Outside of a section of Pandora I don't get this. I haven't felt unsafe downtown, and the people who are crying about the situation just want them swept under the rug. Like, you have to have a plan for how to actually address this. Police presence isn't going to do it, these people need support.
Anecdotally, I read a story from someone on the VictoriaBC subreddit who got out of this doom loop and it all starts with loss of housing. You lose your job/house and maybe are able to survive living out of your car or couch surfing for a while. Eventually that runs out and you'll find yourself in a shelter. You'll lose your stuff pretty quickly, and probably get beat up for it as well. You're not sleeping, constantly terrified, in a lot of pain, then someone offers you something to help with the pain and sleep (opiates). It's a runaway train crash after that point.
Almost 20% of the homeless population are locals. Nearly 50% have been here for 5+ years. 45% have either a physical disability or a medical disability. 2023 homeless census:
https://www.crd.ca/media/file/2023-p...e-count-report
This hits really close to home for me because my wife is now disabled with ME/CFS as a result of long covid. We're extremely lucky as she has LTD, but we very nearly lost it as her insurance challenged her disability and forced her into a functional capacity evaluation which hospitalized her. Thankfully I have a friend who is an OT who primarily works with patients like my wife and he managed to get us a family doctor as well as guiding us through the system and advocating for us.
If we didn't have that, I would have lost my house for sure, and I have a good job that pays well.