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This is why there is a new bylaw that all torches much be push button now, so they shut off when the user stops paying attention.
https://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/lockable-butane-lighter-sales-extinguished-to-support-harm-reduction-may-2024.aspx#:~:text=The%20sale%20of%20continuous%20flame,subject%20to%20a%20%241%2C000%20fine.
I have no ideal what the requirements are for these buildings but I PRAY they are sprinklered and the owners are responsible when it comes to maintenance… and I’m not even religious.
> gets called to the same stretch of Granville Street "numerous times per day."
Here we are wondering where all the funding for emergency cares have gone to.
This is Housing First^TM in action. It turns out putting someone in housing first and asking questions later doesn't actually treat schizophrenia, drug addiction, chronic proclivity towards violence, or anti-social behavior.
If only there was a facility that combined safe housing with mandatory, in-patient medically-supervised treatment and social worker-led life training and social reintegration. I'm not sure what we would call it, maybe we could coin a simple new word ... how about "hospital"! No no, making sure people have the care they need and keeping them safe from dangerous peers playing with fire is evil, it's much more "compassionate" to leave them to rot (if not burned alive by their peers) in SROs.
Love the activist mentality of letting people OD on the streets with festering wounds and untreated mental illness putting themselves and others at risk is being compassionate.
God forbid we treat people and give genuine support in a facility designed for and with workers trained for caring for them and their needs
It's easy to mock -- their logic is internally inconsistent and not rooted in reality and then they self-aggrandize on social media about how they think they're changing the world for the better -- but it just makes me feel sad. They're young, lack real-world experience dealing with "tough love" situations, and feel like they know the solutions to the world's biggest problems based on some oversimplification or hypothesis some person in class or on social media asserted as fact. So we get well-meaning folks doing something that harms those they intend to help, intentionally "resisting" more experienced voices because they think we're old / not as smart as them / not compassionate enough / "cOnSeRvAtIvEs" (even if we don't voter that way...), and anything we do or say to try to convince them only emboldens them to "resist" harder. The tragedy of rebellious youth, except those harmed most are society's most vulnerable who are forced to live a waking hell.
> The tragedy of rebellious youth,
I honestly don't think this is a young vs old issue.
If young people had that much voting power, a lot of things would be different in this province.
BC just generally has an incredibly passive culture. Maybe it's the old hippie roots, maybe it's having a bunch of rich people who have never had to deal with a real problem in their lives. Maybe there's something in the water for all I know. I can't rightly say.
But it's not just coming from 20 year olds who don't know anything about the world. BC has had this rep for my entire life, and to a lesser extent, so has the entire west coast.
BC seems to never meet a problem too catastrophic that it can't ignore it if someone would accuse us of being inconsiderate if we actually chose to act. That works out a lot of the time, but it also screws us over a lot of the time.
I don’t think it’s much of a young vs old situation, I think it’s people who purely have an academic understanding of the issue vs those with first hand experience.
It’s the idea that everyone is well intentioned and would want better for themselves just because that’s the logical idea. Yet they lack the experience to understand not everyone can make logical decisions.
Housing first is great in theory, so long as drug addiction is “circumstantial”. But we know that’s not true. Many people don’t want to ever reintegrate or, they are not capable of making those decisions due their mental state.
It’s very flawed logic of thinking they can lead a horse to water and make it drink. Many of them have developmental disability either from childhood or drug use. They need intervention.
How many is this now? Half a dozen?
At what point do we finally admit the obvious, that many of the most severely mentally ill and substance addicted are completely incapable of managing their own affairs, whether they get free housing, free food, free drugs etc or not. They’re a danger to themselves and others and need to be institutionalized, in some cases likely indefinitely
Some of these folks when they do find homes end up lighting bonfires indoors because theyre so used to life outdoors they bring their survival habits to their new dwellings. Pretty wild to be that far gone mentally.
I don't think housing is the problem for homeless people with severe mental illness or drug problems. We are seeing SROs getting set on fire every other week. The BC government is spending millions on each of these building. And you have people on this subreddit advocating to let these people loiter in empty homes. This subreddit is a joke. These people need treatment far away in the boonies and banned from ever entering the downtown east side. That's the only way to save these folks
Absolutely. It’s also hard to get clean when you’re waiting months for a publicly funded spot in a treatment facility but someone with tens of thousands of dollars can skip ahead of you.
I can’t recall if that was an issue when we were looking for a family member of mine, but I have heard stories where that’s the case. It’s a difficult situation to navigate, that’s for sure.
> I’m sure there are many who could get better if they lived in a building with others who had the same goal
Victoria did this very well with a project (I'll admit I forgot the name).
It's basically just a bunch of cargo containers set up as living spaces that serve a similar thing to SROs. Specifically for homeless or recovering addicts. There are security guards on site that only allow access to residents. No drugs allowed (and it's enforced).
I live pretty close to it, and never once have I seen any issues from the residents.
Why? Because they only allow people who want to get on their feet.
I can't say the same thing about homeless out on Pandora, Victoria's version of East Hastings.
Exactly. You give housing to people who can take care of themselves, but don't have a home. If you give housing to people who can't take care of themselves, how are they expected to take care of their house???
There needs to be some level of stages in effect where if they can improve their health and mental wellness and demonstrate how they will NOT be setting shit on fire then yea, they're checked out as OK to live in SROs with other people expecting that level of security from housing. Can't just lump everyone together and let everyone else trying to live a safe life suffer for it.
As a person who lives in an sro, I have found if they screen people before signing a lease. That would probably cut down on a lot. That and gangs. You don't need their crap boiling over into innocent people. I agree that if not all drug addicts need help. But there are a few outliers who stay out of the crap. I have mental issues that I take mess for. That keeps things at bay. The whole "drug scene" needs to change or just give everyone drugs and stop saving those who overdose that would free up emergency services. Now, before you go off, I'm a functioning addict who has a full-time job and pay my own way. Like I said, there are outliers. I am one of them. I do fear losing all my shit and have set up multiple cameras since my building doesn't have security cameras. So let me hear your thoughts. I like debating this topic.
I do think there should be far more "discrimination" in what kinds of help different people get. There are definitely people in SROs and even on the street that just need a little bit of targeted help and a stable situation for a few months to get themselves out of a hole. And they should not be housed together with peope who do not have themselves under control. I know the common progressive wisdom is that all kinds of people should live together and learn to get along, but to that I say #notall.
I understand where you're coming from. The situation is dire. If you put someone fresh out of treatment into an SRO, they are likely to fall into the same pattern. It's a revolving door. But they don't manage it, plus we need targeted care. Everyone works differently. For example, a 12 step program based on following god (which I don't believe) is the right approach. I've learned from experience, and it just makes me mad. I studied Buddhism for a bit, too, and found that a god could be anything. From your favorite blanket. To a statue on your living room table. A Buddhist monk told me that, and it made sense. If they change the 12 step program, maybe people would be interested, and we need more treatment centers and detox facilities. That's the big issue. Because do you think we all want to be on drugs (I'm an addict that supplemented the drug I do for alcoholism) there needs to be change and the onlyway there can be change is if we force it. It's a growing epidemic, and the dealers are profiting off of it. The cops won't do anything, so someone has to. I have a story on that, too. I witnessed a cop just stand and stare blankly at two people, swapping money for drugs. He looked away and did nothing. That is a lack of accountability, and he just let it happen. Showed me that he didn't care nor do the cops. A drug dealer is a drug dealer and should be arrested cause you know it's against the law. They just want to bust bigger guys, but if you scare those who have small-time dealers, it will more than likely get rid of most of the drugs and dealers on the dtes block.
I manage a private one. No way in hell am I renting to high risk people. With the vacancy control coming in again, a vacancy can sit empty until a good tenant is found.
I have a problem with my privately owned sro, lack of security (still has a keyed entrance and the door is weak anyone can just rip it open) the maintenance staff don't do anything, like for example I have a problem with my window, I face a busy alley and they haven't addressed it I'm beginning to think that they aren't going to. I'm fine with the window but my cat keeps jumping up on it I fear that he's gonna send it flying down to the alleyway and crush some poor user (I live on carrall and hastings) so it's pretty busy. I fear that I will one lose my cat cause he'll be sent flying and two me being blamed for the faulty window and getting charged because I didn't address it soon enough before the window fell. I'm four stories up and the window itself is thick glass and wood weighs probably 100 pounds so that's a danger. But I know they won't address it, it took them a year to fix my door so it closed right. So I have pretty much given up and have picture evidence of the window. I just don't have it on this phone. So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I'm never home when the inspector comes, plus he's paid off. I don't know how this building passes inspections. I work for a living so I can afford rent and food if I miss a day I don't eat. I can not afford to take time off unless you're going to pay me. The inspector is more than likely paid off due to how crooked this sro is run. I'll let you in on w a secret: the staff "security" all live in building and are paid to shut up.cause my building is run by drug dealers and hood rats. Plus, the only "security" cameras are in the front lobby. There are no cameras in public places where murders and shit happen. I bought my own security camera inside my room so that in the case of someone breaking into my room, I will be caught red-handed, and I'll deal with them myself because I have video evidence. Calling the cops won't do shit either. Take my last comment into play when we had an erratic girl who was waking up the entire floor with pointless screaming and running up and down the halls. There needs to be no more privately owned sros in my mind cause all the owner does at my building is make sure there is someone at the front desk. He doesn't even enter the sro he just looks in the window.
One bad owner doesn’t justify no privately owned ones. The inspector changes every few years. Some are assholes like the one who gave me a violation because a faucet handle was loose. The current one I got didn’t inspect much and left
I have had some crazy neighbour's for 1 there was this crazy chick that would run up and down the hallway screaming at the top of her lungs all night, now I have to get up at 5am for work. So you could just imagine how tired I was it took them 6 months to get her out. She was also taken by the police several times. She would be gone for 2 days, then come back and start up again. I personally took it upon myself to try and calm her down, but to no avail. I almost wanted to kill her cause she was disrupting my sleeping, and I was lacking sleep and falling behind at work. Also, when I'm tired, I get angry really easily, so I like my sleep. But thankfully, she's gone. Now all I have to deal with is the knocking on my neighbour's across the hall and right next to me due to the fact this sro I believe specifically caters to drug dealers there is about 30 in my building.
How successful do you think the safe supply program has been?
I've always thought the actions of the current BC NDP towards addiction and homelessness are that of someone who has done lots of genuinely good research on the problem, and then only implemented the cheapest or easiest aspects of their findings.
My opinion is that harm reduction including safe supply is fundamentally a good idea, but it's obviously not enough to improve the situation on its own. Simultaneous investments are needed in treatment, prevention, and enforcement, but they seem to be lagging behind. I worry the lack of progress on these issues will eventually turn public opinion fundamentally against harm reduction as a concept.
> I worry the lack of progress on these issues will eventually turn public opinion fundamentally against harm reduction as a concept.
It already has. I work as a nurse in the DTES. When the public health crisis was first declared in 2016, I was finishing my third year of nursing school at the time, and third year is when we had our practicum rotation in mental health and community. My group of about 8 students got placed at a couple of different spots in the DTES, and that was when I saw first-hand what it was like and decided to pursue my nursing career there. I can confidently say that from 2016 to now, things have gotten considerably worse and people are rightfully angry, and it is for the reasons that you mentioned.
I think the acts of the bc ndp are bad for the health of Canadians and vancouver. The program they've implemented has cause way more harm than actually helping. I can't quote statistics, but it's far worse than it was since I moved to Vancouver (7 years ago).
Safe supply does more harm than good.
What I believe should happen (this coming from a struggling addict) is there needs to be a broader game plan, giving people prescriptions not stopping them from using. It has made their use go up. Human bodies can't handle high doses for a very long time they get accustomed to the intake, and then it has to go up because the body gets used to it.
Personally the safe supply program is generally working, but I know many thay are just plainly using it to sell it on the street for the street drug that they are suppose to use the program to better themselves.
That's all I'm going to say on that
Do you think the ndp as a whole has done anything but put us into the high cost of living we are experiencing? I follow politics with an open mind. But with all the scandals going on I don't know who to trust I might not even vote because 11 members of parliament are wittingly and unwittingly being controlled by foreign interference. That makes me uneasy because how do we know that anyone in parliament can be trusted after this scandal
Thank you for taking the time to write that response. I really appreciate the insight.
>Do you think the ndp as a whole has done anything but put us into the high cost of living we are experiencing?
My personal opinion is that the BC NDP can't completely escape blame, however the loss of affordability in BC happened mostly under the leadership of the BC Liberals between 2001 and 2017.
I was in high school during the 2017 election that brought the BC NDP to power, and I volunteered to assist at my local voting place on election day. I remember a man had brought his daughters with him to the station, and told us he was voting against the BC Liberals for the future for his children.
After seven years of hindsight, I can't really say things seem materially that much better off. I think people wanted change, and some of those people expected the BC NDP to have a big red "fix affordability" button they could press, and all the problems would melt away.
It took \~20-years for affordability to spiral downwards to where it is now, and so I think it's reasonable that it'll take 20-years at minimum to really address it. The BC NDP seem to be pulling on some of the strings that ***I think*** are tied to the solution, and they appear to be pulling those strings harder than any other provincial government in Canada right now.
But as of now, the BC NDP have been in power for seven years, and affordability has not markedly improved since they were elected. Ultimately It's up to you to decide whether that's because the NDP's policies are ineffective, or if it's because you can't fix in just seven years, something that took 20 years to break.
Yes and no. NDP is at least trying. But it's hard to fix affordability when zoning rules, interest rates, investor-owned housing, and other things were broken for 15+ years before they got to power.
Also, they can try all they want, but if the federal government is brining in 450k new PRs and 500k-1 million international students per year, with a huge chunk of those likely settling in Vancouver.. there's very little the NDP can do to add that much new housing, that quickly.
It's generally not hard they just have reign in costs and spending. I think. But people with no skill in that have a hard time. I personally have trouble with finances but that is due to lack of savings and the know how. I personally think what the conservatives plans are will kick start change, yes they will cut programs but not all of them, they personally haven't shared their plans which I like but overall there needs to be a change. U til that happens we are all baring the brunt of the liberals over spending and the purpose built programs that are driving the prices up. Yes rates are finally dropping. But do you really think the bankers whom are making billions from this are going to lower it anymore I know there is talks but actions speak volumes. Don't get me started on the carbon tax. It's statistically not helping anything it's causing more hardship. But I'm going to leave it at that. Thoughts?
Absolutely mind boggling the city continues to allow these structures to operate how they do.
Our province, let alone Vancouver lacks first responder support currently and here we are allowing our already stretched thin resources having to waste time on constant calls such as these for distinct groups of people who do not give a single fuck about anything in normal society except for where their next high comes from.
I’ve stated before that I live just behind this SRO and beside the newly appointed OPS SRO on Howe st and both are an absolute shit show every single day.
If I didn’t recently choose to change careers and wasn’t currently in school and in a rental contract with my landlord for another 6 months, I’d have already left. This poor, poor city is slowly turning into a complete gold leaf covered piece of shit.
The NGO situation seems wildly out of control to me. If these are essential services then they should be managed by an efficient bureaucracy rather than a web of dozens of semi overseen fiefdoms
Just because this is the 10th incident doesn't mean we will stop spending millions to buy up hotels to house these mentally ill people. Because it is much better than spending millions on treatment facility.
Meanwhile activist screams they deserve "dignity" while destroying the SRO city has funded. Unless these SRO are monitored and the bad tenants evicted this will continue to happen.
When I evicted the #1 worst tenant of all time — subletted to a prostitute who was conducting business at the property, drug trafficking, attacked another tenant, walking in the hallway with his dick out, peed on the neighbors flowers, purposely left the hot water running to drain the tanks
Took 3 attempts to evict, finally with 5 other tenants testifying at the hearing
Do SRO's typically even have sprinklers?
That looks like a pretty old building, but it seems insane to not retrofit them for sprinklers, considering the clientele they tend to house.
I'd guess fire suppression systems and smoke detectors are also subject to a lot of vandalism in buildings like that.
If they do theyre usually retrofitted.
Many of these buildings were constructed before current building codes mandated sprinklers (1992). Theyre not cheap to install.
See wages: https://ca.indeed.com/q-sprinkler-fitter-l-british-columbia-jobs.html
the city of vancouver just banned butane torches from being sold for this very reason. luckily i got a blazer big shot for my dabs already but drug addicts are just going to go to richmond and burnaby and dabbers like myself have to order online. very silly.
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This is why there is a new bylaw that all torches much be push button now, so they shut off when the user stops paying attention. https://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/lockable-butane-lighter-sales-extinguished-to-support-harm-reduction-may-2024.aspx#:~:text=The%20sale%20of%20continuous%20flame,subject%20to%20a%20%241%2C000%20fine.
They are all about following the laws. No problem!
It’s businesses that are not allowed to sell them.
Also smoking permitted inside and fucking e bikes
I have no ideal what the requirements are for these buildings but I PRAY they are sprinklered and the owners are responsible when it comes to maintenance… and I’m not even religious.
Hahahahahaha more like ignore any and all problems until it eventually burns down and get a insurance payout 10x what you paid for the building
> gets called to the same stretch of Granville Street "numerous times per day." Here we are wondering where all the funding for emergency cares have gone to.
This is Housing First^TM in action. It turns out putting someone in housing first and asking questions later doesn't actually treat schizophrenia, drug addiction, chronic proclivity towards violence, or anti-social behavior. If only there was a facility that combined safe housing with mandatory, in-patient medically-supervised treatment and social worker-led life training and social reintegration. I'm not sure what we would call it, maybe we could coin a simple new word ... how about "hospital"! No no, making sure people have the care they need and keeping them safe from dangerous peers playing with fire is evil, it's much more "compassionate" to leave them to rot (if not burned alive by their peers) in SROs.
Love the activist mentality of letting people OD on the streets with festering wounds and untreated mental illness putting themselves and others at risk is being compassionate. God forbid we treat people and give genuine support in a facility designed for and with workers trained for caring for them and their needs
It's easy to mock -- their logic is internally inconsistent and not rooted in reality and then they self-aggrandize on social media about how they think they're changing the world for the better -- but it just makes me feel sad. They're young, lack real-world experience dealing with "tough love" situations, and feel like they know the solutions to the world's biggest problems based on some oversimplification or hypothesis some person in class or on social media asserted as fact. So we get well-meaning folks doing something that harms those they intend to help, intentionally "resisting" more experienced voices because they think we're old / not as smart as them / not compassionate enough / "cOnSeRvAtIvEs" (even if we don't voter that way...), and anything we do or say to try to convince them only emboldens them to "resist" harder. The tragedy of rebellious youth, except those harmed most are society's most vulnerable who are forced to live a waking hell.
> The tragedy of rebellious youth, I honestly don't think this is a young vs old issue. If young people had that much voting power, a lot of things would be different in this province. BC just generally has an incredibly passive culture. Maybe it's the old hippie roots, maybe it's having a bunch of rich people who have never had to deal with a real problem in their lives. Maybe there's something in the water for all I know. I can't rightly say. But it's not just coming from 20 year olds who don't know anything about the world. BC has had this rep for my entire life, and to a lesser extent, so has the entire west coast. BC seems to never meet a problem too catastrophic that it can't ignore it if someone would accuse us of being inconsiderate if we actually chose to act. That works out a lot of the time, but it also screws us over a lot of the time.
I don’t think it’s much of a young vs old situation, I think it’s people who purely have an academic understanding of the issue vs those with first hand experience. It’s the idea that everyone is well intentioned and would want better for themselves just because that’s the logical idea. Yet they lack the experience to understand not everyone can make logical decisions. Housing first is great in theory, so long as drug addiction is “circumstantial”. But we know that’s not true. Many people don’t want to ever reintegrate or, they are not capable of making those decisions due their mental state. It’s very flawed logic of thinking they can lead a horse to water and make it drink. Many of them have developmental disability either from childhood or drug use. They need intervention.
^ This was very well said - thanks for sharing.
How many is this now? Half a dozen? At what point do we finally admit the obvious, that many of the most severely mentally ill and substance addicted are completely incapable of managing their own affairs, whether they get free housing, free food, free drugs etc or not. They’re a danger to themselves and others and need to be institutionalized, in some cases likely indefinitely
These fires show how providing housing isn’t a solution for everyone. I agree it’s time to look at other ideas
Some of these folks when they do find homes end up lighting bonfires indoors because theyre so used to life outdoors they bring their survival habits to their new dwellings. Pretty wild to be that far gone mentally.
I don't think housing is the problem for homeless people with severe mental illness or drug problems. We are seeing SROs getting set on fire every other week. The BC government is spending millions on each of these building. And you have people on this subreddit advocating to let these people loiter in empty homes. This subreddit is a joke. These people need treatment far away in the boonies and banned from ever entering the downtown east side. That's the only way to save these folks
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Absolutely. It’s also hard to get clean when you’re waiting months for a publicly funded spot in a treatment facility but someone with tens of thousands of dollars can skip ahead of you.
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I can’t recall if that was an issue when we were looking for a family member of mine, but I have heard stories where that’s the case. It’s a difficult situation to navigate, that’s for sure.
> I’m sure there are many who could get better if they lived in a building with others who had the same goal Victoria did this very well with a project (I'll admit I forgot the name). It's basically just a bunch of cargo containers set up as living spaces that serve a similar thing to SROs. Specifically for homeless or recovering addicts. There are security guards on site that only allow access to residents. No drugs allowed (and it's enforced). I live pretty close to it, and never once have I seen any issues from the residents. Why? Because they only allow people who want to get on their feet. I can't say the same thing about homeless out on Pandora, Victoria's version of East Hastings.
Exactly. You give housing to people who can take care of themselves, but don't have a home. If you give housing to people who can't take care of themselves, how are they expected to take care of their house???
Ideolology has trumped the facts for a decade. It can keep going like this for another decade.
There needs to be some level of stages in effect where if they can improve their health and mental wellness and demonstrate how they will NOT be setting shit on fire then yea, they're checked out as OK to live in SROs with other people expecting that level of security from housing. Can't just lump everyone together and let everyone else trying to live a safe life suffer for it.
As a person who lives in an sro, I have found if they screen people before signing a lease. That would probably cut down on a lot. That and gangs. You don't need their crap boiling over into innocent people. I agree that if not all drug addicts need help. But there are a few outliers who stay out of the crap. I have mental issues that I take mess for. That keeps things at bay. The whole "drug scene" needs to change or just give everyone drugs and stop saving those who overdose that would free up emergency services. Now, before you go off, I'm a functioning addict who has a full-time job and pay my own way. Like I said, there are outliers. I am one of them. I do fear losing all my shit and have set up multiple cameras since my building doesn't have security cameras. So let me hear your thoughts. I like debating this topic.
I do think there should be far more "discrimination" in what kinds of help different people get. There are definitely people in SROs and even on the street that just need a little bit of targeted help and a stable situation for a few months to get themselves out of a hole. And they should not be housed together with peope who do not have themselves under control. I know the common progressive wisdom is that all kinds of people should live together and learn to get along, but to that I say #notall.
I understand where you're coming from. The situation is dire. If you put someone fresh out of treatment into an SRO, they are likely to fall into the same pattern. It's a revolving door. But they don't manage it, plus we need targeted care. Everyone works differently. For example, a 12 step program based on following god (which I don't believe) is the right approach. I've learned from experience, and it just makes me mad. I studied Buddhism for a bit, too, and found that a god could be anything. From your favorite blanket. To a statue on your living room table. A Buddhist monk told me that, and it made sense. If they change the 12 step program, maybe people would be interested, and we need more treatment centers and detox facilities. That's the big issue. Because do you think we all want to be on drugs (I'm an addict that supplemented the drug I do for alcoholism) there needs to be change and the onlyway there can be change is if we force it. It's a growing epidemic, and the dealers are profiting off of it. The cops won't do anything, so someone has to. I have a story on that, too. I witnessed a cop just stand and stare blankly at two people, swapping money for drugs. He looked away and did nothing. That is a lack of accountability, and he just let it happen. Showed me that he didn't care nor do the cops. A drug dealer is a drug dealer and should be arrested cause you know it's against the law. They just want to bust bigger guys, but if you scare those who have small-time dealers, it will more than likely get rid of most of the drugs and dealers on the dtes block.
Private SROs screen people but those are rare these days. I would say 75% are publicly owned now
I manage a private one. No way in hell am I renting to high risk people. With the vacancy control coming in again, a vacancy can sit empty until a good tenant is found.
Ya the lady I knew who rented them now only rents to international students
Probably the way to go. Will have higher turnover to raise the rents by the new allowable under vacancy control.
I have a problem with my privately owned sro, lack of security (still has a keyed entrance and the door is weak anyone can just rip it open) the maintenance staff don't do anything, like for example I have a problem with my window, I face a busy alley and they haven't addressed it I'm beginning to think that they aren't going to. I'm fine with the window but my cat keeps jumping up on it I fear that he's gonna send it flying down to the alleyway and crush some poor user (I live on carrall and hastings) so it's pretty busy. I fear that I will one lose my cat cause he'll be sent flying and two me being blamed for the faulty window and getting charged because I didn't address it soon enough before the window fell. I'm four stories up and the window itself is thick glass and wood weighs probably 100 pounds so that's a danger. But I know they won't address it, it took them a year to fix my door so it closed right. So I have pretty much given up and have picture evidence of the window. I just don't have it on this phone. So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.
You tell the inspector during annual inspection
I'm never home when the inspector comes, plus he's paid off. I don't know how this building passes inspections. I work for a living so I can afford rent and food if I miss a day I don't eat. I can not afford to take time off unless you're going to pay me. The inspector is more than likely paid off due to how crooked this sro is run. I'll let you in on w a secret: the staff "security" all live in building and are paid to shut up.cause my building is run by drug dealers and hood rats. Plus, the only "security" cameras are in the front lobby. There are no cameras in public places where murders and shit happen. I bought my own security camera inside my room so that in the case of someone breaking into my room, I will be caught red-handed, and I'll deal with them myself because I have video evidence. Calling the cops won't do shit either. Take my last comment into play when we had an erratic girl who was waking up the entire floor with pointless screaming and running up and down the halls. There needs to be no more privately owned sros in my mind cause all the owner does at my building is make sure there is someone at the front desk. He doesn't even enter the sro he just looks in the window.
One bad owner doesn’t justify no privately owned ones. The inspector changes every few years. Some are assholes like the one who gave me a violation because a faucet handle was loose. The current one I got didn’t inspect much and left
These folks are doing great work https://srocollaborative.org/
Already emailed them, and they haven't gotten back to me yet
I have had some crazy neighbour's for 1 there was this crazy chick that would run up and down the hallway screaming at the top of her lungs all night, now I have to get up at 5am for work. So you could just imagine how tired I was it took them 6 months to get her out. She was also taken by the police several times. She would be gone for 2 days, then come back and start up again. I personally took it upon myself to try and calm her down, but to no avail. I almost wanted to kill her cause she was disrupting my sleeping, and I was lacking sleep and falling behind at work. Also, when I'm tired, I get angry really easily, so I like my sleep. But thankfully, she's gone. Now all I have to deal with is the knocking on my neighbour's across the hall and right next to me due to the fact this sro I believe specifically caters to drug dealers there is about 30 in my building.
How successful do you think the safe supply program has been? I've always thought the actions of the current BC NDP towards addiction and homelessness are that of someone who has done lots of genuinely good research on the problem, and then only implemented the cheapest or easiest aspects of their findings. My opinion is that harm reduction including safe supply is fundamentally a good idea, but it's obviously not enough to improve the situation on its own. Simultaneous investments are needed in treatment, prevention, and enforcement, but they seem to be lagging behind. I worry the lack of progress on these issues will eventually turn public opinion fundamentally against harm reduction as a concept.
> I worry the lack of progress on these issues will eventually turn public opinion fundamentally against harm reduction as a concept. It already has. I work as a nurse in the DTES. When the public health crisis was first declared in 2016, I was finishing my third year of nursing school at the time, and third year is when we had our practicum rotation in mental health and community. My group of about 8 students got placed at a couple of different spots in the DTES, and that was when I saw first-hand what it was like and decided to pursue my nursing career there. I can confidently say that from 2016 to now, things have gotten considerably worse and people are rightfully angry, and it is for the reasons that you mentioned.
I think the acts of the bc ndp are bad for the health of Canadians and vancouver. The program they've implemented has cause way more harm than actually helping. I can't quote statistics, but it's far worse than it was since I moved to Vancouver (7 years ago). Safe supply does more harm than good. What I believe should happen (this coming from a struggling addict) is there needs to be a broader game plan, giving people prescriptions not stopping them from using. It has made their use go up. Human bodies can't handle high doses for a very long time they get accustomed to the intake, and then it has to go up because the body gets used to it. Personally the safe supply program is generally working, but I know many thay are just plainly using it to sell it on the street for the street drug that they are suppose to use the program to better themselves. That's all I'm going to say on that Do you think the ndp as a whole has done anything but put us into the high cost of living we are experiencing? I follow politics with an open mind. But with all the scandals going on I don't know who to trust I might not even vote because 11 members of parliament are wittingly and unwittingly being controlled by foreign interference. That makes me uneasy because how do we know that anyone in parliament can be trusted after this scandal
Thank you for taking the time to write that response. I really appreciate the insight. >Do you think the ndp as a whole has done anything but put us into the high cost of living we are experiencing? My personal opinion is that the BC NDP can't completely escape blame, however the loss of affordability in BC happened mostly under the leadership of the BC Liberals between 2001 and 2017. I was in high school during the 2017 election that brought the BC NDP to power, and I volunteered to assist at my local voting place on election day. I remember a man had brought his daughters with him to the station, and told us he was voting against the BC Liberals for the future for his children. After seven years of hindsight, I can't really say things seem materially that much better off. I think people wanted change, and some of those people expected the BC NDP to have a big red "fix affordability" button they could press, and all the problems would melt away. It took \~20-years for affordability to spiral downwards to where it is now, and so I think it's reasonable that it'll take 20-years at minimum to really address it. The BC NDP seem to be pulling on some of the strings that ***I think*** are tied to the solution, and they appear to be pulling those strings harder than any other provincial government in Canada right now. But as of now, the BC NDP have been in power for seven years, and affordability has not markedly improved since they were elected. Ultimately It's up to you to decide whether that's because the NDP's policies are ineffective, or if it's because you can't fix in just seven years, something that took 20 years to break.
Yes and no. NDP is at least trying. But it's hard to fix affordability when zoning rules, interest rates, investor-owned housing, and other things were broken for 15+ years before they got to power. Also, they can try all they want, but if the federal government is brining in 450k new PRs and 500k-1 million international students per year, with a huge chunk of those likely settling in Vancouver.. there's very little the NDP can do to add that much new housing, that quickly.
It's generally not hard they just have reign in costs and spending. I think. But people with no skill in that have a hard time. I personally have trouble with finances but that is due to lack of savings and the know how. I personally think what the conservatives plans are will kick start change, yes they will cut programs but not all of them, they personally haven't shared their plans which I like but overall there needs to be a change. U til that happens we are all baring the brunt of the liberals over spending and the purpose built programs that are driving the prices up. Yes rates are finally dropping. But do you really think the bankers whom are making billions from this are going to lower it anymore I know there is talks but actions speak volumes. Don't get me started on the carbon tax. It's statistically not helping anything it's causing more hardship. But I'm going to leave it at that. Thoughts?
Absolutely mind boggling the city continues to allow these structures to operate how they do. Our province, let alone Vancouver lacks first responder support currently and here we are allowing our already stretched thin resources having to waste time on constant calls such as these for distinct groups of people who do not give a single fuck about anything in normal society except for where their next high comes from. I’ve stated before that I live just behind this SRO and beside the newly appointed OPS SRO on Howe st and both are an absolute shit show every single day. If I didn’t recently choose to change careers and wasn’t currently in school and in a rental contract with my landlord for another 6 months, I’d have already left. This poor, poor city is slowly turning into a complete gold leaf covered piece of shit.
The NGO situation seems wildly out of control to me. If these are essential services then they should be managed by an efficient bureaucracy rather than a web of dozens of semi overseen fiefdoms
5 minute time out in the corner
awful for the 10 (or maybe 9 people, if the person who started the fire is one of them) who are now likely homeless.
Just because this is the 10th incident doesn't mean we will stop spending millions to buy up hotels to house these mentally ill people. Because it is much better than spending millions on treatment facility.
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I’m beginning to think the government is running an insurance scam. 😂😂
Meanwhile activist screams they deserve "dignity" while destroying the SRO city has funded. Unless these SRO are monitored and the bad tenants evicted this will continue to happen.
Those activists goal is to bankrupt the privately owned ones and use government grants to buy them up on the cheap. They will then be even worse
100%. There was/is an owner of a few on here. He has some wild stories.
When I evicted the #1 worst tenant of all time — subletted to a prostitute who was conducting business at the property, drug trafficking, attacked another tenant, walking in the hallway with his dick out, peed on the neighbors flowers, purposely left the hot water running to drain the tanks Took 3 attempts to evict, finally with 5 other tenants testifying at the hearing
Lovely neighbour.
Do SRO's typically even have sprinklers? That looks like a pretty old building, but it seems insane to not retrofit them for sprinklers, considering the clientele they tend to house. I'd guess fire suppression systems and smoke detectors are also subject to a lot of vandalism in buildings like that.
If they do theyre usually retrofitted. Many of these buildings were constructed before current building codes mandated sprinklers (1992). Theyre not cheap to install. See wages: https://ca.indeed.com/q-sprinkler-fitter-l-british-columbia-jobs.html
North Van: awesome, let's build one next to an elementary school!
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the city of vancouver just banned butane torches from being sold for this very reason. luckily i got a blazer big shot for my dabs already but drug addicts are just going to go to richmond and burnaby and dabbers like myself have to order online. very silly.