|
|
|
- Thread starter Admiral Beez
- Start date
Northern Light
Superstar
Ok.........there are a whole series of comments from multiple posters here that verge on if not cross into jingoistic hyperbole.
Everyone calm down please.
@Bojaxs ....anecdote is not evidence...........undoubtedly there are some folks who are homeless who are terrible people. But you know damned well there are many housed people, employed people, rich people who are utterly beyond the pale awful.
That you have one example of someone ending up in such a predicament who wasn't an exemplar of a person.....is not the same as all, most or even many people in such circumstances fitting that bill.
@hawc remember that people who are homeless often make use of shelter beds at $300 per night.......on your tab........they could have an apartment on your tab for 67% less. The cost of even one Emergency room visit due to overdose, or frostbite or any number of other maladies one experiences on the street is no less than $1,500 for a single visit and may easily exceed $4,000
Yes, public resources are finite........but sometimes, housing or a more generous social assistance cheque are much cheaper than the alternatives.
@T3G I agree w/much of your point of view. I'm very sympathetic to it. We agree on so many things. But you need to remember that to change the world you need buy-in from people who are doing just fine in it today. You have to think about where people's instincts lie...........beyond just greed........if you worked (and you do)....40 hours or more per week........after putting in time and money studying........making sacrifices or benefiting from those your parents made....
Being asked to help someone out who seems to have spent their benefits on drugs..........or being evicted from their low-rent accommodation for being disruptive.....is hard to take. I get that. Just as much as I get that its still the right move to help those folks out, and almost certainly cheaper in the long term.
But you have to have empathy for people's basic understanding............and you have to be able to articulate why its in their best interest to be kind, and compassionate......because its frankly, probably cheaper in the medium and long term.
*****
Everyone.........just relax. We needn't agree on every possible solution.
Many solutions, however potentially legitimate are so much empty rhetoric when there is neither a plan nor the money to deliver them.
But that isn't an excuse for indifference or the status quo. Got a better idea? Pipe up, rather that dumping on someone giving a solution a go.
Everyone calm down please.
@Bojaxs ....anecdote is not evidence...........undoubtedly there are some folks who are homeless who are terrible people. But you know damned well there are many housed people, employed people, rich people who are utterly beyond the pale awful.
That you have one example of someone ending up in such a predicament who wasn't an exemplar of a person.....is not the same as all, most or even many people in such circumstances fitting that bill.
@hawc remember that people who are homeless often make use of shelter beds at $300 per night.......on your tab........they could have an apartment on your tab for 67% less. The cost of even one Emergency room visit due to overdose, or frostbite or any number of other maladies one experiences on the street is no less than $1,500 for a single visit and may easily exceed $4,000
Yes, public resources are finite........but sometimes, housing or a more generous social assistance cheque are much cheaper than the alternatives.
@T3G I agree w/much of your point of view. I'm very sympathetic to it. We agree on so many things. But you need to remember that to change the world you need buy-in from people who are doing just fine in it today. You have to think about where people's instincts lie...........beyond just greed........if you worked (and you do)....40 hours or more per week........after putting in time and money studying........making sacrifices or benefiting from those your parents made....
Being asked to help someone out who seems to have spent their benefits on drugs..........or being evicted from their low-rent accommodation for being disruptive.....is hard to take. I get that. Just as much as I get that its still the right move to help those folks out, and almost certainly cheaper in the long term.
But you have to have empathy for people's basic understanding............and you have to be able to articulate why its in their best interest to be kind, and compassionate......because its frankly, probably cheaper in the medium and long term.
*****
Everyone.........just relax. We needn't agree on every possible solution.
Many solutions, however potentially legitimate are so much empty rhetoric when there is neither a plan nor the money to deliver them.
But that isn't an excuse for indifference or the status quo. Got a better idea? Pipe up, rather that dumping on someone giving a solution a go.
Last edited:
Admiral Beez
Superstar
There are only four ways to eliminate visible homelessness in Toronto:
- Provide affordable and where necessary supportive housing. This is sometimes called the Housing First strategy where addicts and mentally ill are housed first so they can address their issues while sheltered.
- Expand Supportive Services so that people can keep their jobs, minds and money. This would include mental health care, addiction treatment, job training, case management.
- Create Employment and Reentry Programs. Especially for people exiting incarceration, aging out of foster care, or recovering from mental health issues or addiction.
- Institutionalization in prison and mental health/addiction facilities. This could be accomplished by criminalizing homelessness through anti-camping ordinances, sweeps of encampments and jail time for loitering or panhandling. This will drive homeless to other jurisdictions or into hiding.
hawc
Senior Member
From what I've heard from support workers this is a HUGE issue. Since Ottawa does nothing. And they overtax all the existing support networks.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
What Ottawa should be doing is building and assigning housing to any refugee who arrives that does not have a Canadian resident willing to vouch for their shelter. This could be a refugee camps (not prisons, but with schools, etc.). But then we'd have better housing options for refugees than our own homegrown homeless.
Mr.Tang
Active Member
...or reduce refugee intake? We should manage the amount of refugees from crisis areas around the world to the capacity we have. I am pro-immigration and see that as a huge benefit for Canada. But we need to be realistic about those who will need significant support and how long they will likely need that support for. The answer need not always be - the government needs to take more money from the people to solve this problem.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
There is no throttle on refugee intake to manage—refugee claimants arrive at airports, seaports, and land borders as they come. What you may be suggesting is a reduction in the rate at which the government grants permanent residency (PR) to refugee claimants. However, I'm not convinced that former refugees who have already been granted PR are the ones ending up in shelters. In my view, it's the refugee claimants who are still awaiting their hearings that are placing the greatest strain on the shelter system. And since there's no mechanism to limit their arrival, we can’t reduce their numbers. What we can do is mitigate the pressure on municipal shelters by having the federal government provide housing for refugee claimants who arrive without a sponsor.
evandyk
Senior Member
There can be a throttle. When refugee claimants from Mexico got extremely high, they introduced a visa requirement for some so that people getting on a plane from Mexico to Canada are checked out by the Canadian embassy before they're allowed to do that. The US claimed (and this is part of the Trump tariffs claim that illegal immigration from Canada to the US is a huge problem) that Mexicans were coming into Canada, making refugee claims, then going south into the US, so we were pressured to do it, or may not have gotten there on our own.
dob467
Active Member
I thought folks on UrbanToronto actually had thoughtful things to contribute to a discussion, has this forum just become the Sun? Quite disappointing to read these comments...
Towered
Superstar
That's unfair. There are a handful of right wingers here, but the vast majority of the posters lean centre-left.
evandyk
Senior Member
Though even the centre-lefters (and I'm probably more centre/rightish myself) are a bit tired of the situation the city permits to go on in our parks year after year.
SubHuman
Active Member
Has anyone ever seen one of these "outreach workers"? I haven't, and neither has anyone else I've asked.
I once saw what I assume was some kind of TTC security person briefly enter a subway car to tell a guy sleeping across seats to get up or he would "call EMS", though the guy then went right back to sleep.
This also seems to be almost entirely a TTC situation, rarely seen on GO, UPX, or the other GTA systems (other than occasionally seeing security people dealing with individuals loitering inside stations that are closing for the night), though I realize the TTC is a very different system with subways and streetcars.
The individuals who are by far the most problematic to themselves and the rest of us (and are somehow misleadingly labelled as "homeless", as if their major problem is being unable to obtain a mortgage) are people who should be detained for assessment under the Ontario Mental Health Act, and appropriately institutionalized (psychiatric, or long-term health care). (btw, doing a "Ctrl F", I notice the word "involuntary" is there 45 times.)
New York City commits to involuntary commitment
Compulsory treatment of the severely mentally ill was once taboo. No longer
I don't understand the people arguing to leave them out there. Who or what are you trying to help? The subway lines get continually shut down by mentally unsound individuals climbing onto the tracks. I don't think those of us who are complaining about this are the misguided ones being unreasonable and unsympathetic. What would be the logic behind thinking it's better to let them repeatedly keep climbing onto the subway tracks until they get killed by a train while they're doing this for the sixth or seventh time?
Last edited:
Northern Light
Superstar
Yes, several times.
That has changed now.
Who is making the argument here that people who are not of sound mind, whether due to medical condition (other than addiction), or due to drugs, ought to be left to self-harm or harm others?
I'm not seeing that argument here, and am one of several to have made the case for greater intervention, and yes, compulsory treatment, if a person is truly unable to function or remain of sound mind w/o same.
Of course, its worth noting, we really don't have the capacity in the mental health and addictions system to handle a large increase of in-patients, and yes, that's a problem that ought to be urgently addressed.
****
I don't believe your link between visible mental illness and/or addiction and persons at track level is correct.
The leading instance of this is 'injuries at track level' are attempted suicides, which certainly may be linked to mental illness of a form; but to the best of my knowledge aren't associated with the kind you are otherwise discussing.
The second instance of people at track level is idiots who drop their phone or the like and climb down to get it; and third is criminals trying to escape the cops via the tunnels. All fine arguments for platform-edge-doors, which I advocated for as part of the Bloor-Yonge-Station expansion project and are currently approved for inclusion.
Last edited:
just east of the creek
Senior Member
The longer term solutions for homelessness are not going to arrive soon, they are definitely for the longer term - housing in many and varying forms, services, education, mental, drug and physical health treatments in the scale that they are needed. Welcome to Ontario. We can find $ for the F****ing 413, $ we are going to borrow, but we cannot put a decent budget and process together to fund permanent housing and services to get these people off the street.
But perhaps a summer/fall solution would be to take over the TRC Indian Road site (for instance). Located on Finch, just west of the 427 with good connections. Move encampments and the encamped to this central site. Service them with food, hygiene services, counseling, medical, education and police them for safety.
You buy some time while the gears on whatever initiatives there are grind ever so slowly. And perhaps you are able to relaunch some people back into a world where they can survive more or less on their own.
And perhaps we could spend some wasted spa dollars on housing for the 'homeless', possibly clean water (after 30 odd years) for some First Nations, and maybe even a few more $ for CAMH.
A measure of a society is often how well we take care of others, others who can no longer take adequate care of themselves. I think the original quote was Gandhi. But he had a point. And I am not sure we always score as highly on this index as we may think we do.
But perhaps a summer/fall solution would be to take over the TRC Indian Road site (for instance). Located on Finch, just west of the 427 with good connections. Move encampments and the encamped to this central site. Service them with food, hygiene services, counseling, medical, education and police them for safety.
You buy some time while the gears on whatever initiatives there are grind ever so slowly. And perhaps you are able to relaunch some people back into a world where they can survive more or less on their own.
And perhaps we could spend some wasted spa dollars on housing for the 'homeless', possibly clean water (after 30 odd years) for some First Nations, and maybe even a few more $ for CAMH.
A measure of a society is often how well we take care of others, others who can no longer take adequate care of themselves. I think the original quote was Gandhi. But he had a point. And I am not sure we always score as highly on this index as we may think we do.
SubHuman
Active Member
I'm not sure how or why you would doubt that. In this Star article from just over two years ago, in the part regarding "Trespassers on the tracks", while they do say they don't keep statistics to link delays "with a specific group of people" --
https://archive.is/kJnWF
I also find it difficult to believe there's no association with the large increase in general "security-related, disorderly person" delays (they describe the example of the guy "pounding on the glass making death threats against an unknown person".)
Last edited: