01-16-2023, 11:49 AM
(01-15-2023, 09:22 PM)Momo26 Wrote: I might be the only person to come to Ac3r's rescue here. All the things/issues he listed are objectively true. Everyone is entitled to their view but there seems to be a bit of rosy glasses bias happening on this forum.
Just because homlessness/drugs is in every city, doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to resolve ths issue.
I agree with the notion and also don't like the comparison to Detroit. It's like me saying 'well people in third world countries don't often get food or have limited selection so one shouldn't complain about increasing prices of food here...at least we have it!' (A different topic I realize but everyone should see the fault in that logic).
I've been the biggest advocate for Kitchener and namely trying to use DTK as my part of my pitch (recently trying to convince a friend who is looking to make his first home purchase to do it in KIT - he would need to be close to GO so the DTK angle. He is in the GTA. Why should I Sugar coat KW life. It doesn't come close. And I bring this is up because I found myself spending the gas money and travel time, to go to Toronto today after I drove through downtown and Uptown twice).
I recently took my family to KPL Central (other KPLs like Pioneers are garbage - yes, garbage...I dont know how my tax dollars were spent on there. Just for a gym and the programs are almost insta full. The summer camps were full by April. Ridiculous. Any wase...someone was taking their drugs in the washroom. In there for at least 20min. Still in there when I left. Is this a place I could leave my kids even if they were teens? I am have a bleeding heart for homeless, they never asked to be in that position. I work with some marginalized people in my line of work so don't take this as a dehumanization attempt. It isn't. It's an issue that are council and City Hall have not adequately dealt with. Period.
You know what I've waited and waited for the glow up of Kitchener and namely DTK my entire life. My SO and I believing it was always just 5 years away and look I get it, the pandemic response cratered a lot of the momentum...but we are at the point where we are giving up on this place. We haven't seen enough good things happening quite frankly and I feel like time is slipping away and we're not anywhere near retirement nor do we like Bumpkin country style life, at least not right now. I might need to make a decision and blow this Popsicle stand.
I agree there are issues that are up to Government to solve that haven't been solved. It's fine for people to be angry – be angry with the City, the Region, the Province, and the Federal Governments. I don't have rose coloured glasses on the state of the city, my point is that every city has these issues.
My specific issue is the dehumanization of how we talk about these problems – particularly the people who shape our lived in environment, like Ac3r, who have a higher responsibility to build a city for everyone, yet respond with hyperbole and fear mongering.
Let's look at your specific example: you state someone is doing drugs in the KPL bathroom and therefore DTK isn't safe for you to leave your teenagers and you need to "blow this popsicle stand". Yet you didn't see this person doing drugs, you said they were still in the bathroom when they left.
Why do you assume they are doing drugs? Because they were in the bathroom for 20 minutes? Did you see them go in and profile them based on their look? It sounds like you didn't see them come out. If you were concerned about that, did you tell the KPL staff that someone was doing drugs in the bathroom so they could check and make sure that person didn't die of an overdose?
What if they had a personal issue that required using the bathroom, like a colostomy bag? What if that's the only space they have to be alone? Who are you to decide how long they use a bathroom?
This is fear mongering. Saying "I work with marginalized people" as a prop to validate this is further dehumanizing. People aren't props for your biases.
All I'm asking is that the people of this forum, especially those that work in the field of shaping the city, discuss the humans who live in this city as humans.