My wife and I live in a rough neighbourhood in Toronto. Some of this rings true, some of it less so. We were out of the city for a year-ish, and on our return we noticed that the people smoking hard drugs on the street had skyrocketed. Beyond the number of homeless people, you do see far more "kooky" behaviour on the streets than you did in 2019. That said, it's pretty rare that we feel actively menaced/fearful for our person or property. The vibes are not nearly as bad as in downtown Edmonton.
I don't feel any animus towards the homeless--the passerby is not the party who's really suffering. But past a certain point, I don't think you can expect people with a higher sensitivity to disorder not to get upset. I just don't really know what a solution looks like in the short-medium term. Using the cops doesn't accomplish much other than moving people around, at high cost to the pubic & the people moved. I lean towards housing first, but that still takes time, and I have little faith in the city to implement it quickly & competently. And it seems like you'd still be left with the "trouble-maker" streak you mention in the article, an anti-social core that messes things up. Maybe the new drugs are the problem, but escalate-the-drug-war doesn't sound promising, and whatever the merits of safe-supply, it's not obvious that it calms people down and BC shows the politics are impossible.
As a left-lib I'd quibble about the relationship of "liberalism" to this, but regardless, the situation is a bummer and doesn't appear to be getting fixed anytime soon.
My wife and I live in a rough neighbourhood in Toronto. Some of this rings true, some of it less so. We were out of the city for a year-ish, and on our return we noticed that the people smoking hard drugs on the street had skyrocketed. Beyond the number of homeless people, you do see far more "kooky" behaviour on the streets than you did in 2019. That said, it's pretty rare that we feel actively menaced/fearful for our person or property. The vibes are not nearly as bad as in downtown Edmonton.
I don't feel any animus towards the homeless--the passerby is not the party who's really suffering. But past a certain point, I don't think you can expect people with a higher sensitivity to disorder not to get upset. I just don't really know what a solution looks like in the short-medium term. Using the cops doesn't accomplish much other than moving people around, at high cost to the pubic & the people moved. I lean towards housing first, but that still takes time, and I have little faith in the city to implement it quickly & competently. And it seems like you'd still be left with the "trouble-maker" streak you mention in the article, an anti-social core that messes things up. Maybe the new drugs are the problem, but escalate-the-drug-war doesn't sound promising, and whatever the merits of safe-supply, it's not obvious that it calms people down and BC shows the politics are impossible.
As a left-lib I'd quibble about the relationship of "liberalism" to this, but regardless, the situation is a bummer and doesn't appear to be getting fixed anytime soon.