Anecdotally, from my travels around Germany this year (Leipzig, Berlin, Frankfurt, Leipzig again, soon Berlin again...) there has been a considerable rise in disorder compared even to last year. I've seen worse on the Berlin U-Bahn than I've ever seen in Edmonton—granted that my experiences on Edmonton LRT always seem to be milder than those of others here. In Leipzig, I see many homeless people camping out on the square in front of the Gewandhaus, which I'd never seen before.
I mention this because while I agree that Edmonton absolutely can and should do things about downtown disorder, I really think we need to move past thinking that Edmonton is uniquely bad in this respect and think more about what we have in common with these other cities.
Surprisingly, Chicago (another city I visit often) doesn't seem to have been too affected! No idea why.