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  #41  
Old Posted Jul 19, 2022, 1:11 PM
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Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
Since a few people have mentioned demographics here...

In downtown Gatineau almost all of the beggars are white, though on suburban boulevards you regularly see women with hijabs, some of them white, some of them not.

In Ottawa a very significant proportion of the homeless are Indigenous, and Black people also make up a decent chunk.

In Montreal the homeless population seems to be quite predominantly white, though a sizeable minority is Indigenous.
Most of the beggars in Windsor are also white, but there are also Arab men and women begging being seen begging.

The situation here has just exploded in the past few years, especially in the inner city and DT. They are also at many prominent intersections and are working their way out to the suburbs, completely unheard of before.

Our DT has been especially hit hard by all of the begging and vagrancy, mostly by mentally ill drug addicts. It’s very upsetting to see them take over and destroy what so many people have worked so hard to make an honest living, especially after the COVID hit.
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  #42  
Old Posted Jul 19, 2022, 1:21 PM
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Originally Posted by Blitz View Post
I've lived in downtown London for several years and it has indeed gotten a lot worse. You get to know each of their tendencies over time though and they're all harmless (even the ones loudly screaming at the sky while walking around in circles). But I get how it can be off-putting.

I believe Windsor may have a bylaw against panhandling on medians so you rarely see that happening there. But yeah, you see it all over London. Windsor has had two right-wing mayors over the past 20 years...the city even tried introducing a bylaw banning panhandling in general but it was met with constitutional challenges.
Believe me, they have moved to begging on the medians now, as well as walking in the middle of the street and knocking on peoples windows that are stopped at a light. I really hope that the city’s efforts to partially ban panhandling works, something has to stop these people from destroying our city.

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-n...at-panhandling
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  #43  
Old Posted Jul 19, 2022, 2:24 PM
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Originally Posted by north 42 View Post
Believe me, they have moved to begging on the medians now, as well as walking in the middle of the street and knocking on peoples windows that are stopped at a light. I really hope that the city’s efforts to partially ban panhandling works, something has to stop these people from destroying our city.

https://windsorstar.com/news/local-n...at-panhandling
Municipal regulatory by-laws are not an effective tool to address these problems. Being convicted of a by-law offence and being sentenced to a fine (or, alternatively, being given an administrative monetary penalty by the municipality) is not much of a disincentive to a person who has zero means and zero intention of ever paying said fine or AMP.
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  #44  
Old Posted Jul 19, 2022, 2:26 PM
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Originally Posted by Pavlov View Post
Municipal regulatory by-laws are not an effective tool to address these problems. Being convicted of a by-law offence and being sentenced to a fine (or, alternatively, being given an administrative monetary penalty by the municipality) is not much of a disincentive to a person who has zero means and zero intention of ever paying said fine or AMP.
Seems like the solution to a lot of what people are talking about in this thread is simply more housing.

It's a common tactic for the unhoused to commit small felonies in order to get into prison or holding facilities short-term. Being inside beats being on the street at times, particularly in the winter.
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  #45  
Old Posted Jul 19, 2022, 3:25 PM
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What I loved was some of the 'response' from our police service to our condo board and residents.

'put up signs that say don't put valuables in your car'

No commitment to community patrols, no beat officers assigned, no strategy and all downloaded back onto our building.
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  #46  
Old Posted Jul 19, 2022, 3:31 PM
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I've been living in Gatineau since 2006, and the situation has certainly been getting worse.

When I moved here, there never used to be a beggar on the corner of the merge ramps from the 148 to autoroute 50. Now it is surprising when you don't see one there.

Same goes for the EB off ramp at Parkdale in Ottawa. Or Riverside and Industrial. Or SJAM turning left to Quebec. None of these places had people begging for money 16 years ago.

The only prolific spot at that time was King Edward near the Market (I am talking about being parked at a red light on a busy street..)
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  #47  
Old Posted Jul 19, 2022, 3:50 PM
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It appears to have improved here over the past several years.

Homelessness remains mostly invisible in St. John’s with most people experiencing it couchsurfing, living out of vehicles, or staying at shelters. You might run into someone sleeping rough in the core maybe once or twice per year.

From the outside looking in, the worst of the opioid crisis appears to have passed. Still lots of people with prescriptions for methadone or whatever it is they use. Lots of sharps disposal boxes, discarded needles, naloxone kits, etc. still littering sidewalks and parks. The legalization of cannabis has completely severed any interaction between recreational drug users and the illegal drug trade. Most of the remaining illegal things (cocaine, for example), recreational users avoid due to fears of fentanyl. So the addicted community is now more invisible, which is bad, but also comes into contact less with the recreational users.

Mental health services have also improved, though less so for the most vulnerable. It’s gotten far easier here, though, for a working class person with a mental health issue to seek our therapy/support, etc.

It’s mostly safe here, for all involved. Deaths are relatively rare compared to similar-sized cities elsewhere. The other day there was a naked man from the drug den across the street just sitting out on the front step having a beer, walking up and down the street in front of neighbours and their kids One gave him shit, he crawled back in through the window of the drug den. Someone called the police (I don’t bother), and they came and knocked and gave up. No one hurt, or arrested. A week or so ago the ambulance took someone out of there on a stretcher but they were conscious (though clearly high). That’s kind of how it tends to go here. Not great but not too bad.
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  #48  
Old Posted Jul 19, 2022, 5:23 PM
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What's disturbing is that homelessness and "heavier"drug use such as heroin used to be a big city problem, but now I'm hearing that the smaller centres have been experiencing these same problems which have ramped up especially in the past decade. There are now some smaller cites with homeless shelters, safe injection sites, and discarded needles getting out of hand..Unheard of years ago..No longer 'only the big city" problems that they once were.

Last edited by Razor; Jul 19, 2022 at 6:04 PM.
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  #49  
Old Posted Jul 19, 2022, 5:23 PM
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I'd agree that Hamilton has taken a noticeable turn for the worse over the course of the pandemic.

2016 to 2018 I lived just went of downtown, and went / walked downtown often enough.

2018 I moved near THF, as well getting a job on the mountain instead of driving to Woodstock, so basically my day to day life doesn't pass through downtown unless I'm driving to the 403, which is fairly often.

An holy are there a lot of people hanging around that clearly have no where else to go, compared towaht it seemed like before. Now it seems like every drive through I see someone clearly tripping balls / having severe metal issues, wandering ranting etc. Obvious "camps" / individual makeshift shelters in all kinds of obvious places that you wouldn't have seen before.

So yeah, much worse and no signs of improving.
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  #50  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 1:25 PM
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As luck would have it I was in central Ottawa, yesterday and went by King Edward and Murray, which is the closest thing Canada's capital has to the DTES.

Oh boy.

I hate to pile on in this thread but it's worse than ever with a one-block stretch of Murray between Cumberland and King Edward filled with personal effects like foldable chairs, backpacks, garbage, sleeping bags, people lying on the sidewalk, etc. It looked like a mini version f one of those videos we see from Vancouver or some US cities.

I am no shrinking violet but this is definitely not a place I would enjoy walking through.

Granted there are no tents there (though Gatineau has a very small but consistent tent city along a creek) and it's only one block as opposed to multiple blocks, but still...
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  #51  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 2:04 PM
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One aspect to consider is how complex we have made society.

My mother suffered a stroke in her late 50s, and she lived into her late 80s. After her stroke she was able to liver a normal life. Look after herself, go shopping using cash. Interact with friends and family. My dad was a few years older and into his 60 in a similar condition.

What she could not do, was withdraw money from the bank. It was a terrible experience for her. The teller would want her to put a card into a reader, type in a PIN number. The teller would then get upset if she could not do it. She just could not get it. Thankfully the credit union had no such nonsense.

One time I had to file her vacancy tax declaration with the city. Silly tax, but a different story. They expect her to log into a computer navigate a multi-page website asking for folio numbers, pass codes, SIN number, account number. It was silly. No way to declare this using a paper form.

I was missing one of the silly codes and called them. They explained they could not give me that code, unless I had another code that would have been printed on a letter sent two months earlier. I said I don't have it can they re-mail it. No they can't, but I can login to a portal and get the code there. When I pointed out I don't have an account on their poral they explained how easy it to setup I just need the folio number and the passcode number that they can't give me. That city of Vancouver system is broken and excessively complex.

We need to engineer all of this stuff in society so someone that has modest cognitive challenges can function in society. This is going to become a bigger issue as the number of seniors increases.

Last edited by casper; Jul 20, 2022 at 2:26 PM.
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  #52  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 2:24 PM
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You don't want it to get a foothold. The DTES in Vancouver has a culture and advocacy groups that want to preserve the culture and felling of community.
Yes. “It takes a lot of money to keep Gandhi poor” is an apt quote for the mindset that keeps the DTES chugging along.
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  #53  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 2:33 PM
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Originally Posted by casper View Post
One aspect to consider is how complex we have made society.

My mother suffered a stroke in her late 50s, and she lived into her late 80s. After her stroke she was able to liver a normal life. Look after herself, go shopping using cash. Interact with friends and family. My dad was a few years older and into his 60 in a similar condition.

What she could not do, was withdraw money from the bank. It was a terrible experience for her. The teller would want her to put a card into a reader, type in a PIN number. The teller would then get upset if she could not do it. She just could not get it. Thankfully the credit union had no such nonsense.

One time I had to file her vacancy tax declaration with the city. Silly tax, but a different story. They expect her to log into a computer navigate a multi-page website asking for folio numbers, pass codes, SIN number, account number. It was silly. No way to declare this using a paper form.

I was missing one of the silly codes and called them. They explained they could not give me that code, unless I had another code that would have been printed on a letter sent two months earlier. I said I don't have it can they re-mail it. No they can't, but I can login to a portal and get the code there. When I pointed out I don't have an account on their poral they explained how easy it to setup I just need the folio number and the passcode number that they can't give me. That city of Vancouver system is broken and excessively complex.

We need to engineer all of this stuff in society so someone that has modest cognitive challenges can function in society. This is going to become a bigger issue as the number of seniors increases.
These are all excellent points, though I do think they probably play a fairly minor role in the issues we are discussing here. For example, not sure how it's done but homeless people don't seem to have a problem getting access to the money from their monthly welfare payments, right?

Still, it's a growing societal issue, I'd agree.

On a much less serious note, several elderly people in my entourage (parents, aunts and uncles, etc.) have indicated they're thinking of stopping going to restaurants because of the growing number of them that don't have handout menus anymore. Since many of them don't have smartphones. (I assume that most restaurants still have printed menus if you ask - but some really don't.)
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  #54  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 2:39 PM
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Are the fentanyl/meth epidemics worse than the crack epidemic of the 90s? From a Canadian perspective, I most certainly think so. Crack was never as widespread on the streets of Canadian big cities as it was in the United States. For complex reasons, Crack disproportionately affected the Black community in the United States (rather like how alcoholism is rampant on native reserves in Canada), whereas fentanyl/meth seems to afflict the White community the most.

Given that successive governments have little appetite to plough buckets of money into addiction treatment and mental health treatment, what are the options? Something has to be done.
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  #55  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 2:56 PM
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Originally Posted by casper View Post
You don't want it to get a foothold. The DTES in Vancouver has a culture and advocacy groups that want to preserve the culture and felling of community.
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Originally Posted by hipster duck View Post
Yes. “It takes a lot of money to keep Gandhi poor” is an apt quote for the mindset that keeps the DTES chugging along.
Another fully Onionesque piece of news.

"Hey!!!!! You!!!!! Yes, you, the idiot/vandal who was just about to carefully pick up and discard an used syringe from the sidewalk. Stop that IMMEDIATELY! It's a heritage item that contributes to the unique feel of this neighborhood. And get the fuck out of here. We won't let people like you spoil this neighborhood!!!"
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  #56  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 3:01 PM
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Are the fentanyl/meth epidemics worse than the crack epidemic of the 90s? From a Canadian perspective, I most certainly think so.
One difference is that crack doesn't kill its user, fentanyl often does.

It's debatable which is worse; is society "better off" with 1,000 OD deaths or 1,000 living crackhead zombies on the streets (many of whom would be suicidal anyway, and who have no quality of life at all) ... ?

It's not even an unpleasant way to go.
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  #57  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 3:01 PM
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Are the fentanyl/meth epidemics worse than the crack epidemic of the 90s? From a Canadian perspective, I most certainly think so. Crack was never as widespread on the streets of Canadian big cities as it was in the United States. For complex reasons, Crack disproportionately affected the Black community in the United States (rather like how alcoholism is rampant on native reserves in Canada), whereas fentanyl/meth seems to afflict the White community the most.

Given that successive governments have little appetite to plough buckets of money into addiction treatment and mental health treatment, what are the options? Something has to be done.
One thing that's different about the two epidemics is that there isn't an all-out bloody turf war for control of the drug trade du jour right now.

Especially in the US, the crack epidemic was devastating in how in addition to all the medical health problems it caused, it also spiked violent crime to insane levels.

Crime is definitely up these days, and part of it is due to drugs, but it's nothing like it was in the days of crack.
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  #58  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 3:07 PM
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These are all excellent points, though I do think they probably play a fairly minor role in the issues we are discussing here. For example, not sure how it's done but homeless people don't seem to have a problem getting access to the money from their monthly welfare payments, right?
For the ones who don't have a bank account, it's a complicated process.

Also, it's really, really, really stupid to give them the full sum on the first day of the month. I've acted as caretaker to some of them and it is a significant improvement to give them their amount spread over the month. (I did it on a weekly basis.)

I think the benefits for society (i.e. reduction in crime from people who have to somehow go through a whole month without a penny after blowing their entire check on the first) would be totally worth the slight increase in administration. The system should be updated anyways. Mailing checks makes no sense anymore.
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  #59  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 4:44 PM
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In the Ottawa forum right now there is a discussion about the McDonald's on Rideau St. which has eliminated its "dining in" section and washrooms due to serious problems with violence and other criminal activity.

I also think that you can no longer go inside another downtown McDonald's on Bank St. You have to order via an app and they bring your order out to you.

The one on Rideau made headlines a couple of years ago when they stopped being open 24 hours and decided to close early due to too many undesirables.

Hard to believe this is the situation only 500 m from Parliament Hill.
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  #60  
Old Posted Jul 20, 2022, 4:54 PM
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It's very visible in Hamilton. Much more so than it used to be, though I lived in Burlington until just before the pandemic, so what I saw here came in glimpses when I was in town; up until 2000 or so the issues were there but less prevalent and less visible. I'm sure the problem has worsened over the past two+ years.

"Tent cities" in parks and on prominent vacant land have largely been broken up. I think most of those people moved their sites to more remote and hidden locations sheltered by denser foliage, off trails, on the edges of industrial properties, and other places not easy to see from the street.

The largest clusters of homeless I've seen are on the fringe of downtown.

Downtown Burlington, or Oakville, by comparison? I haven't explored the nether regions of either one, but haven't seen any. Burlington used to have one or two homeless men in the centre of town who disappeared before I stopped living there. I don't know if there are people asking for money at suburban intersections of those cities, but I haven't seen any when driving through. There's been a belief that both municipalities have basically exported their socially needy to larger cities like Hamilton and Toronto, and I tend to believe it... you'd expect a place with a couple of hundred thousand residents to have some who don't have a place to go or much help, and I don't think either city has much in the way of shelters.


**********

Let's not forget that there are LOTS of "average" folks who have mental health and addiction issues, but it's less visible because it largely exists behind the closed doors of their own homes and workplaces. People who are socially "functional" yet have a dependence on alcohol, medications, other drugs, etc. or who are living with mental illnesses, and their families bear the brunt of the problems.
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