getting a little tired of the crack/meth heads

[blankall]

Originally Posted by curves2000

In Middle Eastern cultures they will just take justice out on you in the form of a beating and more. You don't have mountains of meth heads running around raping girls and attacking random people on the street.

The majority of middle eastern countries are now facing a serious amphetamine problem.

Globally drug use, at least seems, to be on the rise.

[Locke]

Hm...an abundance of under-employed individuals with aggression issues and housing concerns and an ongoing war in Ukraine?

Fellas...we just may have two circumstances on our hands that could potentially help solve each other.

[MRCboicgy]

Originally Posted by Locke

Hm...an abundance of under-employed individuals with aggression issues and housing concerns and an ongoing war in Ukraine?

Fellas...we just may have two circumstances on our hands that could potentially help solve each other.

Time to merge the threads! I'm on it!

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Leeman4Gilmour

But, it seems rather clear this is cultural issue and I tend to agree part of that is too much compassion as a society.

This is an absurd conclusion, though, considering nothing about our response or society’s treatment of homeless people and addicts indicates an abundance of compassion. If anything, it’s a half-hearted attempt at showing compassion. “We” are acting in a way we believe compassionate people act, which is incredibly different than acting with an abundance of compassion. If we had too much compassion, we likely would not have this problem, because we would have funnelled actual resources into fixing it.

Originally Posted by stone hands

I dont get what's so hard to understand about the fact that trying to get clean when you live underneath a bridge by the river is exponentially harder than trying to get sober with a predictable living situation. If our goal is to get people clean,we need to give them a place to live as a baseline before anything else because that lifestyle naturally leads itself towards maintaining the drug addict status quo. If you have nothing to live for, no place to stay, why WOULDNT you just do drugs to numb yourself from your awful existence

I’m surprised a few posters aren’t understanding this. This fantasy of rounding up all the homeless addicts and arresting and imprisoning them or “ethically forcibly confining” them to a mental institution and then just forcing them to be fixed or die in prison or get beat to death by the police or something is cool and all if that’s the road people want to go down, but how is any of that remotely conducive to actually curing addiction? Why would they bother?

Sliver’s big issue is actually seeing these people, he’s repeated it several times. Alleviating their HOMELESSNESS solves the immediate issue. You can alleviate their homelessness by giving them a home. A crazy concept, I’m sure. Then, for those who are also suffering from addiction or mental health issues or a combination, you offer treatments (as many on site or near site as possible). For those who aren’t or are no longer suffering from addiction or mental health issues, you work with them on transitional employment to get them back on their own two feet and eventually to a place where they don’t need government housing. The idea isn’t to give them mansions, just places to live that are safe and comfortable, but places they will eventually want to move on from. For those who simply refuse to engage in the program at all, then there’s nothing inhumane about increasing the legal consequences for remaining homeless or addicts. But you have to wrap it all together.

The people complaining the loudest in this thread don’t seem to want comprehensive solutions. They want punishments, or to fix it while saving a buck, but i’m not seeing a lot of interest in actually solving the issue in a way that makes sense from the main complainers. They just want to try a slightly different half-measure, which history tells us is not going to work. Finland, Portugal, Japan, Denmark, there are different examples of effective approaches to the issue, none of them half measures, none of them as lazy as just opening up more mental institutions, all of them with a ways to go yet but still far ahead of where we are.

Another problem is that people view this as a political or ideological debate/issue, when it’s not. As soon as you blame the “other” group for not solving this, you lose 100% of your credibility. Part of the reason this doesn’t get solved is BECAUSE people politicize it. So stop being part of the problem.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by stone hands

So we are on the same page, youre saying they once had a home pre addiction, got addicted to drugs and lost their home, so that's proof they dont need housing before addressing addiction? That's my understanding of your point anyways, please feel free to ecludiate me if I'm misinterpreting you

Can you answer the question in the original post that you quoted, ie how much harder would it be to get sober while homeless vs having a place to live

I dont get what's so hard to understand about the fact that trying to get clean when you live underneath a bridge by the river is exponentially harder than trying to get sober with a predictable living situation. If our goal is to get people clean,we need to give them a place to live as a baseline before anything else because that lifestyle naturally leads itself towards maintaining the drug addict status quo. If you have nothing to live for, no place to stay, why WOULDNT you just do drugs to numb yourself from your awful existence

Why is it that those that have housing and addictions generally need to attend a privately run rehab centre to successfully kick their addiction yet it’s thought all that homeless need is a house, and a weekly meeting with an addictions counselor? It’s more complex than that.

Yes of course it’s impossible from living in a tent under a bridge. It’s also not that possible for many without ultimate measures. You can’t just give them a home and say now that you have a place don’t go do meth tonight. They need detox and a regularly administered prescription substitute to flip their situation from “must get today’s drug hit at all costs” to “I don’t need it anymore to exist and I can pursue greater things”.

I don’t think anyone’s angle is round people living on the streets up in vans and ship them to some draconian facility. You provide them the option. Those who want to get clean (with consistent warm meals, showers and a bed) will take the option. Those that don’t, you can’t really expect great success with those people.

If they’re arrested for criminal behaviour while under the influence of a narcotic they are admitted.

Watch the documentary Hemi posted and see what they’re doing in Rhode Island.

[Jason14h]

Can we at least start with the decade long addicts with violent crime histories and at least agree to get them off the street and away from society by any means required ? Or is even that debatable until they push your loved one onto the VLt tracks and assault your teenager coming home from school ?

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by Sainters7

One dude who I never even looked at or anything got right up in my face and said "wanna see if my bark is as bad as my bite?". He only had one tooth, it took everything I had to not make a crack about it, RE: his bite. He was only about 5'7" too and by himself, and I was with my buddy who's 6'3" and looks rough. Like what is he thinking??

He had these wild eyes and looked like he was twitching. I've noticed most of em I've had encounters with are like that. Is it a new street drug or something that makes you want to fight everybody? I thought that was just whisky..

The irrationality of these people has lately, definitely, gone up. I live and work downtown and see it all the time. Most of these people are just brainstems at this point, searching out drugs and money for drugs and lashing out in unpredictable ways. That's why they're homeless, not because the price of eggs are up. Three of my coworkers randomly were assaulted last year, one guy was tackled on the train station and was lucky he didn't fall on to the tracks. I've walked women coworkers to their cars and the station until their train showed up and I don't know how they walk around on their own I'd be terrified of these addicts if I was them. While we're doling out compassion how about some for the normal tax paying productive citizens of this city, mainly women, that shouldn't have to put up with being terrorized by the dregs of society.

[Wormius]

Do we need to infantilize women? Just because you decided to walk someone to their train doesn’t make it dangerous. Talk about fear-mongering.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Do we need to infantilize women? Just because you decided to walk someone to their train doesn’t make it dangerous. Talk about fear-mongering.

I don't think it's infantilizing them. Men are stronger than women, so women are at a physical disadvantage in the event of a confrontation. There is also the risk of sexual assault, which I would assume would be a greater danger for a woman than a man. I think it would be irresponsible to let a woman wait at the train station alone.

Is my thinking outdated or 'white knightish' on this? I actually always kind of look out for women in these situations and view it as a responsibility of being a big dude.

[Jason14h]

If a smaller male asked a stronger / larger women to walk them to the train station it would be the same , however this scenario is much rarer . Either way , other then message board political correctness BS , how is ANYONE being afraid to be at a train station or walk by themself “fear mongering “?

And I worked at a company where anybody could request the building security to accompany them to their vehicles in the company parking lot no where near inner city . And it was always women who made the request . And there’s nothing wrong with that. If anything potentially more men should ask for people to walk with them and pairs always offer more safety

Hell I can take care of myself and there’s zero chance I would be caught alone after certain times on the LRT in Calgary .

[Wormius]

Fear mongering if you think some nefarious mountain of meth head rapists are lurking around the corner of the Ctrain station waiting for a woman.

[keratosis]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Fear mongering if you think some nefarious mountain of meth head rapists are lurking around the corner of the Ctrain station waiting for a woman.

Don't want my sister/daughter/wife taking the chance, do you?

[stone hands]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Why is it that those that have housing and addictions generally need to attend a privately run rehab centre to successfully kick their addiction yet it’s thought all that homeless need is a house, and a weekly meeting with an addictions counselor? It’s more complex than that.

Yes of course it’s impossible from living in a tent under a bridge. It’s also not that possible for many without ultimate measures. You can’t just give them a home and say now that you have a place don’t go do meth tonight. They need detox and a regularly administered prescription substitute to flip their situation from “must get today’s drug hit at all costs” to “I don’t need it anymore to exist and I can pursue greater things”.

I don’t think anyone’s angle is round people living on the streets up in vans and ship them to some draconian facility. You provide them the option. Those who want to get clean (with consistent warm meals, showers and a bed) will take the option. Those that don’t, you can’t really expect great success with those people.

If they’re arrested for criminal behaviour while under the influence of a narcotic they are admitted.

Watch the documentary Hemi posted and see what they’re doing in Rhode Island.

Great, we need to give them all that extra support as well. My appologies if I made it seem that housing alone would be enough. It's not. But its the first step is definitely a place to live

[GGG]

Originally Posted by keratosis

Don't want my sister/daughter/wife taking the chance, do you?

I do,

Risks should be reasonably assessed. You child is far more likely to be assaulted by a relative, teacher, coach or other trusted adult than Meth addict at a C-train station. Rapists in most cases are known to their assailants.

So I want my loved ones to take reasonable precautions based on real risks and not perceived risks.

If you had to rate the risks of an evening going to a bar drinking I suspect that more people are assaulted both men and women by people they meet in the bar then meth heads they encounter taking the train home.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by keratosis

Don't want my sister/daughter/wife taking the chance, do you?

Besides what GGG said, I don’t see how treating all of the women in your life like they’re incapable of taking care of themselves helps them. It’s just contributing to paranoia.

They’re more likely to be groped by some totally sober creeper on the train itself than by somebody just trying to get high in peace.

[Jason14h]

I have literally read it all now on this message board - having a meth head with a 10 year criminal history pushing women into the LRT tracks or assaulting them is now an acceptable risk vs ….. getting this person out of society ?

My brain is literally exploding reading some posts in this thread

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Besides what GGG said, I don’t see how treating all of the women in your life like they’re incapable of taking care of themselves helps them. It’s just contributing to paranoia.

They’re more likely to be groped by some totally sober creeper on the train itself than by somebody just trying to get high in peace.

No one is concerned about the person getting high in peace ! Why it that so hard to understand . Violent crimes / assaults by drug addicts is increasing at an exponential risk

No one is worried about the opioid homeless guy asleep in the corner

It’s the 10 year meth addict who’s brain is literally mush attacking their random demons who are actually random people

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by keratosis

Don't want my sister/daughter/wife taking the chance, do you?

Sister's a nurse and wife is a EMS supervisor

I think they're used to it

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I have literally read it all now on this message board - having a meth head with a 10 year criminal history pushing women into the LRT tracks or assaulting them is now an acceptable risk vs ….. getting this person out of society ?

My brain is literally exploding reading some posts in this thread

It’s stunning to me what we’ve just come to accept as normal. I‘be been walking into a coffee shop for a coffee in the middle of the week and had guys screaming at me in the parking lot. I can handle myself, although I’m not a big guy at all. It’s unnerving though, to say the least.

The reality is, these kinds of people live by different rules. And while I might be in favour of rehabilitation/treatment/etc., none of that matters.

The idea that we should just brush this off and have such a carefree attitude is so bizarre.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

I have literally read it all now on this message board - having a meth head with a 10 year criminal history pushing women into the LRT tracks or assaulting them is now an acceptable risk vs ….. getting this person out of society ?

My brain is literally exploding reading some posts in this thread

If it’ll make you stop repeating the same scenario and acting like people owe it to you to address it, sure, we can arrest that one type of person, like we already do. Everyone agrees. Cool? You good?