MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[#-3]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

I don't like the job Gondek is doing, but I do like Wyness as my ward's councillor.

as someone who voted for Wyness, I would be curious to hear why you are happy? I basically haven't heard her name since voting for her, and have not really judged her performance at all to date.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I agree with your statement, but just because it's worse/similar a lot of places in the world doesn't mean I think we should be accepting this.

Having people living in tent cities with all of the issues that come with those isn't something I think we should have anywhere, and I'd prefer we do more about it here. Walking passed multiple people every day killing themselves slowly with drugs is becoming normalized and accepted. I'd prefer we waste a bunch of money and effort on things that don't work in the search for a solution rather than just managing the current state of things.

Yeah, that’s what I said.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Yeah, that’s what I said.

Sure it is.

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Are they? Or are they operating in a comparatively quiet time?

COVID isn’t what it was, there is no lingering arena issue, no floods or other major disasters, even the issues around the unhoused and city safety have mostly died down.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by #-3

as someone who voted for Wyness, I would be curious to hear why you are happy? I basically haven't heard her name since voting for her, and have not really judged her performance at all to date.

I'd say more often than not, her votes on council issues sided with my beliefs. IMO, she at least sticks to what she believes in, rather than flip flop for the popularity vote.

I voted for both her and Gondek. I don't think I'll vote for Gondek again, but I have no issues voting for Wyness again.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Sure it is.

You could’ve just read the post you quoted originally:

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I agree with your statement, but just because it's worse/similar a lot of places in the world doesn't mean I think we should be accepting this.

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

This isn’t just a Calgary issue to deal with, it’s a global issue, and it might be as bad in Europe on average as anywhere else in the world, in ways that make Calgary’s issues pale in comparison.

That doesn’t excuse council or suggest it isn’t an issue worth dealing with by any means, I just think people who think Calgary’s issues are some sort of extreme would likely faint almost anywhere else (there are some countries where these issues are much less prevalent, but I don’t think you’ll find them in Europe).

Go ahead and point to where I said we should accept it. Unless this is just another thing where we’re on the same page but you get a weird hang up about having to disagree with me.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Go ahead and point to where I said we should accept it. Unless this is just another thing where we’re on the same page but you get a weird hang up about having to disagree with me.

I interpreted the first post as saying the problems had subsided (which I disagree with).

We both clearly agree they could be doing more, I just personally think the problem hasn't subsided, and things are actually pretty dire.

Maybe I misinterpreted your first post and you just mean that the general public is not as riled up about the issue as they were previously, regardless of the state of things?

I saw this today, pretty bleak figures:

https://globalnews.ca/news/10185414/...meless-deaths/

The names of 436 people were read aloud during Calgary's ninth annual Longest Night of the Year ceremony, nearly double the number of deaths on city streets last year. As Adam MacVicar reports, for many, it will be the only commemoration of their lives.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Maybe I misinterpreted your first post and you just mean that the general public is not as riled up about the issue as they were previously, regardless of the state of things?

That’s exactly what I meant, as we’re no longer at the Smith having to come out and announce ”more police!” and Gondek having to ride the train with security saying “see?? see?? safe!!” phase of things. Same with COVID, it’s bad and our hospitals are ####ed, but… nobody really cares, so there is a sad lack of demand toward having politicians stand up and make a scene about it.

I’m all for pumping significantly more money into the unhoused situation in Calgary, especially because I think it’s actually solvable given the resources we have (from financial resources to vacant buildings). Instead, we’re just leaving more and more people to die.

My view is not coming from a place of fear, either, so it irks me when get hyperbolic about things like riding a train with someone passed out on drugs because of how it makes them feel (while trying to say it’s so much better in places where it’s actually worse), and not the fact that this is a person who needs help and at best will get booted back onto the street and, as I said, ideally just left to die somewhere a little less busy.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

That’s exactly what I meant, as we’re no longer at the Smith having to come out and announce ”more police!” and Gondek having to ride the train with security saying “see?? see?? safe!!” phase of things. Same with COVID, it’s bad and our hospitals are ####ed, but… nobody really cares, so there is a sad lack of demand toward having politicians stand up and make a scene about it.

I’m all for pumping significantly more money into the unhoused situation in Calgary, especially because I think it’s actually solvable given the resources we have (from financial resources to vacant buildings). Instead, we’re just leaving more and more people to die.

My view is not coming from a place of fear, either, so it irks me when get hyperbolic about things like riding a train with someone passed out on drugs because of how it makes them feel (while trying to say it’s so much better in places where it’s actually worse), and not the fact that this is a person who needs help and at best will get booted back onto the street and, as I said, ideally just left to die somewhere a little less busy.

Ah, in that case my apologies. We basically have the exact same viewpoint here.

When I hear people freaking out about how it's not safe to go anywhere or let your kids walk to school I dig up the number of random murders by homeless people in Calgary.... zero.

I think the worst case for your average person is getting in a situation that causes a lot of fear or discomfort. Not to say that can't be a problem and make people unable to freely move about in public without anxiety, but you aren't going to die here.

But hundreds of the people in question are dying all the time, and even if we throw them free drugs and a safe place to use them, they are still living in misery.

We walk past tragedy every day, and as you say, should not accept this. We have the resources, and plenty of case studies of some degrees of success to emulate. To not take more action further immediate action is pretty morally reprehensible, and we owe these people and those affected by them more.

I can't imagine how much pain there is beyond the addicts and mentally ill themselves- in their families, friends, employers etc.

[Bill Bumface]

Regarding the safety of letting your kids walk to school or the playground in the inner city due to all the scary people around:

There are 3 child murders per million children in Canada. So about 21 per year.
Of those, 10% are committed by strangers.

So 2 child murders per year by strangers, in all of Canada.

151 children died in motor vehicle fatalities in 2021. 18.4% of those were pedestrians. So ~28 kids (assuming kids are as likely to be killed as adults, which is not true. They are harder to see, and bike more).

So you’re ~10x likely to get killed by a car walking or biking as you are to get murdered by ANY stranger.

A quick google of homeless people murdering kids yields zero results.

[Doctorfever]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

Ah, in that case my apologies. We basically have the exact same viewpoint here.

When I hear people freaking out about how it's not safe to go anywhere or let your kids walk to school I dig up the number of random murders by homeless people in Calgary.... zero.

I think the worst case for your average person is getting in a situation that causes a lot of fear or discomfort. Not to say that can't be a problem and make people unable to freely move about in public without anxiety, but you aren't going to die here.

But hundreds of the people in question are dying all the time, and even if we throw them free drugs and a safe place to use them, they are still living in misery.

We walk past tragedy every day, and as you say, should not accept this. We have the resources, and plenty of case studies of some degrees of success to emulate. To not take more action further immediate action is pretty morally reprehensible, and we owe these people and those affected by them more.

I can't imagine how much pain there is beyond the addicts and mentally ill themselves- in their families, friends, employers etc.

It is a sad state when there are so many homeless people in what can be such a prosperous society.

Rather than bandaid solutions to homelessness, I wish we would dig deeper and see why people are homeless.

For a very small number, they choose to be homeless. I have heard of people like this, but it is such a small number I think it can be disregarded completely.

So we have the drug addicted people, what caused them to go down the road of drugs, and how can we have avoided that? How do we fix that scenario so fewer people go down that road?

There is also some mentally ill people who fall into homelessness. How can we help them before they get too far down that path?

I don’t have the answers to these questions specifically, but if we were able to solve some of this we could hopefully prevent people from becoming homeless.

Then there is the financial part of homelessness. No secret that cost of housing has skyrocketed over the past several years. The answer to this has been debated in political threads - I guess we can leave it there.


Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t be helping homeless people, we should. But I think it would be prudent to dig deeper, try and find the source of some issues, and spend resources on solving those problems, and we should be better off in the long run.

[Bill Bumface]

^ Agreed 100%. By the time they are homeless and addicted it’s too late to help them with a high rate of success. We need to address the root causes, whatever all those are.

[timun]

Anybody else checked their property tax assessment yet? https://www.calgary.ca/property-owne...ct=/assessment

Mine went up 10%, which was not unexpected after I figured out how much my octogenarian former neighbour's house sold for in the summer... Hard to believe how much people pay for 65-year-old fixer-uppers on the edge of "the inner city".

[GGG]

I was happy to go up less than average this year. The last few years I had been worse than average but with the Condo Market up significantly more than housing that probably helped.

[WhiteTiger]

Mine jumped 23%. I thought it was a misprint.

[topfiverecords]

Up 51%. Not a misprint.

[timun]

O_O

Dayum.

[Canadianman]

mine is up 32%. Incredible.


I bought my house at the end of May 2023. They are trying to say that my house value went up 80k in two months lol.

[Fuzz]

up 8%, so less than average is nice.

[fotze2]

Mine is up 3.4%....from what I bought it at 13 years ago.

[Firebot]

Up 14% from last year