What does DTK need?

[panamaniac]

A big problem is the atmosphere downtown. People don't want to walk around or run a business when the streets are full of people that make you want to avoid it all together. It's not a situation unique to Waterloo Region or Kitchener. Unfortunately it's largely the result of a hands off policy regarding petty crime, open air drug use and sales and spaces occupied by homeless people. We haven't managed to develop a suitable method to deal with that, so that hands off policy results in these issues. Our policy makers forgot to think about that part.

I live and work downtown, so I know a lot of people who walk downtown. Of those likely 100+ people, I am aware of only a single person who is uncomfortable in DTK. But maybe all the people who are uncomfortable with it live and work in the suburbs?

There is some drug use, and there are some homeless people: a pervasive problem in most cities, as you note, and certainly not exclusive to Canada. It is far from being crime-ridden, though.

As for policies, there are no silver bullets. Housing-first approaches tend to be more successful, but with the combination of high housing costs, lack of affordable housing, lack of mental health funding and ready availability of illegal drugs, this is not a simple problem to solve. If it were, there would be far more cities that have addressed this.

It's true.  In my experience the people most uncomforable/negative wrt DTK are the people who never go there.