BC Lags Behind Other Provinces in Life Satisfaction

[Locke]

Originally Posted by jar_e

Quote Deleted

That seems reasonable enough.

The thing is, I think a lot of us are right around that age where money was flowing through Calgary's streets, you could be working a full-time job and still not afford a place to live.

I let people use my office address so they could try and get a job. But this is not that.

These are not the 'working poor.' Things are grim, and we need to have a plan and it cant just be the dumbass 'throw money at them' kind of 'plan.'

[FlamesAddiction]

In the LML, you see a lot of these types of camps popping up.

https://www.coastreporter.net/local-...echelt-6756061

Martin Schmidt is one of the five people (and one dog) residing in the structure he built, which he calls a “tarp mansion.” Inside the blue tarp, there is room for up to eight people to have their own private space. A 350-pound wood stove is used for heat instead of an open fire. Schmidt said they only use wood — never garbage — and they try to keep the area clean.

Schmidt came to the Coast to be close to family after his wife died of cancer, though the couple had been planning to move to Sechelt together. He works as a roofer.

Not the same thing as the situation in the DTES, but it's a slippery slope for a lot of people in his situation and this is how it starts for a lot of people. The man who built this structure is employed as a roofer.

I work for a provincial agency that responds to environmental emergencies and have visited many camps like this, often related to sewage, fuel, and other hazardous materials releases. I've been to some that are filled with addicts, and others that are relatively high functioning people.

Here is another example:

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/large-homeless...ears-1.6355069

On the edge of a waterway, next to a regional park, is an encampment known as “Island 22”. It’s a long-standing makeshift trailer park in Chilliwack that’s home to about 70 people, including 78-year-old Danny Holmes.

“All I get is old age pension and I can save a big chunk of that by being here,” said the career-musician, who has been without permanent housing for about five years and said living on Vancouver’s east end burned him out.

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But homeless people living at “Island 22”, said one of the problems they face is people from outside the camp dumping garbage there as well as old RV’s.

“People…drop their crap off,” said Ben Siemens, 60, who moved to the camp in February.

“Can’t find a place to rent in town,” he explained.

“I looked for a long time, looked for four years trying to find a place, so I have no choice,” Siemens said.

He said he is a former trucker who later worked in a bike shop until it shut down.

“Nobody wants to hire you because you’re getting too old, right?” he said.

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Linda Cobetto, 51, is one of the few women in the camp. She said she worked until just recently when the commute became too much.

“I was working as a flagger and I did that for about six months and I can’t handle it anymore,” she said.

“Some days I wish I was back in a house so I can get up and shower and do laundry, but to me, it’s like my Saturday thing. I get up and do laundry at a laundry mat…” she said, adding that she has friends who let her come over to shower.

The DTES gets all the attention, but most of the homeless in the region do not live there and represent a larger segment of society than often gets recognized.

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Locke

I dont really feel like re-hashing that but apparently those places are a lawless nightmare.

So are the tent cities, the reality is if you live in a tent you get 200 bucks more than in a SRO, it's money

[activeStick]

The latest numbers from Rentals.ca, a service that lists rentals across the country and provides monthly reports that examine the cost of those units, show the average price of a one-bedroom in the City of Vancouver at $2,787 per month — the most expensive in the country.

Two-bedroom basement suites going for $3,000 a month, a single bed in a room#listed for $1,000 a month, and windowless closets renting for $800.#

Expensive rent#in Metro Vancouver is nothing new, but renters searching for a home#in the region say the listings they're coming across have reached a whole new level of absurdity.#

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ents-1.6855235

[Locke]

Originally Posted by activeStick

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...ents-1.6855235

Tell me more of this 'windowless' closet....

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Locke

Tell me more of this 'windowless' closet....

Check out this gem in Calgary:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...3814565274727/

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Check out this gem in Calgary:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...3814565274727/

Hey! No risk of defenestration! They should put that in the Ad!

[activeStick]

More violence last night in Vancouver. Summer times usually means more shootings in the Lower Mainland.

https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/...-vancouver-vpd

Another wedding guest said it sounded like “a machine-gun” was used. And they said someone who had been with Samra yelled that Surrey was going to be “lit up.”

Both Samra and his older brother, Ravinder, were invited guests at the wedding. Both were on a warning poster issued by the Combined Forces Special Enforcement last August saying that they could be targeted by rivals and urging the public to steer clear of them and others on the list.

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by activeStick

More violence last night in Vancouver. Summer times usually means more shootings in the Lower Mainland.

https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/...-vancouver-vpd

Sad part is someone else already died in a mistaken identity shooting last time they tried to get this guy.

Amarpreet Samra is also believed to have been the intended target of a May 2021 shooting in North Delta that resulted in the slaying of correctional officer Bikramdeep Randhawa.

Randhawa was gunned down in the parking lot of a Walmart on Scott Road. Delta Police later confirmed he was a victim of mistaken identity. Postmedia sources said Samra lived near Randhawa at the time and drove a similar vehicle.

[activeStick]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Sad part is someone else already died in a mistaken identity shooting last time they tried to get this guy.

I remember this one. There's violence and shootings in every major Canadian city, but it just seems a bit different in the Lower Mainland to me. A little like Calgary circa early 2000s, except in the Lower Mainland, the victims are older.

[FlamesAddiction]

Just a couple of weeks ago, I was taking my daughter to her baseball game and we had to take a detour because someone was shot in a sushi restaurant. It was at around 7PM in Coquitlam near Westwood Plateau, which is a pretty affluent area. Gang related of course.

[activeStick]

Yeah shootings in the Lower Mainland aren't related to poverty or bad neighborhoods. Can happen in a theatre in Surrey, a parking lot in Richmond, a sidewalk in North Van or a restaurant in Coquitlam.

[afc wimbledon]

Yes BC is almost unique in that our drug gang members come from mostly middle class even wealthy families, a consequence of the Khalistan movement of the 80's

[dieHARDflameZ]

Probably because they have an NDP government.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Yes BC is almost unique in that our drug gang members come from mostly middle class even wealthy families, a consequence of the Khalistan movement of the 80's

There are plenty of rich white, Persian, Asian, etc gangsters in the lower mainland too.

I remember being shocked when I first saw the Bacon Brothers family home. It was decidedly upper middle class.

[activeStick]

Originally Posted by blankall

There are plenty of rich white, Persian, Asian, etc gangsters in the lower mainland too.



I remember being shocked when I first saw the Bacon Brothers family home. It was decidedly upper middle class.

Yup. I mean, the leader of UN is a white dude, but then he does have a bunch of Asian tattoos.....

[activeStick]

And in related news, a former Canadian soldier, Matthew Dupre was extradited to Thailand, accused in the killing of Lower Mainland UN member Jimi Sandhu in Phuket a year ago. Dupre was fighting for the Canadian military in Afghanistan years ago and has since become a professional hitman. I believe Sandhu had been hiding out in SE Asia for a while after having money put on his head by his enemies. Can't hide forever...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1663379710301343749

[Winsor_Pilates]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Yes BC is almost unique in that our drug gang members come from mostly middle class even wealthy families, a consequence of the Khalistan movement of the 80's

Obviously there's a big issue with South Asian gangsters, but curious what the Khalistan movement has to do with it?

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Obviously there's a big issue with South Asian gangsters, but curious what the Khalistan movement has to do with it?

The genesis of south asian drug gangs were older guys out of the Ross Street temple in the 80's who exchanged drugs for guns across the US border to send back to the Punjab to fight the Ghandi government, at that stage the Khalistan movement was straight out civil war, there were a large amount of Sikh long haul truck drivers going across the border so they were ideally placed to exploit the trade, they weren't gangsters, were mostly older well off (owner operators of trucking businesses) they viewed it as a necessary way to get money and guns for the movement, their kids though just saw the money they were making and as the war slowly wound down the older guys dropped out and the younger guy took over the US criminal contacts and started trading BC weed for coke rather than guns, they set up grow ops in Vancouver and drug rings to move the coke they got in exchange

[HotHotHeat]

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

As someone who has spent a lifetime working with kids who statistically are likely to end up homeless (and I say with some pride that my guy's almost always dont) the problem is you have to set some boundaries, you cannot assume 'well if me and my neighbours were homeless we'd live in tents and it would be fine' the homeless on the DTES are severely compromised, their mental health and drug issues mean tent cities become a magnet for drug use, violence and exploitation and suck more and more people in from the rest of Canada, I have a kid I worked with back from Halifax who hitched back to Vancouver specifically to live in his tent on the DTES because to his mentally ill drug addicted mind it was a great place to get high and party

Great post. This explains the mindset of these folks individuals really well. Even with the supports being made to them (safe supply is the easiest example), which are designed to provide a pathway to improved health, safety and wellbeing, there simply isn't a willingness on their part to take that road. They want to max out their high and get as close to OD'ing as possible.