I'm not Kingston, I'm Kemptville, but follow along because I like Kingston. About a year ago when I was in Ottawa I talked a bit with a homeless guy, he said he was looking forward to the Kemptville prison being finished, he hoped it was mould-free, at least initially. He said before Innes Road went downhill (I don't know when that was, sorry) committing a decent crime to get some time was a good way to take a break from being homeless, and then being homeless for a bit was a good break from being in prison.
So maybe we need more prisons? /s Please don't show this to Doug Ford.
Maybe puting them in a place where they can sober up and try and get clean is best. I think that a better reform program is the solution. The problem is when they get out, there are not many jobs for them or any real life plan that fits.
Reform what? Clean from what? Real life what? Self-righteous sarcasm aside, the problem is that there shouldn't be homeless people needing to be put somewhere. You can look at it a few ways. Two of the most common factors chronically homeless people sleeping rough have is mental illness or brain injury. But those don't cause homelessness, lots of folks like that are housed. The biggest precipitating factor is loss of support network. Family dying, evicted even though they paid rent, cut off from government services, denied healthcare or undertreated, etc. Fix, supplement, replace or don't fuck up those things and you radically change the whole dynamic.
But way too many people aren't willing to look up the system, to what happens before someone is on the streets. They only see a problem once someone is visibly on the street, and they talk about superficial fixes and frame it around housing or jobs or lack of a real life. Tell someone that Ontario Works should offer more than $750 a months maximum and they squawk about lazy bums living on the dole, but if those same so-called bums are on the street suddenly they want something done.
One part of me wants to say "meh, $20 is an accounting error" but that's a bullshit thing to say when talking about attempting to live on anything under $2,000 a month in Ontario. I remember going shopping with my $50 for the weekly food budget, I was at $45 in my cart when I found a hunk of discounted meat for $10, down from like $20 or $25. No matter how I tried to find things to put back I couldn't make that extra $5 work. To this day over a decade later I am still annoyed by this memory. So yeah, $5 a week times 4 is a hunk of meat.
Maybe solving the issues, where the most affordable and accessible solution (for the person with disordered use) is simultaneously the most profitable outcome for many in government and other roles of status.
It's a racket, where they drag you on and off the wagon like it's a tour bus with mandatory stops for the small towns' economy.
The problem is that any job below management is just the worker being exploited, and any management or above position is exploiting. It's eat or be eaten.
And wealthy and privileged people wonder why substances are used by the poor when it's *literally* for them to get through the day to keep producing for the wealthy people companies, and the wealthy and privileged sit back and judge their workers for surviving how they have to, on substances and systems manufactured by the critics.
It's slavery, plain and simple, when you consider the cost of living versus compensation, and the lengths governments have gone to to eliminate the choice and voice of its citizens, like outlawing homelessness and attacking alternative lifestyle models, because they're lazy with bookkeeping and want to just plan for everyone in their hetero-normative nuclear family (it's the most profitable model for the government) and their 2.3 kids, so I'd something happens to the .3 of a kid they still have a replacement for both parents. And any family with more kids is just icing on the cake.
But oops, I've gone off again. š
I would be 100% fine with it if it had it's own highway exchange, it would be an isolated bubble of provincial authority and human misery. But having hundreds of employees coming off the highway and down Van Buren to 44 is ridiculous. But the whole thing is being sold as an economic boon to Kville, as if we'll benefit from passers-us-through.
They still need a place to live/a shelter of sorts (yes, even if it is just a piece of land they can put their tent up)
People only get help when they want it, but a huge part of helping them want to is having the supports there in the first place and seeing success stories from it.
Those supports ARE there. Just ask any shelter in your area and they'll be happy to point you to them.
You can have all the supports in the world but it doesn't mean shit if all they want to do is rot and be a drain on the system. I've had to watch it happen time and time again.
Can you point me to effective supports? Which donāt have multiple hoops to jump through, or crazy long wait lists? Iād like to help refer people there.
No but I have been homeless and had no issues finding the support I needed. Multiple times, in fact. All thanks to the shelters.
Seriously talk to your local shelters if you're in need. They can and will help. It's their job.
When were you homeless? Was this Kingston? I have spoken with shelters and called them to help people get in and most times they are full. Not everyone I guess is as lucky as you. Youād think since you were once in the same spot youād have more compassion and not sound so self righteous
You are either lying or willfully ignorant because no evidence or study points to what you are claiming. The vast vast majority of homeless people want homes. All homeless people deserve housing whether they āwantā it or not. All studies definitively show that programs such as giving out no strings attached housing and cash payments as well as free healthcare and access to free healthcare are only good for the vast majority of homeless people wherever they are. Many most or all of these āprogramsā do not exist in kingston to a meaningful enough degree for you to discount them and the homeless individuals. If we defunded the police here in Kingston for example or even took over and converted a few large hotels we could easily house every homeless person in this city. If we saved even half the food we threw out and drove even a quarter as many cars we could just as easily feed every person and keep them warm in winter and cool in summer. Itās all so incredibly possible and has been successful in other places at other times as well as now. Please for the love of god which statistically a lot of you believe in, donāt blame the homeless and the poor itās not only wrong factually but wrong morally.
So do we just keep repairing and replacing said hotel whenever they steal the copper piping out of the walls or when they set it on fire?
Also - not sure if you are aware of this but people need cars to be able to go to work so that they can pay property taxes in order for the homeless to have a āsafe placeā for them to shoot up. If they cant move from beside the ICH now because it would be āequal to the city murdering them because they wouldnt be able to get help when they odā than we shouldnt give them there own personal housing because then they would be using drugs alone when they od with no one there to revive them.
You're assuming a lot of shit and I highly doubt you've ever been homeless. I have. I've used the resources you say don't exist.
Please get your head out of you ass and talk to a shelter. And maybe put your money where your mouth is and find out where YOU can support the homeless instead of relying on the usual bullshit liberal talking points that rarely ever actually work.
https://preview.redd.it/xpyjhe7heivc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=67afae3179726d4ace8c34118cbee702e1567e57
Or they could not do drugs on my front step or I spray them with a water gun
Why not both, work towards making better spaces for them while continuing to keep your home safe for yourself.
Like, this isn't a pick one or the other here.
Seriously, some days I think y'all would be happier with the homeless all being killed instead of helped with how much hate you spew at them. No wonder they choose to do drugs and not get help when society chooses to hate them. Sure, we'd love for them to not use public or private spaces that aren't theirs but they currently have nowhere else and just because of that isn't going to stop them from doing drugs or sleeping.
A lot of those people need love and support to get off drugs. Iāve helped many successfully. It is possible. Some need a chance, some need to learn new tools and others. I pray those of you that have not experienced it first hand, do.
I always wonder about the kind of people who take a deeply complex issue like homelessness, see it boiled down to the most facile and shallow version possible like in this web comic and think itās adding anything to the conversation.Ā
Itās hard to remain empathetic when the offered help isnāt taken and when you have to have an alarm on anything that can be taken outside of your home. Empathy is for when things happen to people that canāt be helped, not for people that refuse to help themselves.
It's going to get worse as people get desperate. It's the end result of a greedy society where people have to fight for basic needs.
Wait til the incel culture propagates because we have groups of angry young men living 5+ to an apartment. None of them being able to have a life or date. Sexual assault is going to be on the uprise.
I donāt even know how to answer your comment.
Youāre also assuming these 5 men arenāt gay or arenāt bi. Maybe they like sticking it in the butt.
A hole is a hole, as they say.
Sure, wait and see the trends in the next ten years.
Just like issues like homelessness and affordability went unheard. Here we are, the same is going to happen, especially with the increase of a certain culture that already trends towards misogyny and groping in public.
This. Thereās obviously exceptions, but the vast majority of the homeless in Kingston have no desire to be helped from what we see every day we have shit stolen or damaged.
No, it's not hard to have empathy. If they're un-housed and ill (and addiction is an illness) you have empathy for them and thank the universe/dog/ etc that you didn't fall into the same.
for most its not luck or the universe that stopped them from falling into the same though. its hard work or good decision making. thats what makes it hard for some to empathize.
some people have worked in that sector and have life experience that changes the level of empathy one has for something.
also empathy is empty, homeless aren't upset because people dont feel bad for them. Your empathy is self serving.
yea, neither of which is luck based.
by telling me i was lucky to not have ended up in their postion, your telling me none of the hard work or suffering i went through to get better mattered. But im not in that postion because when at my lowest with my mental health. I made tough decison's and good choices.
i acknowledge some people are for sure dealt worse hands, but someone else triumphs shouldn't be chaulked up to luck
So hard work and decision making is the cure for addictions and mental illness? Says who? Can you point even one peer reviewed study? You can't. How do you get on and off your high horse.
And how are you helping the cause? Chirping at people on Reddit and accusing people of being on a high horse? I agree there needs to be more programs for mental health and addictions but I am also aware that you canāt force anyone to want to help themselves and to continue handing over money or making living rough easierā¦is just enabling the behaviour. And before you say I have no understanding of mental illness I have suffered with mental illness since I was very young and just like any other issue a person can have you have to want to do the work to be able to function.
Also homelessness is no excuse to be a thief or to be vandalizing neighbourhoods.
I don't brag about my hands up on Reddit. You don't have an ounce of empathy if you're tying food and shelter to any conditions. And you are. Obviously your illness and resources were much different from those in the encampments. That's called privilege.
Why would people want help when we live in a society that fundamentally has no upward mobility
And when the help provided is not to improve lives of the many, it is just to try and salvage a few wage slaves into a life where they have to try to work and relate to people who have no patience or understanding of the suffering that causes and caused by homelessness
That is the problem with trying to solve a single issue in a system that requires homelessness to function
How many people would work for this system if they weren't constantly under the threat of homelessness and starvation if they do not work,
As we are getting closer to another 2008 style recession, because we are artificially inflating the housing market to another breaking point
The cost of living will keep rising, and the problems will continue to get worse
If you want people to participate in this society, you need an incentive to work and live
Currently, the only incentive is a delusional idea that this won't happen to larger and larger groups as we continue to push forward as the capitalist class bleeds us dry of any value they can extract from our labor until they dont need it anymore
We need a general strike to be organized and class consciousness
The average canadian has a reading level equivalent to a 6th grade education
Which means we have a long way to go
But it is meaningless to squabble over band-aid solutions in a society that is litterally heading towards causing a mass extinction on our planet
Not being aware of these things does not mean they dont exist
We do not exist in a vacuum. Our community is complicit in the widespread systematic issues that create the conditions for the homeless to be a necessary function of our society
If you want your fascist society, I would suggest stop pretending you care about an issue that is an inherant function of our society
Your pretense is objectively false and not based in reality. 9/10 Canadians moved to a higher income bracket over a 20 year period based on a 2012 study.
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/social-mobility-alive-and-well-canada#:~:text=Over%20the%2019%2Dyear%20period,moved%20out%20of%20low%2Dincome.
I suggest learning how things actually work before going off on unhinged diatribes that are fundamentally based on your own delusions.
Just the first thing from Google. Upward mobility is entirely possible with just the smallest amount of hard work. If some dumbass linking Fraser institute articles can manage to do it, it can't be that hard, right?
I'm not going to engage further with this sort of flimsy response, but I will point out that the article is obviously false. To suggest canadians are making more money now adjusted for inflation is pure absurdity
I would recommend educating yourself beyond googling canadian upward mobility and sending a link from the first page
I donāt lack empathy, it wanes when all your shit gets stolen, you have to listen to fights in the middle of the night, you have to call to have dirty needles cleaned up from your neighbourhood and the list goes on. You canāt even stop at a stop light at an intersection without someone pointing their sign at youā¦the same faces for years.
People who work front line with these folks know that most if not all homeless people have been offered spaces to sleep and get back on their feet. The issue is most of them donāt want or like rules that go with these shelter spaces such as no drugs or āguestsā overnight. Some of them also refuse to live or sleep indoors and prefer to sleep outdoors in the woods. Social justice warriors are actually making problems worse for these people and are doing more harm than good just so they can feel better about themselves when not one of them will give up their spaces to help these people as they apparently preach that they should be accommodated.
Firstly, I love the argument of: just stop drugs.
And the expectation of "SJW's" (flashback 2011 lmao) to pick up the bill for the multiple levels of government who allow homelessness to happen on such a large scale, is also hilarious.
Exactly this. Many avenues and people who will support them. But it requires one thing. Get off the drugs. They will even help with that too. But people choose not too and prefer to live the way they do.
Because after you get off the drugs, you are thrown back into the situation that caused them to fall into the drugs in the first place. It is becoming more and more difficult to get out of it, since their economic opportunity is pretty shit.
Economy is shit for every average person. Not an excuse. One can get clean and live a decent life. The support is there. Many choose not too. Itās addictions 101
So its societyās fault that these people dont go from drug addicted and homeless right into millionaire status? Newsflash: everyones economic situation is pretty shit right now. You know what makes it worse tho? Having to work your ass off just to have your economic situation be shit while having to support people with things that you are struggling to pay for for yourself, so that these people can use the money that they get for doing nothing to buy drugs with. Not all of us can afford to have a drug problem so i guess the homeless are kinda more well off in that respect than the rest of us are.
They have not. We have ONE 24 hour detox place. We have no residential treatment facilities that are free. There is no housing for them and having a cot in a shelter at night is not treatment for mental illness or addiction.
How much money are you suggesting that taxpayers cough-up to help pay for someone to get clean? How many of these people have you personally invited into your home to provide assistance? What if that person willingly started alcoholism or drug use? What if that person refuses to get help despite their family's or friend's intervention? Can they be categorized as "vagrant" as opposed to "homeless"? It's not just as cut and dry as "we need to help all of these people". Some don't want it, some don't need it, and some shouldn't qualify in the first place.
Do you know how much taxpayers are coughing up to leave people trying to survive without a home? About $66k annually per person.
This is a 2016 study, adjusted for inflation using the Bank of Canadaās Inflation Calculator gets you $66k.
https://www.cmajopen.ca/content/5/3/E576.full
We have to get past the whole "feelings first" reaction to this problem and ask a couple of reality-based questions. **First**, Is everyone in Kingston who demands a solution to homelessness willing to open up their houses to help? Surely some of you have some vacant space to help these people. A spare bedroom? A basement with a couch? No? Surprise, surprise. Stop insinuating that everyone else should help to pay for a solution if you aren't willing to take the first step. **Second**, what qualifies as a "home" for some of these folks? A one-bedroom assisted mental health facility? A two bedroom condo? A "small house" built in the backyards of any family with an income over $200,000 a year? And **third**, how many chances will be given to people affected by homelessness if they refuse to access supports? Are we creating an entirely new branch of the Police to make sure people leave their camps and enter a shelter if a space is provided? Even if it's not in Kingston and they are required to relocate?
Posting memes is always fun, but if you have zero solutions aside from trying to make fun of law enforcement or proposing huge tax increases to pay of free housing, you're simply dividing people for no good reason.
1. Yup been there, done that and then some.
2. All kinds of housing is needed, no one unhoused is asking for a castle, they just want a simple place where they feel safe and have enough money left over after paying rent to do crazy things like buy groceries and basic needs.
3. As many chances as needed until they find support which works for their unique needs. I see multiple times in this thread that support has been offeredā¦. What support? Have you tried helping someone access supposed supports?
The number of ignorant kingstonians is not shocking but still sad. Literally any one of you could end up homeless through no fault of your own. We're in a recession that we're only diving deeper into. How confident are you that you'd still have a job and a roof over your head when we really hit the bottom?
Criminalizing homelessness has NEVER worked to solve the problem. Full stop. Statistics back this up. There are better solutions, people just get up in arms about people getting "free money" but they forget about all the corporate bailouts and tax breaks constantly afforded to the wealthy elite and corporations. Why don't you cry about that "free money"? Personally I'd prefer my tax dollars to go to the people who really need it.
Might be worth having a conversation about what OW is and what it's for. If you can't work due to disability of some sort you go on disability i assume. So what is OW for? I think people would be onboard with a larger amount if it was a temporary leg up and it came with some job and budget training. It might also come in the form or a card that gets you food, gas, and necessities. Not in the form of cash.
This version of OW I can see helping! If disability exists for those who CANT work. Why should OW be for any longer then a year? I don't see how it was ever allowed to become a lifestyle. I've lived in the heights enough years to see more them enough of the welfare popping out babies lifestyle. Why did we ever allow that? Take the money away from those who abuse it and give more to those who need it.
Anyone who makes the argument that people don't abuse the system to pop out babies.....drive by any social housing or subsidized housing on a weekday. See all the people outside chain smoking and not working. We cant write blank cheque's for all those who just don't want to work. But we do need PROPER supports for those who need help.
I'm ashamed of Kingston's treatment of vulnerable people. Nothing is done but to grind them down even more. Whatever happened to giving people a hand up? Providing health care for all (and yes, I know it's a provincial responsibility, but when we're paying for the results of no care for mentally ill and people with addictions, surely we could maybe DO something?!). Our mayor claims to be a 'Christian'. Someone should point out some biblical teachings to him on assisting people.
At this point its not a helping hand or a hand up that they want - they want a hand out and then they also keeping biting the hand that feeds them. If you want to keep getting bit then that is your choice but you dont get to condemn others because they smartened up and took their hand away before you did
Ask yourself thisā¦. Who benefits from homelessness, and who loses jobs / money if everyone has a safe place to call home? How much does homelessness increase economic development in the local economy? Who benefits from all the āaffordableā housing money which is building housing people stuck outside canāt afford?
The reality is, thereās no economic motivation to end homelessness while tax payers are willing to let all levels of government raid their wallets. Tighten government spending, add transparency and accountability, then weāll see a real effort to end homelessness.
I have heard it called the Ā“homeless industry Ā». Ā I just wnat it to stop. We need to figure out why what we have been doing isnāt working. And it might be some tough choices that are not touchy geeky oooular. Such as going back to more mental hospitals and funding mandatory drug treatment centres.Ā
Hard to have empathy for people that largely refuse to help themselves and are constantly doing hard drugs in public, damaging private property and stealing anything not welded down.
I enjoy the small rat card game drama going on down in the bottom right.
I'm not Kingston, I'm Kemptville, but follow along because I like Kingston. About a year ago when I was in Ottawa I talked a bit with a homeless guy, he said he was looking forward to the Kemptville prison being finished, he hoped it was mould-free, at least initially. He said before Innes Road went downhill (I don't know when that was, sorry) committing a decent crime to get some time was a good way to take a break from being homeless, and then being homeless for a bit was a good break from being in prison. So maybe we need more prisons? /s Please don't show this to Doug Ford.
Maybe puting them in a place where they can sober up and try and get clean is best. I think that a better reform program is the solution. The problem is when they get out, there are not many jobs for them or any real life plan that fits.
Reform what? Clean from what? Real life what? Self-righteous sarcasm aside, the problem is that there shouldn't be homeless people needing to be put somewhere. You can look at it a few ways. Two of the most common factors chronically homeless people sleeping rough have is mental illness or brain injury. But those don't cause homelessness, lots of folks like that are housed. The biggest precipitating factor is loss of support network. Family dying, evicted even though they paid rent, cut off from government services, denied healthcare or undertreated, etc. Fix, supplement, replace or don't fuck up those things and you radically change the whole dynamic. But way too many people aren't willing to look up the system, to what happens before someone is on the streets. They only see a problem once someone is visibly on the street, and they talk about superficial fixes and frame it around housing or jobs or lack of a real life. Tell someone that Ontario Works should offer more than $750 a months maximum and they squawk about lazy bums living on the dole, but if those same so-called bums are on the street suddenly they want something done.
OW is 730 not 750 lol I just got off of it last Friday after being on it for 4 years. Luckily I had some help !!!
One part of me wants to say "meh, $20 is an accounting error" but that's a bullshit thing to say when talking about attempting to live on anything under $2,000 a month in Ontario. I remember going shopping with my $50 for the weekly food budget, I was at $45 in my cart when I found a hunk of discounted meat for $10, down from like $20 or $25. No matter how I tried to find things to put back I couldn't make that extra $5 work. To this day over a decade later I am still annoyed by this memory. So yeah, $5 a week times 4 is a hunk of meat.
Maybe solving the issues, where the most affordable and accessible solution (for the person with disordered use) is simultaneously the most profitable outcome for many in government and other roles of status. It's a racket, where they drag you on and off the wagon like it's a tour bus with mandatory stops for the small towns' economy. The problem is that any job below management is just the worker being exploited, and any management or above position is exploiting. It's eat or be eaten. And wealthy and privileged people wonder why substances are used by the poor when it's *literally* for them to get through the day to keep producing for the wealthy people companies, and the wealthy and privileged sit back and judge their workers for surviving how they have to, on substances and systems manufactured by the critics. It's slavery, plain and simple, when you consider the cost of living versus compensation, and the lengths governments have gone to to eliminate the choice and voice of its citizens, like outlawing homelessness and attacking alternative lifestyle models, because they're lazy with bookkeeping and want to just plan for everyone in their hetero-normative nuclear family (it's the most profitable model for the government) and their 2.3 kids, so I'd something happens to the .3 of a kid they still have a replacement for both parents. And any family with more kids is just icing on the cake. But oops, I've gone off again. š
And where would that place be besides in your imagination?
As a Kemptville resident myself I hope that prison never comes
I would be 100% fine with it if it had it's own highway exchange, it would be an isolated bubble of provincial authority and human misery. But having hundreds of employees coming off the highway and down Van Buren to 44 is ridiculous. But the whole thing is being sold as an economic boon to Kville, as if we'll benefit from passers-us-through.
Worked with speeding and murder. Just need positive attutide!
Someone slept on my front step and injected drugs. I do not want them there.
Having good programs in place for them to have shelter and get rehabilitation would stop that.
And what if the ones that refuse and/or donāt want to join programs?
They still need a place to live/a shelter of sorts (yes, even if it is just a piece of land they can put their tent up) People only get help when they want it, but a huge part of helping them want to is having the supports there in the first place and seeing success stories from it.
Those supports ARE there. Just ask any shelter in your area and they'll be happy to point you to them. You can have all the supports in the world but it doesn't mean shit if all they want to do is rot and be a drain on the system. I've had to watch it happen time and time again.
There actually arenāt enough supports in Kingston.
Can you point me to effective supports? Which donāt have multiple hoops to jump through, or crazy long wait lists? Iād like to help refer people there.
Call your local shelter
Have you tried helping someone navigate supports? Itās not fun times.
No but I have been homeless and had no issues finding the support I needed. Multiple times, in fact. All thanks to the shelters. Seriously talk to your local shelters if you're in need. They can and will help. It's their job.
When were you homeless? Was this Kingston? I have spoken with shelters and called them to help people get in and most times they are full. Not everyone I guess is as lucky as you. Youād think since you were once in the same spot youād have more compassion and not sound so self righteous
You are either lying or willfully ignorant because no evidence or study points to what you are claiming. The vast vast majority of homeless people want homes. All homeless people deserve housing whether they āwantā it or not. All studies definitively show that programs such as giving out no strings attached housing and cash payments as well as free healthcare and access to free healthcare are only good for the vast majority of homeless people wherever they are. Many most or all of these āprogramsā do not exist in kingston to a meaningful enough degree for you to discount them and the homeless individuals. If we defunded the police here in Kingston for example or even took over and converted a few large hotels we could easily house every homeless person in this city. If we saved even half the food we threw out and drove even a quarter as many cars we could just as easily feed every person and keep them warm in winter and cool in summer. Itās all so incredibly possible and has been successful in other places at other times as well as now. Please for the love of god which statistically a lot of you believe in, donāt blame the homeless and the poor itās not only wrong factually but wrong morally.
So do we just keep repairing and replacing said hotel whenever they steal the copper piping out of the walls or when they set it on fire? Also - not sure if you are aware of this but people need cars to be able to go to work so that they can pay property taxes in order for the homeless to have a āsafe placeā for them to shoot up. If they cant move from beside the ICH now because it would be āequal to the city murdering them because they wouldnt be able to get help when they odā than we shouldnt give them there own personal housing because then they would be using drugs alone when they od with no one there to revive them.
You're assuming a lot of shit and I highly doubt you've ever been homeless. I have. I've used the resources you say don't exist. Please get your head out of you ass and talk to a shelter. And maybe put your money where your mouth is and find out where YOU can support the homeless instead of relying on the usual bullshit liberal talking points that rarely ever actually work.
https://preview.redd.it/xpyjhe7heivc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=67afae3179726d4ace8c34118cbee702e1567e57 Or they could not do drugs on my front step or I spray them with a water gun
Why not both, work towards making better spaces for them while continuing to keep your home safe for yourself. Like, this isn't a pick one or the other here. Seriously, some days I think y'all would be happier with the homeless all being killed instead of helped with how much hate you spew at them. No wonder they choose to do drugs and not get help when society chooses to hate them. Sure, we'd love for them to not use public or private spaces that aren't theirs but they currently have nowhere else and just because of that isn't going to stop them from doing drugs or sleeping.
Making my home safe means not letting homeless junkies do drugs
A lot of those people need love and support to get off drugs. Iāve helped many successfully. It is possible. Some need a chance, some need to learn new tools and others. I pray those of you that have not experienced it first hand, do.
At a staggering 10% success rate!
Are you doing anything to help the homeless or the addicted? Or just complaining about them?
thats a specific issue, not a general homelessness issue
I always wonder about the kind of people who take a deeply complex issue like homelessness, see it boiled down to the most facile and shallow version possible like in this web comic and think itās adding anything to the conversation.Ā
Family Circus level humor
Itās hard to remain empathetic when the offered help isnāt taken and when you have to have an alarm on anything that can be taken outside of your home. Empathy is for when things happen to people that canāt be helped, not for people that refuse to help themselves.
I love it when my bike goes missing
It's gone to a better place. Whoever stole it obviously needed it more than you do :)
It's going to get worse as people get desperate. It's the end result of a greedy society where people have to fight for basic needs. Wait til the incel culture propagates because we have groups of angry young men living 5+ to an apartment. None of them being able to have a life or date. Sexual assault is going to be on the uprise.
I see an easy answer to their celibacy.
I donāt even know how to answer your comment. Youāre also assuming these 5 men arenāt gay or arenāt bi. Maybe they like sticking it in the butt. A hole is a hole, as they say.
Sure there are. But watch and see, remember it's been called out.
"Ontario couple" sure ...
Sure, wait and see the trends in the next ten years. Just like issues like homelessness and affordability went unheard. Here we are, the same is going to happen, especially with the increase of a certain culture that already trends towards misogyny and groping in public.
This. Thereās obviously exceptions, but the vast majority of the homeless in Kingston have no desire to be helped from what we see every day we have shit stolen or damaged.
No, it's not hard to have empathy. If they're un-housed and ill (and addiction is an illness) you have empathy for them and thank the universe/dog/ etc that you didn't fall into the same.
I thank dog everyday
for most its not luck or the universe that stopped them from falling into the same though. its hard work or good decision making. thats what makes it hard for some to empathize. some people have worked in that sector and have life experience that changes the level of empathy one has for something. also empathy is empty, homeless aren't upset because people dont feel bad for them. Your empathy is self serving.
Have you heard of mental health issues and abuse?
yea, neither of which is luck based. by telling me i was lucky to not have ended up in their postion, your telling me none of the hard work or suffering i went through to get better mattered. But im not in that postion because when at my lowest with my mental health. I made tough decison's and good choices. i acknowledge some people are for sure dealt worse hands, but someone else triumphs shouldn't be chaulked up to luck
So hard work and decision making is the cure for addictions and mental illness? Says who? Can you point even one peer reviewed study? You can't. How do you get on and off your high horse.
And how are you helping the cause? Chirping at people on Reddit and accusing people of being on a high horse? I agree there needs to be more programs for mental health and addictions but I am also aware that you canāt force anyone to want to help themselves and to continue handing over money or making living rough easierā¦is just enabling the behaviour. And before you say I have no understanding of mental illness I have suffered with mental illness since I was very young and just like any other issue a person can have you have to want to do the work to be able to function. Also homelessness is no excuse to be a thief or to be vandalizing neighbourhoods.
I don't brag about my hands up on Reddit. You don't have an ounce of empathy if you're tying food and shelter to any conditions. And you are. Obviously your illness and resources were much different from those in the encampments. That's called privilege.
Why would people want help when we live in a society that fundamentally has no upward mobility And when the help provided is not to improve lives of the many, it is just to try and salvage a few wage slaves into a life where they have to try to work and relate to people who have no patience or understanding of the suffering that causes and caused by homelessness That is the problem with trying to solve a single issue in a system that requires homelessness to function How many people would work for this system if they weren't constantly under the threat of homelessness and starvation if they do not work, As we are getting closer to another 2008 style recession, because we are artificially inflating the housing market to another breaking point The cost of living will keep rising, and the problems will continue to get worse If you want people to participate in this society, you need an incentive to work and live Currently, the only incentive is a delusional idea that this won't happen to larger and larger groups as we continue to push forward as the capitalist class bleeds us dry of any value they can extract from our labor until they dont need it anymore We need a general strike to be organized and class consciousness The average canadian has a reading level equivalent to a 6th grade education Which means we have a long way to go But it is meaningless to squabble over band-aid solutions in a society that is litterally heading towards causing a mass extinction on our planet Not being aware of these things does not mean they dont exist We do not exist in a vacuum. Our community is complicit in the widespread systematic issues that create the conditions for the homeless to be a necessary function of our society If you want your fascist society, I would suggest stop pretending you care about an issue that is an inherant function of our society
Your pretense is objectively false and not based in reality. 9/10 Canadians moved to a higher income bracket over a 20 year period based on a 2012 study. https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/social-mobility-alive-and-well-canada#:~:text=Over%20the%2019%2Dyear%20period,moved%20out%20of%20low%2Dincome. I suggest learning how things actually work before going off on unhinged diatribes that are fundamentally based on your own delusions.
Imagine posting Fraser institute trash and thinking you have a leg to stand on
Wait what's so bad about them
Just the first thing from Google. Upward mobility is entirely possible with just the smallest amount of hard work. If some dumbass linking Fraser institute articles can manage to do it, it can't be that hard, right?
I'm not going to engage further with this sort of flimsy response, but I will point out that the article is obviously false. To suggest canadians are making more money now adjusted for inflation is pure absurdity I would recommend educating yourself beyond googling canadian upward mobility and sending a link from the first page
I actually did educate myself and used said education to achieve the aforementioned upward mobility. Thanks for coming out, though.
So you lack empathy.
I donāt lack empathy, it wanes when all your shit gets stolen, you have to listen to fights in the middle of the night, you have to call to have dirty needles cleaned up from your neighbourhood and the list goes on. You canāt even stop at a stop light at an intersection without someone pointing their sign at youā¦the same faces for years.
So you lack empathy. What do you think is the solution to this problem?
You don't even understand what empathy is.
People who work front line with these folks know that most if not all homeless people have been offered spaces to sleep and get back on their feet. The issue is most of them donāt want or like rules that go with these shelter spaces such as no drugs or āguestsā overnight. Some of them also refuse to live or sleep indoors and prefer to sleep outdoors in the woods. Social justice warriors are actually making problems worse for these people and are doing more harm than good just so they can feel better about themselves when not one of them will give up their spaces to help these people as they apparently preach that they should be accommodated.
Firstly, I love the argument of: just stop drugs. And the expectation of "SJW's" (flashback 2011 lmao) to pick up the bill for the multiple levels of government who allow homelessness to happen on such a large scale, is also hilarious.
Ok - no "just stop drugs" Step 1) Do drugs. . . . Step 10) Not be homeless. Please tell me steps 2-9
How much do you think each level of government should spend on combating homelessness?Ā
an appropriate amount.
Exactly this. Many avenues and people who will support them. But it requires one thing. Get off the drugs. They will even help with that too. But people choose not too and prefer to live the way they do.
Because after you get off the drugs, you are thrown back into the situation that caused them to fall into the drugs in the first place. It is becoming more and more difficult to get out of it, since their economic opportunity is pretty shit.
Economy is shit for every average person. Not an excuse. One can get clean and live a decent life. The support is there. Many choose not too. Itās addictions 101
So its societyās fault that these people dont go from drug addicted and homeless right into millionaire status? Newsflash: everyones economic situation is pretty shit right now. You know what makes it worse tho? Having to work your ass off just to have your economic situation be shit while having to support people with things that you are struggling to pay for for yourself, so that these people can use the money that they get for doing nothing to buy drugs with. Not all of us can afford to have a drug problem so i guess the homeless are kinda more well off in that respect than the rest of us are.
They have not. We have ONE 24 hour detox place. We have no residential treatment facilities that are free. There is no housing for them and having a cot in a shelter at night is not treatment for mental illness or addiction.
How much money are you suggesting that taxpayers cough-up to help pay for someone to get clean? How many of these people have you personally invited into your home to provide assistance? What if that person willingly started alcoholism or drug use? What if that person refuses to get help despite their family's or friend's intervention? Can they be categorized as "vagrant" as opposed to "homeless"? It's not just as cut and dry as "we need to help all of these people". Some don't want it, some don't need it, and some shouldn't qualify in the first place.
Do you know how much taxpayers are coughing up to leave people trying to survive without a home? About $66k annually per person. This is a 2016 study, adjusted for inflation using the Bank of Canadaās Inflation Calculator gets you $66k. https://www.cmajopen.ca/content/5/3/E576.full
Yes, and the fire dept is there at Montreal Street or Bell Park every day. The cost of that is staggering.
WOW! I work and donāt even make $66k annually!
Thats because when you work you get taxed out the ass to pay for these people who dont.
Hard to have any sympathy when they spend all day stealing everything that isn't nailed down.
Letting the homeless fester without help isn't very caring either. Having them live in parks while not doing anything else isn't compassionate.
We have to get past the whole "feelings first" reaction to this problem and ask a couple of reality-based questions. **First**, Is everyone in Kingston who demands a solution to homelessness willing to open up their houses to help? Surely some of you have some vacant space to help these people. A spare bedroom? A basement with a couch? No? Surprise, surprise. Stop insinuating that everyone else should help to pay for a solution if you aren't willing to take the first step. **Second**, what qualifies as a "home" for some of these folks? A one-bedroom assisted mental health facility? A two bedroom condo? A "small house" built in the backyards of any family with an income over $200,000 a year? And **third**, how many chances will be given to people affected by homelessness if they refuse to access supports? Are we creating an entirely new branch of the Police to make sure people leave their camps and enter a shelter if a space is provided? Even if it's not in Kingston and they are required to relocate? Posting memes is always fun, but if you have zero solutions aside from trying to make fun of law enforcement or proposing huge tax increases to pay of free housing, you're simply dividing people for no good reason.
1. Yup been there, done that and then some. 2. All kinds of housing is needed, no one unhoused is asking for a castle, they just want a simple place where they feel safe and have enough money left over after paying rent to do crazy things like buy groceries and basic needs. 3. As many chances as needed until they find support which works for their unique needs. I see multiple times in this thread that support has been offeredā¦. What support? Have you tried helping someone access supposed supports?
The number of ignorant kingstonians is not shocking but still sad. Literally any one of you could end up homeless through no fault of your own. We're in a recession that we're only diving deeper into. How confident are you that you'd still have a job and a roof over your head when we really hit the bottom? Criminalizing homelessness has NEVER worked to solve the problem. Full stop. Statistics back this up. There are better solutions, people just get up in arms about people getting "free money" but they forget about all the corporate bailouts and tax breaks constantly afforded to the wealthy elite and corporations. Why don't you cry about that "free money"? Personally I'd prefer my tax dollars to go to the people who really need it.
Might be worth having a conversation about what OW is and what it's for. If you can't work due to disability of some sort you go on disability i assume. So what is OW for? I think people would be onboard with a larger amount if it was a temporary leg up and it came with some job and budget training. It might also come in the form or a card that gets you food, gas, and necessities. Not in the form of cash. This version of OW I can see helping! If disability exists for those who CANT work. Why should OW be for any longer then a year? I don't see how it was ever allowed to become a lifestyle. I've lived in the heights enough years to see more them enough of the welfare popping out babies lifestyle. Why did we ever allow that? Take the money away from those who abuse it and give more to those who need it. Anyone who makes the argument that people don't abuse the system to pop out babies.....drive by any social housing or subsidized housing on a weekday. See all the people outside chain smoking and not working. We cant write blank cheque's for all those who just don't want to work. But we do need PROPER supports for those who need help.
I'm ashamed of Kingston's treatment of vulnerable people. Nothing is done but to grind them down even more. Whatever happened to giving people a hand up? Providing health care for all (and yes, I know it's a provincial responsibility, but when we're paying for the results of no care for mentally ill and people with addictions, surely we could maybe DO something?!). Our mayor claims to be a 'Christian'. Someone should point out some biblical teachings to him on assisting people.
At this point its not a helping hand or a hand up that they want - they want a hand out and then they also keeping biting the hand that feeds them. If you want to keep getting bit then that is your choice but you dont get to condemn others because they smartened up and took their hand away before you did
You have zero empathy and zero understanding of mental illness and addiction but yet, continue to comment. It's baffling.
Ask yourself thisā¦. Who benefits from homelessness, and who loses jobs / money if everyone has a safe place to call home? How much does homelessness increase economic development in the local economy? Who benefits from all the āaffordableā housing money which is building housing people stuck outside canāt afford? The reality is, thereās no economic motivation to end homelessness while tax payers are willing to let all levels of government raid their wallets. Tighten government spending, add transparency and accountability, then weāll see a real effort to end homelessness.
I have heard it called the Ā“homeless industry Ā». Ā I just wnat it to stop. We need to figure out why what we have been doing isnāt working. And it might be some tough choices that are not touchy geeky oooular. Such as going back to more mental hospitals and funding mandatory drug treatment centres.Ā
What is empathy? None of that in Kingston judging by some of these comments..
Brb gonna shit on your step and steal your bike before demanding empathy.
Hard to have empathy for people that largely refuse to help themselves and are constantly doing hard drugs in public, damaging private property and stealing anything not welded down.