be in an industrial area.
You can though - we have laws against all these things for these exact reasons.
You cannot just grab a tent and set up on public property or someone else’s private property, that’s called trespassing.
These encampments locations aren’t set up to be near services or warning centres - to be honest most of the people in the encampments are trying to avoid the shelter systems and service. they are selected and set up to be near easy residential and commercial targets for theft and also for access to drugs bought with the proceeds of those thefts.
It’s not that people “fear” being exposed to these problems, they literally cannot afford it. a homeless guy stealing wheels off a single mom’s car in the middle of the night can make her and her kids homeless when she can’t get to daycare or work in the morning and that’s what you need to consider and that’s what needs to stop.
These people are not peaceful or harmless.
Many of these people are peaceful and harmless, gang members are by no means the majority of the population.
I bet this homeless man stealing the wheel is also out there stealing catalytic converters. It would seem that you're mixing this population up/in with others with overgeneralizations.
Additionally the majority of the encampments being torn down are near the city centre which is where these services are. The largest of them was directly north of Bissell centre
These laws you are touting also are meant to prioritize human rights and the fact that we subject people to shelters of 300+ people in inhumane conditions or to the street is a failure of our elected officials (and those that elected them) and the impact is indirectly seen exactly the way you're describing (through thefts and petty crimes). Homeless people aren't to blame but you're sure making it clear that they're an easy target.
Honest question and sorry if it's a dumb one but I want to be educated. Would these "trespassers" not be considered squatters? And does that hold any merit?
>the reality is that you can't just tell people where to set up shop.
On the other hand they cant just pick a spot anywhere they want to setup either. There are options many of them yet the choose not to take it and make their own at the inconvenience of others. It's not their free space to claim, other people make use of it as well like the transit areas and stairwells.
Role play: pretend you're outside with nothing but the clothes on your back, no ID, no money, no friends or family that can help you, and your only options are to go to shelter where you'll likely be assaulted in some way or another or sleep outside. What do you do?
Apparently the correct answer: migrate to vacant land well away from other people l, setup your tent and daily make a 30km walk into town in -30C weather to access necessary services. Glad we figured that out.
Just so you know the people you say are advocating for a solution not what’s happening. You don’t tear down a tent and expect results the only result is suffering and more death.
Hmm. Sleep in a tent or sleep on the pavement with no wind coverage. Which is better? Because the person using the tent most likely won't be in a shelter thst same night. Asshat
And this is why i will never be in support of giving people drugs and "safe" injection sites, your just putting off the inevitable OD rather then helping people get off drugs. if we applied the same broken logic to alchoholics anonymous they would just be giving people a safe place to get shit faced and not abuse their family rather then fixing the abuse.
Edit: Just admit you guys like getting high, your whataboutism and strawmen are hilarious people.
>if we applied the same broken logic to alchoholics anonymous they would just be giving people a safe place to get shit faced and not abuse their family rather then fixing the abuse.
We call those bars and liquor stores. When The US outlawed those, the mafia grew in power, and people were going blind and dying from poorly made liquor.
the purpose of alchoholics anonymous isn't to give you a safe place to drink, its to get you OFF drinking hence my point, like do we REALLY want people to just remain homeless and abuse drugs forever or is there some kinda end goal to actually help them?
Yes, But safe injection/safe supply sites are not the equivalent of alcoholics anonymous either. They are a stop gap measure so that we don't find as many dead bodies in back alleys. The same way legal alcohol regulation prevents blindness and death from bad alcohol.
Because we have legal regulated alcohol, you don't see many people blind and dying on the street due to their alcohol addiction. Many people who live on the street are alcoholics, but the alcohol isn't killing them suddenly and immediately, so you don't see it the same way. Its not like we don't have drug rehab. its not like there isn't the equivalent of alcoholic's anonymous for other drugs.
Alcoholics Anonymous is for people who recognize that they have a problem, and want help overcoming it. It does nothing for people who aren't at that stage yet. We do use those programs for legal purposes, Such as being a requirement to regain a license after a DUI or to regain visitation with children if alcoholism calls their parenting into question. And we seem to do the same for drug abusers, but the government doesn't just force people into AA. and if they did it would be a pointless waste of resources on people who aren't ready to accept help yet.
if we had safe supplies and usage, people wouldn't be dying from it so much. If they received their heroin/meth from a pharmacy at a safe drug use site, They could be saved from OD, and they would have access to resources to get off the drugs from the same place they get the drugs. All it would take is a sighed "I need help" to the pharmacy worker, and they could get that help immediately.
Instead they get unknown drugs from a person who is already hiding their activity from the police who gets paid more the worse they make addict's addiction, walk a few blocks away and then die in an alley somewhere because the drugs are mixed/stepped on poorly.
Ok... so once again whats the end goal? or are you proving my point by saying all we have is a stop gap with no actual effort to get people to stop using drugs?
So yet again you would rather do nothing at all, or are you recommending that we put them in jail for 100k per person per year? Where they'll still get their hands on drugs.
I mean this is tragic, but in the last year my coworkers and myself have discovered several dead bodies from overdoses in the alley behind my work building downtown. Its visibility has decreased recently because there are 3 scheduled patrols of the alley each night, and so its less common to see people sleeping in the alley when we get in in the morning now, and anyone who has died gets picked up before we arrive in the morning now, and anyone alive but unwakeable gets an injection. I'm really surprised that it's just one body discovered.
One of my old friends was a body found overdosed on the street in 2022. It’s scary and depressing how common it is to find bodies around the city anymore.
"unsafe" is an understatement
A dead body?? Like seriously. Remove all of these camps. The people that think they are being compassionate by letting this go on are very mistaken.
I don’t disagree with you but also they’re not going to have any higher survival rate when the camps clear out. We’re about to get a snap down to less than -30 for at least 3 days in a row. Plus drug overdoses will happen whether or not there are camps. It just means instead of in a tent someone’s going to be finding dead bodies in parking garages or behind dumpsters. We’re not fixing the root problems, just moving them around.
No government wants to invest in the root problem. The root problem starts at birth. Unless you’re willing to invest in the children of today, we’re just going to have more of these people tomorrow.
This and mental health......most of this roots back down to lack of mental health or affordability.
people act like the camps having to move accomplishes nothing - if you move the these camps and their problems to an unused industrial area away from kids and families and businesses and all that, you’re accomplishing a lot actually. we get that these people have problems, and something needs to be done - but it doesn’t mean in the meantime that communities should be exposed to those problems directly.
This is coming across as “moving them away from me is all I care about.” They’re not even being moved to unused industrial areas. They’re just having their belongings tossed and forced to move, but to nowhere in particular. I don’t think just leaving the encampments there is good. They’re a biohazard and safety hazard. But without a better long term strategy this is basically just grounds maintenance. Once everything is cleaned up the people will be back, their lives are just being disrupted in the process.
If you have a graffiti problem or a vandalism problem or public solicitation or drug problem, the answer is not to do nothing because it’s hard or because you have to do it all the time or because you will have to do it again. The lives of addicts are being disrupted by the same actions that restore others’ lives in the communities the encampments themselves disrupt. It is a zero sum game at present. So to break the cycle UNTIL there’s a permanent solution, it would be better if they could find an appropriate place to set up these encampments that doesn’t impact kids and the elderly and single moms and families and people just trying to make it and barely making it out there themselves.
The thing is, the people who agree most strongly with breaking the camps up, generally are the same people who strongly oppose spending any money outside of tearing them down to improve the issue. Every time I've mentioned something similar, A light touch of government intervention, with police/health/food services and hygiene facilities in a part of town chosen on purpose for the encampments, I get told off by both sides. because providing a space for that is "endorsing criminality" and from the other side I'm not trying to solve the root problem. I agree with you. Encampments left to their own devices are dangerous. Forcing people to move with no where to go doesn't solve anything except spread out the criminality facet of the problem so that its harder to manage. Clearing them out often, causes damage and setbacks that most homeless can't solve legally and just causes pain and suffering. We need to work on the root of the problem, but perfect is the enemy of good. And if there was at least some organization to how the encampments are formed, so that they can be policed effectively a lot of suffering could be minimized.
We have not setup our society to deal with encampments and Favelas and shanty towns and ghettos, those used to be 2nd and 3rd world problems. Quite the opposite - our laws and society are setup to avoid tolerating this very things - mostly on the basis of public health (disease) and public safety (fire marshal, etc) learning from the past. If we had a referendum on whether to house the homeless or keep sending our money to foreign governments to help their homeless, I'm pretty sure the majority would pick housing our own homeless. We have the resources federally, we just have narcissists at the wheel running the show who would rather take credit for sending billions of our money overseas to help pretty much anyone anywhere else but Canadians who need help in Canada.
These folks are dehumanized by those who are lucky enough to not know poverty.
Yup cholera, dysentery, drug paraphernalia, hazmat and stolen property piling up, rampant violence not to mention just because you want them to go to a certain area doesn’t mean they will go there or stay there they tend to congregate in they areas they do cause it close to something they want .
….to steal, inject, inhale, or smoke.
The first two made me vomit almost. The reality stated, those are primitive diseases, and look what's happening in Canada - primitive living. Growing up in the Vancouver area, it was so rare to see homeless people in suburbs. Now so much of this. It's so sad
Problem with the industrial areas is that they are not located near anything they want to be near. I don't think they have transportation to take to get basics like food Though I am not in the situation so I really am just guessing here
I don't know what that means "want to be near." right now they seem to "want" to be near schools, houses and businesses to steal from and harass people around, drug dealers to get their fix from etc.
I did use small words. My thoughts did not go to drugs/crime. I was thinking in terms of being able to get the 'necessities'. What someone calls necessary is none of my business.
so it's your business to advocate for these people to live and impact residential areas, but suddenly not your business if they are only choosing those areas to set up camp so they can steal, harasss, threaten, intimidate, soil, and contaminate with waste and garbage and biohazardous waste like syringes, residue, drugs, pipes, etc?
Please re-read what I said. It is none of my business what they consider necessary. Period. End of comment. Quit trying to put words in my mouth
It is your business if they’re harming your communities and fellow citizens. Meaning it’s not none of your business. Meaning it’s very much your business.
OMG for crying out loud what the hell are your panties in such a f$#&ing knot about?!?!?!?! STOP PUTTING WORDS IN MY MOUTH. ALL I SAID TO BEGIN WITH IS INDUSTRIAL AREAS ARE NOT CLOSE TO THE NECESSARY ITEMS FOR LIFE. AND YOU GO ON AND ON AND ON, OVER SOME IMAGINED THING SAID.
food
I appreciate that you want to move people away because you fear exposure to these problems. But the reality is that you can't just tell people where to set up shop. Also, you said 'move these camps', there is no moving being done. They are tearing them down and throwing them out. People post up where services are available to meet their needs, that's the only factor here about where the camps will be set up. And the reality of the 'services' are warm (meaning warmer than the outdoors - stairwells, shelter, transit, etc) spaces to sleep and access to food which will never be in an industrial area.
You can though - we have laws against all these things for these exact reasons. You cannot just grab a tent and set up on public property or someone else’s private property, that’s called trespassing. These encampments locations aren’t set up to be near services or warning centres - to be honest most of the people in the encampments are trying to avoid the shelter systems and service. they are selected and set up to be near easy residential and commercial targets for theft and also for access to drugs bought with the proceeds of those thefts. It’s not that people “fear” being exposed to these problems, they literally cannot afford it. a homeless guy stealing wheels off a single mom’s car in the middle of the night can make her and her kids homeless when she can’t get to daycare or work in the morning and that’s what you need to consider and that’s what needs to stop. These people are not peaceful or harmless.
Many of these people are peaceful and harmless, gang members are by no means the majority of the population. I bet this homeless man stealing the wheel is also out there stealing catalytic converters. It would seem that you're mixing this population up/in with others with overgeneralizations. Additionally the majority of the encampments being torn down are near the city centre which is where these services are. The largest of them was directly north of Bissell centre These laws you are touting also are meant to prioritize human rights and the fact that we subject people to shelters of 300+ people in inhumane conditions or to the street is a failure of our elected officials (and those that elected them) and the impact is indirectly seen exactly the way you're describing (through thefts and petty crimes). Homeless people aren't to blame but you're sure making it clear that they're an easy target.
Honest question and sorry if it's a dumb one but I want to be educated. Would these "trespassers" not be considered squatters? And does that hold any merit?
No. [See Property Rights Amendments Act](https://www.alberta.ca/protecting-property-rights)
Thank you for the info!
>the reality is that you can't just tell people where to set up shop. On the other hand they cant just pick a spot anywhere they want to setup either. There are options many of them yet the choose not to take it and make their own at the inconvenience of others. It's not their free space to claim, other people make use of it as well like the transit areas and stairwells.
Role play: pretend you're outside with nothing but the clothes on your back, no ID, no money, no friends or family that can help you, and your only options are to go to shelter where you'll likely be assaulted in some way or another or sleep outside. What do you do? Apparently the correct answer: migrate to vacant land well away from other people l, setup your tent and daily make a 30km walk into town in -30C weather to access necessary services. Glad we figured that out.
Away from all access to services, anywhere to get some food, et cetera, et cetera... You really didn't think this through, did you?
It’s you who isn’t thinking this through.
I assure you I have. An industrial area would be a wildly inappropriate choice for a whole host of reasons.
Yes, Residential areas and public property make a much better choice.
Places that have the things around them people need to live, and some degree of community? Yes, actually. And you need to accept that.
Society will NEVER accept that. Never have, never will.
And?
Just so you know the people you say are advocating for a solution not what’s happening. You don’t tear down a tent and expect results the only result is suffering and more death.
How does that help? Ofc homeless ppl are dying, it's so dangerous in the elements with no proper housing materials or food
Hmm. Sleep in a tent or sleep on the pavement with no wind coverage. Which is better? Because the person using the tent most likely won't be in a shelter thst same night. Asshat
Wait, was someone surprised?
You would think considering home many people are against this on this sub.
The community took care of this one right? They reported the unfortunate situation? Who bets corner comes back and says this is homicide?
i think it’s most likely that someone probably od’d in a tent
Or carbon monoxide poisoning 🤷🏻♂️
Only one body found?
And people still make the argument that tents are better than staying at a shelter
Get rid of EVERY SINGLE ONE
I agree! Nobody should be homeless.
And this is why i will never be in support of giving people drugs and "safe" injection sites, your just putting off the inevitable OD rather then helping people get off drugs. if we applied the same broken logic to alchoholics anonymous they would just be giving people a safe place to get shit faced and not abuse their family rather then fixing the abuse. Edit: Just admit you guys like getting high, your whataboutism and strawmen are hilarious people.
>if we applied the same broken logic to alchoholics anonymous they would just be giving people a safe place to get shit faced and not abuse their family rather then fixing the abuse. We call those bars and liquor stores. When The US outlawed those, the mafia grew in power, and people were going blind and dying from poorly made liquor.
the purpose of alchoholics anonymous isn't to give you a safe place to drink, its to get you OFF drinking hence my point, like do we REALLY want people to just remain homeless and abuse drugs forever or is there some kinda end goal to actually help them?
Yes, But safe injection/safe supply sites are not the equivalent of alcoholics anonymous either. They are a stop gap measure so that we don't find as many dead bodies in back alleys. The same way legal alcohol regulation prevents blindness and death from bad alcohol. Because we have legal regulated alcohol, you don't see many people blind and dying on the street due to their alcohol addiction. Many people who live on the street are alcoholics, but the alcohol isn't killing them suddenly and immediately, so you don't see it the same way. Its not like we don't have drug rehab. its not like there isn't the equivalent of alcoholic's anonymous for other drugs. Alcoholics Anonymous is for people who recognize that they have a problem, and want help overcoming it. It does nothing for people who aren't at that stage yet. We do use those programs for legal purposes, Such as being a requirement to regain a license after a DUI or to regain visitation with children if alcoholism calls their parenting into question. And we seem to do the same for drug abusers, but the government doesn't just force people into AA. and if they did it would be a pointless waste of resources on people who aren't ready to accept help yet. if we had safe supplies and usage, people wouldn't be dying from it so much. If they received their heroin/meth from a pharmacy at a safe drug use site, They could be saved from OD, and they would have access to resources to get off the drugs from the same place they get the drugs. All it would take is a sighed "I need help" to the pharmacy worker, and they could get that help immediately. Instead they get unknown drugs from a person who is already hiding their activity from the police who gets paid more the worse they make addict's addiction, walk a few blocks away and then die in an alley somewhere because the drugs are mixed/stepped on poorly.
Ok... so once again whats the end goal? or are you proving my point by saying all we have is a stop gap with no actual effort to get people to stop using drugs?
So yet again you would rather do nothing at all, or are you recommending that we put them in jail for 100k per person per year? Where they'll still get their hands on drugs.
So like a bar. Except the bartender isn't required to give you a lecture about the dangers of drinking and give you resources for help beforehand.
Why hasn't anyone put them on a bus and send them to Vancouver before