Modular/Homeless Housing in Expensive Neighborhoods?

[240glt]

Wow. So much ignorance and stupidity in one post. I feel embarrassed that you represent BC in this fashion. Shame on you.

[rofina]

Originally Posted by 240glt

Wow. So much ignorance and stupidity in one post. I feel embarrassed that you represent BC in this fashion. Shame on you.

Its embarrassing and ignorant that someone would suggest that some of the most expensive real estate on planet Earth maybe shouldn't be used for housing mentally unstable, and often drug addicted people?

Why do you feel so embarrassed?

Most of us here can't afford to live on the West Side, or OV or many of the other areas used for this housing.

It doesn't seem like a preposterous idea that future facilities be located in more affordable regions where proper care can be provided without having to take into account astronomical costs of doing business in the City.

[240glt]

^ the answer is to shuffle them out of sight & out of mind ?

Great cities look after their less advantaged. Vancouver is a great city, It's confounding to think that the solution to the social issues in the city is to literally run them out of town. That's frankly embarrassing to me as a British Columbian. No real estate in Vancouver is worth treating people that way. I'm glad people are finally starting to see that.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by CanSpice

We already have socialized housing for our vehicles, but we can't do it for actual people?

Originally Posted by 240glt

^ the answer is to shuffle them out of sight & out of mind ?

Great cities look after their less advantaged. Vancouver is a great city, It's confounding to think that the solution to the social issues in the city is to literally run them out of town. That's frankly embarrassing to me as a British Columbian. No real estate in Vancouver is worth treating people that way. I'm glad people are finally starting to see that.

Maybe increase your income tax to 75%? Because obviously now at 25% it isn't enough to take care or house the "actual people". There are more waiting in line. If that's not enough perhaps we can increase your income tax to 90% or more? I'm sure you can manage with the leftover in such a fine town like Vancouver.

I think the argument here is "when will it be enough". We are already paying one of the highest taxes in the developed world and yet our homelessness, mental health and drug use problems are getting worse, much worse. Something wrong with this culture of decay, or that the current policy isn't sound in the first place, or both? Time to review the system and try something else.

Modular housing is good for the seniors on fixed income, etc, but are they really all occupied by real people in need, or increasingly by those irresponsible for themselves? Walk around Granville Street, Seymour Street, Homer Street and East Hastings and see who live in the SROs before you comment further.


Great cities do not have so many drug and alcohol addicts roaming the streets not because they build enough structures to house them all, but because the culture is for most people to strive for excellence and compete to become useful citizens. People know that they won't be spoilt rotten if they choose to take a path to their own destruction. Great cities also do not have people who keep coming up with excuses for incompetence.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Vin

Maybe increase your income tax to 75%? Because obviously now at 25% it isn't enough to take care or house the "actual people". There are more waiting in line. If that's not enough perhaps we can increase your income tax to 90% or more? I'm sure you can manage with the leftover in such a fine town like Vancouver.

I think the argument here is "when will it be enough". We are already paying one of the highest taxes in the developed world and yet our homelessness, mental health and drug use problems are getting worse, much worse. Something wrong with this culture of decay, or that the current policy isn't sound in the first place, or both? Time to review the system and try something else.

Modular housing is good for the seniors on fixed income, etc, but are they really all occupied by real people in need, or increasingly by those irresponsible for themselves? Walk around Granville Street, Seymour Street, Homer Street and East Hastings and see who live in the SROs before you comment further.


Great cities do not have so many drug and alcohol addicts roaming the streets not because they build enough structures to house them all, but because the culture is for most people to strive for excellence and compete to become useful citizens. People know that they won't be spoilt rotten if they choose to take a path to their own destruction. Great cities also do not have people who keep coming up with excuses for incompetence.

In support of Vin if out east is good enough for our war veterans and our parents then its bloody well good enough for our homeless. Are people seriously getting stuck up about housing homeless outside Vancouver (this sounds so snobby)? We're suffering from the Vancouver only focus and forgetting there's a whole province and nation out there thats just as good as us. Vancouver is not innately superior.. We already house most of the people in Vancouver that can't afford homes and much of Vancouver's labour force in suburbs so why not our homeless. Hell, out government's centre is Victoria so why not house them closer to the capital and closer to our social service centres (assuming the department is on the island)?

Most of the modules for modular housing are built out east or on the island, it would save a lot of shipping to build the housing near the factories they are made. If we can house and care for this amount in Vancouver imagine how much more we could care for if we did this program in some other city. We also have incredibly low unemployment in Vancouver so somewhere with large unemployment would help reduce the wages paid towards services as well.

Jesus next people will be demanding that the bath towels used by homeless be sustainable, organic, and not be "made in China". What matters the most is efficiency and effectiveness. Perhaps we should be turning our homeless over to private sector providers similar to what America has done with its prisons (this was not the best solution but America could not have afforded its huge prison population without doing so).

[Jalapeño Chips]

Originally Posted by Vin

Maybe increase your income tax to 75%? Because obviously now at 25% it isn't enough to take care or house the "actual people". There are more waiting in line. If that's not enough perhaps we can increase your income tax to 90% or more? I'm sure you can manage with the leftover in such a fine town like Vancouver.

I think the argument here is "when will it be enough". We are already paying one of the highest taxes in the developed world and yet our homelessness, mental health and drug use problems are getting worse, much worse. Something wrong with this culture of decay, or that the current policy isn't sound in the first place, or both? Time to review the system and try something else.

Modular housing is good for the seniors on fixed income, etc, but are they really all occupied by real people in need, or increasingly by those irresponsible for themselves? Walk around Granville Street, Seymour Street, Homer Street and East Hastings and see who live in the SROs before you comment further.


Great cities do not have so many drug and alcohol addicts roaming the streets not because they build enough structures to house them all, but because the culture is for most people to strive for excellence and compete to become useful citizens. People know that they won't be spoilt rotten if they choose to take a path to their own destruction. Great cities also do not have people who keep coming up with excuses for incompetence.

Please people, fact check and stop the lies: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/0..._16950242.html

[240glt]

Originally Posted by Vin

We are already paying one of the highest taxes in the developed world and yet our homelessness, mental health and drug use problems are getting worse, much worse. Something wrong with this culture of decay, or that the current policy isn't sound in the first place, or both? Time to review the system and try something else.

No we're not paying the highest tax in the developed world. Feels like it sometimes. Our household pays over $60,000 year in income taxes. So to your second point if the powers that be are not able to manage these issues with the resources they have (or at least have done an inadequate job of doing so) then I agree, maybe we do need to review how things are being done. Maybe priorities need to be reviewed and resources re-allocated.

Modular housing is good for the seniors on fixed income, etc, but are they really all occupied by real people in need, or increasingly by those irresponsible for themselves? Walk around Granville Street, Seymour Street, Homer Street and East Hastings and see who live in the SROs before you comment further.

I know exactly who is living in those areas, in those rooming houses & on the streets. That's exactly my point. The best we can do is house people in condemned hotels run by slumlords with no social supports to help them and throw your hands up & say that's the best we can do ? I don't believe that. Again there is an institutional problem here and maybe, as noted above, the whole system has to change

Great cities do not have so many drug and alcohol addicts roaming the streets not because they build enough structures to house them all, but because the culture is for most people to strive for excellence and compete to become useful citizens. People know that they won't be spoilt rotten if they choose to take a path to their own destruction. Great cities also do not have people who keep coming up with excuses for incompetence.

No this is not true. All cities have homeless people, junkies, people living on the margins of society. It's how those cities handle those issues that matters. It's been proven over & over that the old bootstrap theory doesn't work. There are people who, through their own actions or beyond their control, will have mental problems, problems with drugs & booze, be incapable of gainful employment, etc. There are a number of options to deal with that. One is to corral all of them in one place and let that area go to pot. Gradually that area grows and shifts and the problem moves elsewhere. Another way would be to invest in the infrastructure needed to deal with those issues. That's more expensive at first but probably not over time. If you just keep expecting these people to pull up their bootstraps and become regular citizens with jobs and an apartment all on their own, you'll just continue to be disappointed and your streets will become more overrun with those people.

The time to start this was back in the mid 80's, But some decisions were made back then that still reverberate today. So you can see that decisions 30 years ago still have an impact today, it's going to take a long time to reverse the course. Or you can just let the place rot & everyone can move out because it's become so expensive and unpleasant that no one wants to live there.

[misher]

Originally Posted by 240glt

No we're not paying the highest tax in the developed world. Feels like it sometimes. Our household pays over $60,000 year in income taxes. So to your second point if the powers that be are not able to manage these issues with the resources they have (or at least have done an inadequate job of doing so) then I agree, maybe we do need to review how things are being done. Maybe priorities need to be reviewed and resources re-allocated.



I know exactly who is living in those areas, in those rooming houses & on the streets. That's exactly my point. The best we can do is house people in condemned hotels run by slumlords with no social supports to help them and throw your hands up & say that's the best we can do ? I don't believe that. Again there is an institutional problem here and maybe, as noted above, the whole system has to change





No this is not true. All cities have homeless people, junkies, people living on the margins of society. It's how those cities handle those issues that matters. It's been proven over & over that the old bootstrap theory doesn't work. There are people who, through their own actions or beyond their control, will have mental problems, problems with drugs & booze, be incapable of gainful employment, etc. There are a number of options to deal with that. One is to corral all of them in one place and let that area go to pot. Gradually that area grows and shifts and the problem moves elsewhere. Another way would be to invest in the infrastructure needed to deal with those issues. That's more expensive at first but probably not over time. If you just keep expecting these people to pull up their bootstraps and become regular citizens with jobs and an apartment all on their own, you'll just continue to be disappointed and your streets will become more overrun with those people.

The time to start this was back in the mid 80's, But some decisions were made back then that still reverberate today. So you can see that decisions 30 years ago still have an impact today, it's going to take a long time to reverse the course. Or you can just let the place rot & everyone can move out because it's become so expensive and unpleasant that no one wants to live there.

Actually some cities do not have many homeless, they came up with the genius solution of giving them bus tickets to Vancouver. 1 in 7 welfare recipients in Vancouver are from out of province. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...port-1.3670355https://theprovince.com/news/local-n...ut-of-province

It’s all reminiscent of the policies of Ralph Klein, the late ex-premier of Alberta, whose government used to bus welfare recipients to B.C. as a form of “Greyhound therapy.”

What can I say to this, its kind of genius. Kind of see myself in this guy. Send them to the city with the best weather, the biggest hearts and the deepest pockets rather than spend money to care for them locally. Saskatchewan has been caught doing this as well.

OUT-OF-PROVINCE WELFARE CASELOAD

The number of people who arrived in B.C. last year and qualified for income assistance, by province of origin and percentage of all out-of-province cases:

Alberta: 1,561 (50 per cent)

Ontario: 710 (22.8 per cent)

Saskatchewan: 275 (8.8 per cent)

Quebec: 190 (6.1 per cent)

Manitoba: 183: (5.9 per cent)

Nova Scotia: 54 (1.7 per cent)

New Brunswick: 49 (1.6 per cent)

Yukon: 38 (1.2 per cent)

Newfoundland: 29 (0.9 per cent)

Northwest Territory: 19 (0.6 per cent)

Prince Edward Island: 12 (0.4 per cent)

— Source: B.C. Ministry of Housing

I know we talk about stopping foreigners from purchasing housing and we place higher speculation taxes on out of province people. Perhaps we should also require people to reside in BC for a couple years before receiving welfare? Vancouver only has about 700,000 people so 3,000 homeless entering each year is actually a huge amount if most end up in Vancouver. Doing the math this roughly ends up equaling 22 million a year of extra burden placed upon our welfare system from income assistance payments alone and remember this grows every year as more come.

[240glt]

^ Yeah I don't approve of that either, it did happen in Alberta some time ago although I don't think it was that widespread. It certainly did not solve or even put a dent in the homelessness problems in Calgary or Edmonton.

Ironically enough, it was Ralph Klein that gutted the provincial health care system, and shut down a bunch of faculties that housed and treated people with the chronic issues typical with homelessness, and those folks ended up on the streets. In Edmonton, probably a third of the people on the street should be in some sort of treatment or care facility. So yes, Thanks Ralph for that.

Here is a city that is doing something right. It might not be the whole solution and I am sure there are gaps but the city of Medicine Hat AB has made significant strides housing homeless people

http://www.mhchs.ca/housing-developm...-homelessness/

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

Maybe increase your income tax to 75%? Because obviously now at 25% it isn't enough to take care or house the "actual people". There are more waiting in line. If that's not enough perhaps we can increase your income tax to 90% or more? I'm sure you can manage with the leftover in such a fine town like Vancouver.

I think the argument here is "when will it be enough". We are already paying one of the highest taxes in the developed world and yet our homelessness, mental health and drug use problems are getting worse, much worse. Something wrong with this culture of decay, or that the current policy isn't sound in the first place, or both? Time to review the system and try something else.

Modular housing is good for the seniors on fixed income, etc, but are they really all occupied by real people in need, or increasingly by those irresponsible for themselves? Walk around Granville Street, Seymour Street, Homer Street and East Hastings and see who live in the SROs before you comment further.


Great cities do not have so many drug and alcohol addicts roaming the streets not because they build enough structures to house them all, but because the culture is for most people to strive for excellence and compete to become useful citizens. People know that they won't be spoilt rotten if they choose to take a path to their own destruction. Great cities also do not have people who keep coming up with excuses for incompetence.

If your problem with the Province providing temporary modular housing on City of Vancouver (and Surrey, and Richmond, etc) land is purely that it costs too much, maybe this will help. This study shows that the average cost that taxpayers spend on support for each homeless person with mental illness is over $53,000 a year. It's actually cheaper to provide stable, secure housing for the homeless population than it is to pick up the far greater tab for all the emergency police, fire and paramedic services that they end up costing us all if they're in temporary shelters or on the street.

Some of the homeless who will be rehoused in these units won't necessarily have mental illness, and would therefore probably cost society a bit less, but the many of the health risks (and therefore potential costs) associated with being homeless don't relate to the person's mental state.

I'm not sure what you consider to be 'great cities', but if you look at our neighbours going south, while 3,605 people were found homeless in Metro Vancouver in 2017 (2,138 in the City of Vancouver) [source], in Seattle it's 12,112 [source], in Portland it's 4,177 [source], in San Francisco 7,499 [source] and in the undoubtedly 'great city' of Los Angeles if fell 3% in 2018, from 55,000 to 53,000 in LA County - 31,500 of them on the streets of the City of Los Angeles. [source].

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Changing City

If your problem with the Province providing temporary modular housing on City of Vancouver (and Surrey, and Richmond, etc) land is purely that it costs too much, maybe this will help. This study shows that the average cost that taxpayers spend on support for each homeless person with mental illness is over $53,000 a year. It's actually cheaper to provide stable, secure housing for the homeless population than it is to pick up the far greater tab for all the emergency police, fire and paramedic services that they end up costing us all if they're in temporary shelters or on the street.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Jalapeño Chips

Please people, fact check and stop the lies: https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/0..._16950242.html

So are you saying we as individuals as well as businesses should be taxed a heck of a lot more just because our taxes are relatively low compared to the western European countries?

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Changing City

If your problem with the Province providing temporary modular housing on City of Vancouver (and Surrey, and Richmond, etc) land is purely that it costs too much, maybe this will help. This study shows that the average cost that taxpayers spend on support for each homeless person with mental illness is over $53,000 a year. It's actually cheaper to provide stable, secure housing for the homeless population than it is to pick up the far greater tab for all the emergency police, fire and paramedic services that they end up costing us all if they're in temporary shelters or on the street.

Some of the homeless who will be rehoused in these units won't necessarily have mental illness, and would therefore probably cost society a bit less, but the many of the health risks (and therefore potential costs) associated with being homeless don't relate to the person's mental state.

I'm not sure what you consider to be 'great cities', but if you look at our neighbours going south, while 3,605 people were found homeless in Metro Vancouver in 2017 (2,138 in the City of Vancouver) [source], in Seattle it's 12,112 [source], in Portland it's 4,177 [source], in San Francisco 7,499 [source] and in the undoubtedly 'great city' of Los Angeles if fell 3% in 2018, from 55,000 to 53,000 in LA County - 31,500 of them on the streets of the City of Los Angeles. [source].

Your argument is flawed, as you did not even show the true cost of providing housing for a mentally ill person. Saying it's "cheaper" doesn't mean it's true. Where are the studies to show that? Are there any treatment facilities within the modular housing such that it is easier and cheaper to treat them?

Besides, can you really build a unit of modular housing complete with land cost, building, services and maintenance, and provide medical/emergency services for a mentally-ill person with less than $53,000 each year? I doubt it. Besides, many of the homeless folks get to the state they are in due to substance abuses that damage them. We should be targeting the root of the problem, and not giving in to spending to tackle the after-effects, which we as a society are not even good at. We should be creating mass-facilities to house mental patients and addicts, and treat them to get them out of the rut.

You are using American cities; some of the worst for homelessness, for comparison. In my opinion, none of the American cities are really "great cities". The discrepencies of the wealthy and the poor on the streets and in so many neighbourhoods are way too stark. We should be using Canadian cities like Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa for comparison instead. Either that or look beyond North America to Europe, Asia and Australia.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Vin

You are using American cities; some of the worst for homelessness, for comparison. In my opinion, none of the American cities are really "great cities". The discrepencies on the streets and neighbourhoods are way too stark. Why don't you use fellow Canadian cities like Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa for comparison instead? Either that or look beyond North America in Europe, Asia and Australia.

The climatic difference between west coast cities and those you listed are significant factors, and the cities are relatively similar sizes - at least the core cities are. Why don't you cite somewhere you think it doing a better job, or trying harder?

Calgary last counted in 2016, and had 3,430 homeless, with a total population half that of Greater Vancouver. Edmonton had 1,752 from a population of 900,000 people. Montreal last counted in 2015 and counted 3,016 people sleeping on the street or in shelters in the city. They carried out a new count this year, but there are no results yet. Is New York a great city? The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said the total (street and shelter) homeless population was more than 75,000 in a report released in December 2017.

[Jalapeño Chips]

Originally Posted by Vin

So are you saying we as individuals as well as businesses should be taxed a heck of a lot more just because our taxes are relatively low compared to the western European countries?

When did I ever say that? I said fact check and stop lying, which you continue to do.

This is the lie you said:

"We are already paying one of the highest taxes in the developed world", which is bullshit.

I never said tax us more, stop putting words in peoples mouth. And stop lying.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by 240glt

No this is not true. All cities have homeless people, junkies, people living on the margins of society. It's how those cities handle those issues that matters. It's been proven over & over that the old bootstrap theory doesn't work. There are people who, through their own actions or beyond their control, will have mental problems, problems with drugs & booze, be incapable of gainful employment, etc. There are a number of options to deal with that. One is to corral all of them in one place and let that area go to pot. Gradually that area grows and shifts and the problem moves elsewhere. Another way would be to invest in the infrastructure needed to deal with those issues. That's more expensive at first but probably not over time. If you just keep expecting these people to pull up their bootstraps and become regular citizens with jobs and an apartment all on their own, you'll just continue to be disappointed and your streets will become more overrun with those people.

The time to start this was back in the mid 80's, But some decisions were made back then that still reverberate today. So you can see that decisions 30 years ago still have an impact today, it's going to take a long time to reverse the course. Or you can just let the place rot & everyone can move out because it's become so expensive and unpleasant that no one wants to live there.

I don't deny that, but I am very confident that we are the worst. I've yet to see any Canadian city with the equivalence of Downtown Eastside, have you? Been to other cities around the world and even less developed countries don't see the extents of the problems we have here. This phenomenon is spreading to other BC cities like Surrey, Abbotsford, Penticton and even Victoria. That's a huge embarrassment for our society and family upbringing. Before we blame foreigners for anything, we should look at how our own societies, including individual families, are rather dysfunctional, and then try to fix them.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Jalapeño Chips

When did I ever say that? I said fact check and stop lying, which you continue to do.

This is the lie you said:

"We are already paying one of the highest taxes in the developed world", which is bullshit.

I never said tax us more, stop putting words in peoples mouth. And stop lying.

Lie? Does this acknowledgement of "bullshit" make us feel that we pay very little taxes? That statement from me was a hyperbole, but it still doesn't discount the fact that a huge percentage of BC tax payer's money is used to prop up a whole industry for people who are constantly being irresponsible for themselves, which is the topic at hand here. And when is it enough? Let me ask you again, would you be willing to give up 50% of your income? If you are so pro-modular housing, perhaps you can give more of your income to support the cause, and not expect everyone to think like you? I would rather spend my money on the treatment of people to get them better in medical institutions.

[240glt]

^ Well it's really not a huge surprise that BC cities like Vancouver might have greater issues. Simply due to the much better climate people are likely drawn to Vancouver disproportionately. Living in Edmonton in its long cold winter is terrible for normal folks, I can't imagine it's a picnic for those with no roof over their heads. I will say that while the situation on the DTES is dire, there are people in the same situation in Edmonton and the downtown north edge is pretty terrible. This city has created a ghetto-like condition as well, and seems only now ready to start looking at how to deal with it.

I follow what's going on in BC closely. I'm aware of the issues in other cities, Vernon for instance is grappling with the same issues right now. Penticton has taken a zero tolerance approach to petty crime and disorder. Vernon has banned shopping carts from city streets. But the problems keep occurring. So if using a heavy hand just results in more of the same, maybe, as I noted above a different approach should be considered.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Vin

I don't deny that, but I am very confident that we are the worst. I've yet to see any Canadian city with the equivalence of Downtown Eastside, have you? Been to other cities around the world and even less developed countries don't see the extents of the problems we have here. This phenomenon is spreading to other BC cities like Surrey, Abbotsford, Penticton and even Victoria. That's a huge embarrassment for our society and family upbringing. Before we blame foreigners for anything, we should look at how our own societies, including individual families, are rather dysfunctional, and then try to fix them.

Note this is partially because Canadian cities ship them all here
I wrote a nice post somewhere with sources explaining how a good portion of our homeless are from out of province.

[Jalapeño Chips]

Originally Posted by Vin

Lie? Does this acknowledgement of "bullshit" make the fact that we are paying less taxes? That statement from me was a hyperbole, but it still doesn't discount the fact that a huge percentage of BC tax payer's money is used to prop up people who are constantly being irresponsible for themselves, which is topic at hand here. And when is it enough? Let me ask you again, would you be willing to give up 50% of your income?

Stop skirting around the fact that you lied, just to make a point. I hate it when people pull B.S. facts out of their ass, and then try to turn it around by putting words in peoples mouth.

Here, I'll play the same game, let me ask you:

Where's the link to the fact that states that a huge percentage of BC tax payer's money is used to prop up people who are constantly being irresponsible for themselves?

Come on now, unless you're lying again.

Own up to it, the lies, then I will engage in discussion.

Edit: I will continue to call you out, and anyone else who lies to make false statements just to prove an opinion, or a statement. Lies are annoying and pathetic.