There are now infestations of rats at the downtown encampments and the paramedic wing of CUPE is warning of public health risks after monitoring the various encampments over the last few months. They released a video filmed by one of the paramedics working/living at the Victor and Weber paramedic building that showed multiple rats crawling in and out of one individuals tent/garbage pile around it. They are also concerned about rat infestations out on Erbs Road now that the region is trying to move the homeless to the garbage dump: https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/paramedic-u...-1.6285151
Whatever your opinions are on the encampments, I think it's stuff like this that should make it obvious that we cannot let this continue. We shouldn't make it any harder on the homeless to live outdoors (they need a space that is "better" than a literal garbage dump - and need to be providing more shelter spaces, to the point we have an excess number of them so that they can move around for whatever reason [in many cases, homeless don't want to stay at one...could be too far away, or they know another person is there they conflict with, etc]), but we also cannot have congregations of people clustered together in extremely filthy and unsafe conditions. That is, truly, by definition, a public health issue - not to mention a social issue as these places are breeding crime (drug trade, stolen property trade, physical/sexual abuse, sex trafficking and so on). Infectious diseases run rampant in homeless communities and having them living together in unsanitary conditions amongst trash is not good.
We've got to do more, though I guess it'll be a bit hard ever since that judge said we can't really touch the issue. They're now allowed to stay indefinitely under some loophole where they can basically say they're camping out as if it's a weekend at Bingemans. The region wants to appeal that (there was another story in the news about this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.6758051) however I'm sure that'll be a long, expensive, slow and convoluted process - one of which will no doubt face opposition by people who, for lack of a better word, want to promote this sort of dangerous form of living as a morally righteous option.
Seems like a couple years ago we were on a good path to a pseudo-temporary-solution with things like A Better Tent City. It was growing and seemed like a better-than-a-tent option (though they had some stipulations: no hard drug use, which would have prevented many from being eligible, though drugs were still common). Then when the City of Kitchener used a backhoe to take down 2-3 tents on Charles Street in 2020 (or whenever) and it caused a lot of negative reaction, rightfully so, the cities and region got kind of screwed. The encampments started to form then grow, then when the region took a more hands-off approach that sent a signal. Both more people became homeless due to dire economic circumstances and the proliferation of hard drugs, but many came from out of region as well, since word spread amongst homeless communities that it was easy to stay here and there were (at least some) services for things like needle exchanges, food and a bit of shelter space. Then that judge made that ruling which really sealed the deal. It'll be interesting to see how this resolves itself.
Do we just say - until we actually start investing in real solutions - well, we can't do much, let it be? I don't think the citizens of downtown Kitchener will really want to see it start to resemble East Hastings. It'll hurt businesses, it'll hurt residential investments, it'll hurt public services (transit, paramedics, police). But then if we're at the point we're so broke we're raising bus fare by another 25 cents, we clearly don't have money to sink into tangible, effective solutions to address this. Either way, we need to do something. People - the homeless and those living on the 25th floor of a new condo - aren't going to want to stand for this. The homeless will get more desperate and do more to cope. The safe will grow more irate at them. Anti-homeless violence is not an uncommon thing; a couple months ago, a group of preteen girls murdered a homeless man in Toronto (and murders of homeless is sadly a common occurrence in North America). People regularly beat them up. They piss on them while sleeping. Even us architects commit "violence" when we willingly design anti-homeless architectural features. For one of the wealthiest and most developed countries on the planet we should be quite embarrassed and ashamed.
Whatever your opinions are on the encampments, I think it's stuff like this that should make it obvious that we cannot let this continue. We shouldn't make it any harder on the homeless to live outdoors (they need a space that is "better" than a literal garbage dump - and need to be providing more shelter spaces, to the point we have an excess number of them so that they can move around for whatever reason [in many cases, homeless don't want to stay at one...could be too far away, or they know another person is there they conflict with, etc]), but we also cannot have congregations of people clustered together in extremely filthy and unsafe conditions. That is, truly, by definition, a public health issue - not to mention a social issue as these places are breeding crime (drug trade, stolen property trade, physical/sexual abuse, sex trafficking and so on). Infectious diseases run rampant in homeless communities and having them living together in unsanitary conditions amongst trash is not good.
We've got to do more, though I guess it'll be a bit hard ever since that judge said we can't really touch the issue. They're now allowed to stay indefinitely under some loophole where they can basically say they're camping out as if it's a weekend at Bingemans. The region wants to appeal that (there was another story in the news about this: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.6758051) however I'm sure that'll be a long, expensive, slow and convoluted process - one of which will no doubt face opposition by people who, for lack of a better word, want to promote this sort of dangerous form of living as a morally righteous option.
Seems like a couple years ago we were on a good path to a pseudo-temporary-solution with things like A Better Tent City. It was growing and seemed like a better-than-a-tent option (though they had some stipulations: no hard drug use, which would have prevented many from being eligible, though drugs were still common). Then when the City of Kitchener used a backhoe to take down 2-3 tents on Charles Street in 2020 (or whenever) and it caused a lot of negative reaction, rightfully so, the cities and region got kind of screwed. The encampments started to form then grow, then when the region took a more hands-off approach that sent a signal. Both more people became homeless due to dire economic circumstances and the proliferation of hard drugs, but many came from out of region as well, since word spread amongst homeless communities that it was easy to stay here and there were (at least some) services for things like needle exchanges, food and a bit of shelter space. Then that judge made that ruling which really sealed the deal. It'll be interesting to see how this resolves itself.
Do we just say - until we actually start investing in real solutions - well, we can't do much, let it be? I don't think the citizens of downtown Kitchener will really want to see it start to resemble East Hastings. It'll hurt businesses, it'll hurt residential investments, it'll hurt public services (transit, paramedics, police). But then if we're at the point we're so broke we're raising bus fare by another 25 cents, we clearly don't have money to sink into tangible, effective solutions to address this. Either way, we need to do something. People - the homeless and those living on the 25th floor of a new condo - aren't going to want to stand for this. The homeless will get more desperate and do more to cope. The safe will grow more irate at them. Anti-homeless violence is not an uncommon thing; a couple months ago, a group of preteen girls murdered a homeless man in Toronto (and murders of homeless is sadly a common occurrence in North America). People regularly beat them up. They piss on them while sleeping. Even us architects commit "violence" when we willingly design anti-homeless architectural features. For one of the wealthiest and most developed countries on the planet we should be quite embarrassed and ashamed.