getting a little tired of the crack/meth heads

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think you dont build complexes instead you mandate that part of every development includes space for homes with no building housing multiple of these units. Disperse the problem and make everyone deal with it. Essentially every multi-family dwelling should have drug addict low income, old age and regular ownership within the complex which should be part of every neighbourhood development plan. You shouldn’t be able to escape the society that enriches you.

I know Vancouver has a few developments like this, and conceptually I've always liked it.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

I think you dont build complexes instead you mandate that part of every development includes space for homes with no building housing multiple of these units. Disperse the problem and make everyone deal with it. Essentially every multi-family dwelling should have drug addict low income, old age and regular ownership within the complex which should be part of every neighbourhood development plan. You shouldn’t be able to escape the society that enriches you.

That would work very well if your goal was to reduce density and increase the price of single family housing. Senior and low income housing is very different than drug addiction rehab housing.

I owned a condo in a small building where a non-profit bought a unit for rehabbing folks. A significant percentage ended up backsliding, and we ended up having drug dealers visit the premises to service the demand. We ended up having huge issues, and basically the whole building went down hill pretty fast. The tenants in the adjacent units got tired of it, and so those owners could only get terrible tenants to stay. The whole building spiraled- owner occupiers sold and moved away and the good tenants left. Basically now the whole place is an unsafe environment that would be unlikely to be successful for someone trying to rehab.

[Leeman4Gilmour]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Sorry that you think I’m an #######. I don’t understand how you can make up a definition of compassion that is synonymous with “kid gloves” while being pedantic about “political.” I know what you believe, and I’m telling you that I disagree. Can you handle that without low-brow name calling?

Compassion just doesn’t have anything to do with “kids gloves” and it doesn’t have anything to do with ignoring a problem (you’re the one who brought it up, I don’t know why you related the two if you didn’t want me to assume you were relating the two). “Too much” sympathy and concern is pretty hard to define, but you believe it means not doing enough, or not using hard enough measures. I’m telling you that if there was too much compassion, the “compassionate” tactics that have been deployed would be a lot stronger. I don’t see how you can begin to believe there is too much compassion when most homeless people are left to die and there is a severe lack of funding and effort to fix the problem. That’s why it’s absurd. The reality is that we’re not responding strongly enough in either a compassionate way or a harsher way, and you’re saying the half-hearted response is actually just too compassionate, which is not reality.

(EDIT: to use an analogy, it’s like if someone was going hungry and you had the ability to buy them a full meal and teach them how to cook, but instead you gave them a single french fry, and someone accused you of being “too” compassionate because of it. That’s why it’s absurd.)

And yes, it is going to be political in the sense “of and/or relating to politics.” Obviously. But I explained in the original post that it should be bipartisan and not politicized, ie used as a political issue to secure votes. I don’t know how else to make myself clear to you.

This thread is about the very observable increase in drug use around the city and the country. I have said I agree with you that we're half assing solutions. Others have used "compassion" and "normalization" as part of the problem. I am agreeing this could be part of the problem. Seeing people shoot up in public, OD'd on the street, jumping on the hoods of cars, whatever the case may be, and just accepting it because "they are people too" is handling the situation with kid gloves. If you disagree with that, I am cool. Calling it absurd is as necessary as suggesting you're being an #######.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

That would work very well if your goal was to reduce density and increase the price of single family housing. Senior and low income housing is very different than drug addiction rehab housing.

I owned a condo in a small building where a non-profit bought a unit for rehabbing folks. A significant percentage ended up backsliding, and we ended up having drug dealers visit the premises to service the demand. We ended up having huge issues, and basically the whole building went down hill pretty fast. The tenants in the adjacent units got tired of it, and so those owners could only get terrible tenants to stay. The whole building spiraled- owner occupiers sold and moved away and the good tenants left. Basically now the whole place is an unsafe environment that would be unlikely to be successful for someone trying to rehab.

That’s because people have options so the problems get concentrated. People had the option to move somewhere without these issues.

We also need to better mix multi family into the SFH streets. No more putting multi family in the least desirable busiest roads but instead disperse in throughout lake bonnevista.

Essentially everyone should be exposed to the problems of addiction in their community.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

That’s because people have options so the problems get concentrated. People had the option to move somewhere without these issues.

We also need to better mix multi family into the SFH streets. No more putting multi family in the least desirable busiest roads but instead disperse in throughout lake bonnevista.

Essentially everyone should be exposed to the problems of addiction in their community.

Instead of every building has these problems

This was one unit in the building though, which is exactly what you're proposing, and it spiraled the whole building. If you mandate this you'll just end up stratifying society more, and some of the people who prefer condo living will try to get single family homes. You can't mandate everyone lives with a drug addict- people will move to wherever that mandate ends, whether that's a SFH, an outlying community, or a different province.

Spreading out the drug addicts doesn't make them any less addicted to drugs or likely to cause problems, it just spreads out the problems.

We don't need to make sure everyone gets to experience these issues, we need to solve them. At some point if enough people have these issues (especially where they live) you'll end up with political support for far right solutions.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

This was one unit in the building though, which is exactly what you're proposing, and it spiraled the whole building. If you mandate this you'll just end up stratifying society more, and some of the people who prefer condo living will try to get single family homes. You can't mandate everyone lives with a drug addict- people will move to wherever that mandate ends, whether that's a SFH, an outlying community, or a different province.

Spreading out the drug addicts doesn't make them any less addicted to drugs or likely to cause problems, it just spreads out the problems.

We don't need to make sure everyone gets to experience these issues, we need to solve them. At some point if enough people have these issues (especially where they live) you'll end up with political support for far right solutions.

Dispersing the drug addicts that thinly also makes providing the services they need more difficult and costly. There has to be a balance found between efficient delivery of services and ghettoization of entire blocks / neighbourhoods.

Again, the idea that 'everyone needs to experience this' is asinine.

[GGG]

Or you end up with support for funding to solve problems.

People do need to experience the problems that modern society creates. Look at this thread Sliver is concerned about crack whores because he is impacted by crack whores. Hiding the problem drives the willingness to find solutions.

I agree that people moving away is a challenge to overcome but we already have density requirements for neighbourhoods to stratify incomes in neighborhoods. The concept is already being applied.

Again your comment of one unit sunk a building is in a scenario where people had the option to move to a building without this issue. When all buildings share a small amount of the issue and buildings are dispersed throughout neighbourhoods you limit the ability to escape.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Many people own property next to low income, government-sponsored, and at-risk housing complexes and don’t even know or notice. They exist all over Calgary.

Very true, but those are also very different than Safe-Injection sites or a drop in center.

Also, going back to that topic, I think it makes sense to have those centrally located as it consolidates resources in a smaller geographical area. I havent done a deep-dive or anything, but it just seems like its more efficient having the DIC a stone's throw from the Chumir for example.

Originally Posted by Derek Sutton

Yes, they're afraid of being randomly attacked by meth heads and cr@ck wh0res!!

I know you're saying that in jest, but...you're not wrong.

And its not even just that, I'm far from some kind of recovery expert, but I'd postulate that if you took an individual with the greatest of intentions of kicking the sauce or the needle and plunked them into an environment where they're pretty literally surrounded by their vices, slather a crapload of 'free time' and boredom with a side of harassment on top of it....how likely do you think that individual is to be able to stick to it?

I know that the Public Housing and shelters are supposed to be 'Drug Free.' So is Prison. Guess what...its all still there.

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

BC Housing releases reports a year or two after the opening of their Rapid Response to Homelessness complexes and are about as positive as you can expect. Nobody is saying this is a “silver bullet” (and I can’t believe how many times it needs to be repeated that there isn’t a silver bullet, that this requires a comprehensive approach, but if people want to keep repeating themselves I’m fine to continue as well) but this is one “bullet in the chamber” of an effective solution, if that’s the kind of analogy you want to go with.

This is something I take exception to.

Everyone knows that 'Silver Bullets' are just for killing Werewolves, I think its disingenuous to paint the homeless and addicted population with the brush of comparing them to Werewolves.

They are a lot of things, but that seems like its just going too far!

Not to mention, hunting homeless people with silver ammunition seems like a damned expensive hobby and I just think we could re-allocate our 'precious metal ammo' budget to something a little more efficient and effective.

Perhaps you meant to be discussing 'Magic Bullets?' In which case you might be hunting Wizards?

Anyhow, we just might be digressing from the point a little.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

I agree that people moving away is a challenge to overcome but we already have density requirements for neighbourhoods to stratify incomes in neighborhoods. The concept is already being applied.

Again your comment of one unit sunk a building is in a scenario where people had the option to move to a building without this issue. When all buildings share a small amount of the issue and buildings are dispersed throughout neighbourhoods you limit the ability to escape.

Density requirements and addiction requirements are quite different, and I agree income stratification is a good thing. Having poor neighbours isn't an issue for the vast majority of people, because having lower income doesn't make you a bad neighbour.

Meth addicts, whether detoxing or relapsing are bad neighbours in a whole host of ways. People will always have the option to move, and anyone who can manage it will. There are plenty of single family houses out there (and that idea would make them less affordable). Having gone through this (not even as a resident, just a condo owner) people will find somewhere else to live - a building built before the mandate, a basement suite, or even move cities.

This would make new construction multi-family the least desirable built form for people to live in, which has negative ramifications because that's the type of housing we should be encouraging.

[flamesfever]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Compassion isn’t accepting the circumstance of others and choosing to ignore it, so I’m not sure how an individual not caring if bus shelters are used as drug dens has anything to do with compassion. Considering nobody believes an addiction to be a positive trait and sleeping outside to be desirable, an abundance of compassion would likely lead to actively wanting those things to be changed or erased. Compassion for homeless addicts isn’t “leave them be,” so again, you’re being absurd.

And yes, it is currently political and ideological. My point was that it can’t be, because the right solution is going to be bipartisan and transforming what we view as competitive ideologies into complimentary ones. Suggesting the next “solution” is going to be political and ideological is just admitting that the next solution isn’t going to work.

I tend to look at the solutions as being a balance between the yin and the yang e.g. stick and carrot, justice and mercy, compassion and punitive, etc. Although I admit using politics or ideology may unduly polarize and negatively affect decision making, especially today. However, I don't think you can avoid it, if you wish to get to the root causes of our long-range problems in society.

Every decision we arrive at is going to have deep seated political and ideological undertones. If it makes more common sense to move either to the left or right politically doesn't really matter, as long as the solution works, and the positives outweigh the negatives.

As for the problems in Calgary regarding homelessness, mental health, and addiction, the law enforcement, justice, and city officials have the power, and most of the key knowledge and information necessary to help come up with viable solutions. From here, it's up to the public to become active in adding our input and support to make it happen.

[Cappy]

Since the pandemic, my GF has been accosted three times walking to work. Thankfully, not touched or anything, but obviously events that affected her. It's certainly gotten to a point where more focus is needed.

I first moved to Calgary in 2007(?) and I remember getting off the C-Train downtown to go to the bar and there were scores of drug dealers around offering drugs (first rock is free!). I havent seen that since.

Mayor Bronco had instituted the Guiliani "broken glass" policy - or something similar which probably helped; but, I do think this type of issue is cyclical in some sense.

There are also issues with globalization and the rise in synthetic drug manufacturing. Chinese and Asian drug manufacturing (as well as the traditional drugs and smuggling ventures) are rampant and fueled by insatiable thirst for ever-increasing addictive substances. Global trade is far too large to actively police the importation of all cargo (billion dollar cargo ships: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpiOLdnAGBw&t=733s

I believe the pandemic was the biggest driver of the crisis in a multitude of ways. Job-losses, isolation, boredom, living with abusers etc. on top of rising costs for housing and goods post-pandemic have certainly pushed many to the edge and over it. Coupled with the relative desolation of downtown core workers, and a tweaker would certainly get used to the ability to do things out in the open. Calgary (and several other cities and towns in Alberta) have the added difficulty of being close to large reservations where many homeless/tweakers come from while also being impossible to coordinate strategies for reduction.

Long-term strategies are the only way to fix these things. That costs money. Money people don't want to spend and would rather see the tweakers die in a back alley or on a midnight ride. The issue is that we probably already pay more money to patch these problems: hospital stays; remand center stays; insurance claims and loss of property etc.

Housing probably won't fix the tweaker out there right now (saw a half dozen sharing the crack pipe in a bus shelter by Chumir last night on way home); but it would certainly aid in stemming the tide of future tweakers down on their luck and ready to taste.

The current tweakers, they need help and an attempt at rehabilitation. I think "forced treatment" should be a requirement. Have you ever met a form drug addict who regrets getting clean?

We also need to increase the presence of police / social workers / security in public areas. C-Train stations and cars; public parks etc. Boots on the ground so to speak. Perhaps some new forms of remand centers that are similar to drunk tanks but for tweakers? someone tweaking out on the C-Train, send them to there to sober up away from Jane Doe on her way home from work.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Cappy

Mayor Bronco had instituted the Guiliani "broken glass" policy - or something similar which probably helped; but, I do think this type of issue is cyclical in some sense.

Broken Windows Policing. Interesting read.

[GGG]

The New York example doesn’t hold up to scrutiny as jurisdictions without the policy also saw significant reductions in crime. Abortion access and lack of lead paint are the most likely contributors.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by Yeah_Baby

I know Vancouver has a few developments like this, and conceptually I've always liked it.

Which ones are you referring to?

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Which ones are you referring to?

I don't recall. I just remember reading something about it a few years ago.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by GGG

The New York example doesn’t hold up to scrutiny as jurisdictions without the policy also saw significant reductions in crime. Abortion access and lack of lead paint are the most likely contributors.

Exactly. As post above mentioned, it probably wasn't immensely effective. I think these types of issues are cyclical. The abortion debate (was it first presented in Freakanomics?) is certainly an interesting take and really ties in the poverty aspect to crime rates - which would likely be a contributing factor to what we are seeing now.

[Fuzzy14]

The thing about the Portugal example that's often left out is the compulsory treatment that accompanied decriminalization. Yes, you don't get criminally charged with drug possession, but it's also not just some free for all. You have to report for treatment, there are drug tests, and you can be locked up (not in prison, but in a treatment facility) for failure to comply.

Our approach of just letting crackheads roam free to cause chaos while simultaneously increasing the availability of drugs is the worst of both worlds; and I say that as someone that thinks recreational drug use should generally be legal.

This really hit home for me. A few years ago, my former bosses (very conservative) were talking about the homelessness/drug addiction issue. They proposed that "those people should be locked up and forced into treatment, if it doesn't stick the first time you lock them up again and repeat cycle until it does".

At the time, I was shocked. My response was "you can't treat people like that, they have rights", etc. But as I've watched the situation degrade over the past few years, I'm starting to believe more and more that they had a point. I've recently stopped taking the train altogether, and willingly pay triple the cost of getting to work (100 dollar bus pass vs. paying for parking downtown) so that I can avoid sitting in front of a person on the train who is passed out and urinating on themselves.

I am very compassionate towards individuals struggling with mental illness, and who are generally "going through it".... but ultimately, this has become a significant safety issue. It also says alot about what we're willing to tolerate as a society.

[Yeah_Baby]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy14

This really hit home for me. A few years ago, my former bosses (very conservative) were talking about the homelessness/drug addiction issue. They proposed that "those people should be locked up and forced into treatment, if it doesn't stick the first time you lock them up again and repeat cycle until it does".

At the time, I was shocked. My response was "you can't treat people like that, they have rights", etc. But as I've watched the situation degrade over the past few years, I'm starting to believe more and more that they had a point. I've recently stopped taking the train altogether, and willingly pay triple the cost of getting to work (100 dollar bus pass vs. paying for parking downtown) so that I can avoid sitting in front of a person on the train who is passed out and urinating on themselves.

I am very compassionate towards individuals struggling with mental illness, and who are generally "going through it".... but ultimately, this has become a significant safety issue. It also says alot about what we're willing to tolerate as a society.

Probably better just euthanize them. Think of how expensive it would be to intuitionalise people who use drugs in perpetuity. Also the Oil and Gas industry would collapse if you locked up everyone who regularly did blow.
I get that I'm an average size white cis man, but honestly I'm more scared of coked up rig pigs than the people I've encountered on transit, which I use regularly.


Edit: as far as what we tolerate in society, people shouldn't have to defecate in transit stations, but if their isn't easy access to public restrooms, what are they supposed to do? Go to jail I guess.

[81MC]

Woooooooooooooosh

[Fuzzy14]

Probably better just euthanize them. Think of how expensive it would be to intuitionalise people who use drugs in perpetuity. Also the Oil and Gas industry would collapse if you locked up everyone who regularly did blow.
I get that I'm an average size white cis man, but honestly I'm more scared of coked up rig pigs than the people I've encountered on transit, which I use regularly.


Edit: as far as what we tolerate in society, people shouldn't have to defecate in transit stations, but if their isn't easy access to public restrooms, what are they supposed to do? Go to jail I guess.

Kind of hard to tell what is and isn't sarcasm, so I'll just address each point as if it was serious.

I don't think anyone is proposing locking up casual drug users. Nor is anyone advocating locking up all drug users in perpetuity. However, it's pretty clear that the "choose your own adventure" method for individuals struggling deeply with mental health and drug addiction isn't working.

It's great that you aren't concerned about the state of your fellow riders on Calgary Transit and more concerned with "Rig Pigs", but that sentiment is not shared by others. People shouldn't have to play "dodge the vomit" or be forced to just ignore the person screaming at them as they suffer a very public mental health crisis.

Regarding public washrooms, the devil is in the detail. As nice as it would be to have open and unlimited access to public restrooms, the city isn't closing these facilities for fun. They're closing them because they turn into cesspools of drug use, vandalism and violence. If we're talking about what we tolerate as a society, perhaps it should involve not perpetuating a system where its acceptable for people to be perpetually homeless, drug addicted, mentally ill and forced to defecate outside rather than their place of residence.

I won't bother to directly address the euthanasia comment.