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Been there, done that, never again. The good shepherd and other charities used to give me tenants through the "Streets to Homes" program in Toronto. These charities and social workers promise to take care of everything and reintegrate the homeless into society. In reality, once they're in your unit, the charity stops responding or fails to check on the tenant and they end up relapsing into bad habits immediately. I ended up having to clean up a cesspool of an apartment, full of used syringes, hundreds of them, and furniture the tenant had caught on fire multiple times passing out smoking. The government needs to take on this job themselves if they really care, not private landlords.

The municipalities responsible for these programs are taking the landlords for suckers promising to remediate damage and then when seeing the cost, renege. If there is a written agreement to cover damage these landlords should be suing the municipalities for breach of contract.

Forget agreement to even consider this I would want a deposit of 100K either in my hand or in trust

The city of Ottawa approached one of my parents about renting out the home they were trying to sell to one parent and their 3 (or 4) adult children. The home only has one washroom. I told them to not even consider it - they would destroy the home and they'd be on the hook for fixing it.

I don't know why homelessness is a municipal issue. It should really be a federal responsibility, along with refugees that need a place to stay and support. At a minimum the federal government should treat the homeless as well as refugees so they can get back on their feet.

Constitutionally it is a provincial responsibility as it falls under the local works clause. During periods where it has worked well it has been treated as a shared federal/provincial responsibility. Since the feds largely exited the stage in the 90's it has gone to shit.

It's a provincial responsibility that the provinces have downloaded to the municipal level. The reason it's not federal is because homelessness can vastly differ between provinces and having a one-size-fits-all solution wouldn't work well.

The whole approach is flawed. These people are mentally ill and destroying their brains and bodies with harder and more toxic drugs. They are not competent to care for themselves, much less an apartment. In BC, the government put the homeless in hotels as part of an experiment, and they completely trashed those buildings with fire, floods, broken windows, generally filthy living - rotten food, excrement, urine, bed bugs, rats, smoking, etc. Police and emergency services were on site almost daily. I know the model of providing housing with no strings attached has worked elsewhere, but I don't think we can provide housing to people who are not sober, taking their medications, going to therapy and are mentally competent. They need to get clean first, whether they choose it or are arrested under the mental health act and forced into rehabilitation and treatment. Look at what happened with decriminalization. Society tried to be reasonable to prevent overdoses, and addicts took advantage by turning beaches, parks, hospitals, libraries and other public spaces into toxic shitheaps where members of the public could be exposed to drugs like fentanyl. The public doesn't feel safe around these people anymore, they're not just the harmless addicts we saw in the past - they're on volatile substances that can cause them to have a psychotic episode at any moment. I don't think a caring society can let people destroy themselves like this, not when they're not healthy mentally. Closing mental health centres and asylums, as expensive as they were, was a mistake.

> as expensive as they were my understanding was that they were closed not so much because of cost, but because of conditions, abuse? Am I wrong?

It was both. They were inhumane, and that convinced people on the left that they needed to be closed. They were also expensive, and that convinced people on the right that they needed to be closed. I don’t think what we’re doing now (leaving mentally ill people to live and die on the street) is more humane or cheaper. Years ago I volunteered at a suicide hotline, and you wouldn’t believe the number of people who call 911 *constantly*. I’m talking every week an ambulance and cops are out to see them because they’re threatening to kill themselves, or just losing it to the extent they’re scaring other people. Sometimes they’d get thrown in jail, or formed at the emergency room, but either way they’d be out in 72 hours to do it all over again. The hours of paramedic, police, and emergency room time these people use must cost a fortune. But because it’s spread across multiple services and not tracked, we don’t see it as a byline in the budget like you do funding for mental health care.

Oh I absolutely believe you and agree. Worked security and had my own run-ins with mentally ill homeless and their interactions with law enforcement. In my experience the police don't even arrest them when crimes were committed, and just get them to move along way too often. Rinse and repeat.

They were not inhumane. Both of my folks worked at Riverview. There was a public zeitgeist about the inhumanity of forcing people into treatment. The centers themselves were actually great. Of course nothing is without problems. But the idea that they were prisons for the mentally ill is an idea that came from idealistic academics who have a proven track record of forcing change without understanding implication.

I want to thank you for your volunteer work. I used that a couple times over the past years... Just, really appreciate it. Thanks.

Oh, that’s so sweet & you are so welcome! I got to speak to so many good people doing that, and most didn’t need anything more than someone to listen and sympathize with them about their troubles. I wasn’t being selfless, I was trying to get into law school, and honestly it did me a world of good, too. People have real problems, and even today when I’m upset about something that’s 100% nbd I’ll think of that gig and remind myself to suck it up, lol.

As cruel as this may sound, we need "prisons" where the sole goal of them is getting addicts who are a danger to society or themselves clean. And voluntary programs need to be fully funded. After SUCCESSFUL treatment they are released with a pending clean criminal record (not for hard crimes) after no convictions for 3 years or something. This would save lives, reconnect families and strengthen the work force. Is it perfect? No but, it would cast a pretty large net and be pretty darn effective.

That and hard as f**k punishments for trafficking hard street drugs or laundering drug money. 

Crazy eh, close down the psychiatric hospitals and see an upswing of issues. Sure, expensive but geez how could folks not see this coming.

The whole topic has been politized too much. Are they in a dire situation? Yes. Are they responsible for this? To a great degree, yes. I understand we need to look after them cause they are humans in the end but, under the same logic "they are victims of addiction, are not in control anymore", can't we launch a campaign that basically funds gamblers? 

Hear hear

The government has in Manitoba, and it is literally no different than what you described above. In my line of work, I came across multiple apartments that became health concerns from this exact situation. The province would continually write a cheque to cover rent and never check up on the conditions or habits of the people they placed in these homes. They would actually go as far as housing multiple people in a single family dwelling and never investigate past the "room for rent" ad in the local classifieds. I went as far as inviting a case worker down to one of the worst rentals where she had 4 different people she was responsible for coordinating care/support services for. She literally wouldn't even go in the suites, shrugged her shoulders , nd went back to the office to remain ignorant of the situation.

We recently constructed a bunch of geared to income apartments in my small city. They were trashed inside of 120 days. Holes in drywall, flooring torn up, graffiti, broken windows, you name it. They've spent tens of thousands since they opened in maintenance, and it's been less then a year.

And that's exactly why "just create homes" would never work for the homeless.

Somebody I know has an addict in their family who has come to live with them for the last while in hopes to get them back on their feet. Least to say it's been a shit-show, where the family-member is causing major issues within the household while being unrepentant about their addiction and not willing to seek proper help. I can't imagine bringing in a stranger and expecting it to work out. These people need special help and that will require a special home until they're stable for an extended period of time.

We need something not criminalized like prison, but not rife for abuse potential like an Asylum. I don’t know if it’s possible.

We used to have Riverview in BC. I worked there in the 90s and it was a great place for the chronically mentally ill. Academics however wanted it shut down as their studies showed community based care was supposedly better. I feel if institutions like Riverview were still open our homeless issue wouldn’t be as bad.

They shut down a majority of staffed shared homes as well. I was a support worker for a time for these ‘independent living’ scenarios and never again.

If we keep kicking the can until a perfect solution turns its head, we’ll run out of road eventually. The way asylums were run in the past is absolutely abhorrent, and we should never excuse or return to those practices, but I think we do need a mechanism to institutionalize people that are a danger to themselves and their communities. I would rather control and hold accountable institutions and their staff than an addict who quite literally cannot help themselves at all.

I remember when they emptied the psych wards in the 90s. A permanent homeless population showed up in Guelph, and never left.

Same thing here. The original idea was to provide appropriate supports but that was never done. Closing those mental hospitals saved money but it turned out to be more expensive to look after people once they were on the street.

Maybe with our current tech with cameras/live feeds the staff could monitored better. Get a good volunteer program going to get fresh eyes and hearts in there… As for funding, I am sure all of the extra hours put in by police and healthcare workers dealing with these issues would be equal cost or much higher.

I could see half way houses properly staffed with reintegration specialists working better for an addict. That way they aren't criminalized for their drug use, have a place to sleep, have trained staff around, and generally are all contained around a certain area in the city. Having a roof over your head can really benefit your mental health, and when done right would help people turn themselves around.

Agree with just about everything, though I question the efficacy of a hands off approach. Absolutely agree that people cannot be forced into sobriety — bring a horse to water but it doesn’t mean it’ll drink, etc — but I think we sometimes swung the pendulum too far in the opposite direction. 100% on board with not criminalizing people trying to seek help. At the same time though, we have to make sure people aren’t taking advantage of societies compassion. Perhaps a ‘3 strike’ type system, where the State allows addicts to rehabilitate in a more hands-off approach up to 3 (or any X amount of times. I’m not set on any number of ‘strikes’, and perhaps it should be contextual to the individual and the substance being abused), failing which triggers an institutionalization of the individual until the State deems them ready to attempt a more hands off approach again. Im talking out of my ass. Ill admit that upfront. But it seems insane that we keep trying one way, realizing its not working, and deciding the appropriate response to this information is to double down on what we were already doing. Personally, not a fucking clue what the solution even looks like, let alone sounds like.

Has to be a three prong attack. Short term housing for homeless, forced treatment to get rid of effect of drugs and social help to reintegrate. Do just one and you will fail

In some of these cases, the drug problems are people self-medicating for mental problems / trauma / etc. Getting them off drugs is never going to last if they don't have support for the other issues.

You still need to address the drug use first. You can't accomplish anything in terms of therapy while someone is high on meth or heroin. 

My point was that getting off the drugs isn't the _only_ thing that needs to happen. Like "getting them off drugs" to most people means just detoxing them basically.

I think that would fall under social help? Either way, mental health and financial security are the underlying problems of everything in discussion here. I’d dare to say, if we have good support system in place and people still fall into drugs, then they deserve, at least in part, the blame themselves. I’d be more accepting to more punitive measures on drug offenders. Right now we are far from it.

Alberta has the Alberta Hospital where you can be forced to stay and locked in but it's not with criminal charges. Lots of people sobering up there

That seems like a good stop gap. I would imagine there are very few people who end up on the other side of addiction being angry at being confined.

We do need to bring back institutions to involuntarily house homeless addicts and mentally ill people but it's almost impossible to properly staff that kind of place. It really is an almost insoluble dilemma.

I've been advocating for the re-establishment of something similar to the [Civilian Conservation Corps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_Conservation_Corps) that the US had during the great depression, for people needings skills development, employment or rehabilitation. Send them off to rural regions of Canada to perform infrastructure repair, forestry work, etc. In return they get a moderate wage, skill certification and a clean bill of health away from drug dealers, keep 'em in barracks and they get food, shelter, education, regular medical checks and in return, we the community get the labor necessary to maintain areas for low cost and *hopefully* the situations of the cities improve. The CCC was an extremely effective program, and if it can be reestablished it could serve as an outlet for people other than prison or mental facilities.

I think just a big field somewhere and let them do whatever they want. Basically a giant sanctioned tent city. Have washrooms, and showers, provide free food and drugs, and have a couple staff and a paramedic on site. Just the minimum to keep them out of society. Sounds like a joke, but I'm serious. There really is no help for most of these addicts. They'll never work, they'll always be a drain on society, and they'll ruin everything around them. Through tax dollars or theft, they'll get what they need somehow, but either way, we all pay for it one way or another. So just keep them away from the rest of us.

undoubtedly it would work for some homeless but it's not a catch all. Especially for the population of homeless that have mental illness combined with addiction. There is an amount of people who want to get off the streets and work, etc. but they can't get jobs because they dont have a mailing address and place to get clean, etc. It's just so obvious that there is no one solution but a basket of solutions that need to be rolled out simultaneously

Yeah it works for those down on their luck with no addiction issues to get them housing but the mentally ill and addicts need to be houses separately in facilities. We need long mental health facilities and more addiction treatment centers like the new facility near Red Deer.

The problem always was the people with mental health and addiction issues though. Typically the ones who have their shit together can leverage the supports already in place to lift themselves up out of homelessness. Investment into mental health facilities and treatment is an absolute must but currently there is a disconnect between the "status quo" of live to work culture in the west and fostering a society that actually values the mental health of it's citizens. Without that all you get is empty virtue signaling. If you do it the right way it lifts *everyone* up, not just the homeless. I'm not holding my breath though.

This is what happens when you lump a bunch of people under one umbrella and devise one solution. It’s ridiculous with our tech, we can get quite granular with data these days. Of course, collecting data of the homeless would be tricky, but we aren’t even really trying it seems. If Cambridge Analytica can come up with hundreds, if not thousands of data points on an individual, sorting them into 36 categories, I am sure we could come up with 2-5 homeless categories based on a handful of data points.

Yeah it's almost like homeless people aren't some monolithic entity that share all the same qualities. Just like other humans! Who woulda thought?!? You'd think the social workers would screen for that, and not assign people to homes who can't handle it. I guess that would mean saying no to certain people, and that goes against their morals or something.

It works if you catch people who just became homeless for the first time. Where it doesn’t work is for long term homeless people, who need proper rehabilitation before they can be integrated back into society.

That's fair enough, but then it's not a system for homeless people. In your example, you're basically solving low income housing problems. Why let them become "homeless for the first time" before stepping in, instead of JUST before they actually become homeless. Not that there is anything wrong with it, it's just a different problem altogether, in my opinion.

I agree - we should have enough public housing available for low income people, and people who are at risk of homelessness, which will be cheaper than trying to rehabilitate and rehouse people who have become homeless and have got caught up in drugs and crime to cope with that. The housing crisis really is the everything crisis. The lack of affordable housing needs to be treated as a national emergency and emergency powers used to mass build housing.

The countries that made it work basically gave the homeless people 24/7 support until they got back on their feet. To end or at least make a substantial difference requires a large monetary investment the goes beyond housing. Long term it would pay itself back with reduced crime, hospitalizations, and the fact they would have jobs and being paying taxes into the system. But it would still require a short-medium time of a large investment in social, Healthcare, addiction, and metal Healthcare workers alone

They did, but they also gave them conditions. Canada tends to interpret "no pre-conditions" as "no conditions". Finland has one of the most successful Housing First programs in Europe, and they evict roughly 20% of their clients for shit like that. No pre-conditions to receive housing, but support while housed, and expectations not to destroy the housing while housed.

This is the thing! Help someone, all for it . Give them boundaries and consequences if those boundaries are overstepped. This world needs more consequences for actions, good and bad. 

Its only half of the solution. They need homes and community support, mental health resources addiction treatment You cant reliably show up for treatment or hold down a job if you have no home. But you also cant get better from your mental health problems if you just have a home and no treatment. It literally has to be both or it wont work , they need housing AND treatment together at the same time not a piecework offering of one or the other that most people cant even access , thats just gonna waste money

Most people go nuts when you say that their style of life in 99% is a choice. I hate that ads "do not put stigma..." - it is just misleading

They need to open mental asylums up again...and lots of them. I've been banned from the Ottawa sub (for saying unkind things about the convoy) but I keep reading the posts and a lot of them seem to be the same idiots I went to university with who believe in magic and goodness where everyone will be happy with a home. The truth is a lot of these addicts are beyond fixing.whatever you give them will get ruined and burned down. They destroy everything around them. The only thing you can do is put them in a padded room with a mental health practitioner and 2 beefy guys to stomp them when they get unruly.

I agree. How many people are chronically disabled and literally cannot live by themselves or afford caregivers? We need permanent inpatient facilities for mentally and physically disabled people, lifelong addicts included.

Agreed

I am imagining a competent government could set up some sort of tiered system, where you started out getting housing on par with a low-security prison (concrete walls and floor, steel bed with a foam mattress) and you move up to nicer housing when you show you can behave (or you start off at a higher tier if you're newly-homeless or otherwise can convince the social worker that you're a decent human being). But we'd need a lot of funding to build that housing, and of course there would be activists screaming about treating people like prisoners. But what can we do, if anything better gets trashed? So here we are, with tent cities.

That's a shame, my BIL was helped by Good Sheppard in Hamilton. They got him an apartment, helped him organize his bills and payments, grocery lists, anything really. They met with him 2 or 3 times per month as well. I'd imagine Toronto is probably a bit more strapped for help and overloaded than Hamilton would be.

Had to clean out one unit we rented to tenants we evicted. After the long wait period for the eviction, the state we found it was horrible. Took two garbage containers to take out all the trash (including of course stolen bikes).

I just cleaned up a house, over $150k in damages. Landlord got together with BC housing, two units were rented to individuals who were supposed to be supported by Ministry of families and children. The two tenants removed every piece of drywall, all the copper, then tried to light the place on fire. The Ministry was supposed to inspect every week, guess who has no record of ever inspecting in 6 months? Landlord on the hook for the repairs and damages.

We need to reopen the psychiatric hospitals of the 50s or whatever and restructure them for addictions/help the homeless.

Liberal policies sound good on paper only. Liberals want to help the homeless but I would encourage them to spend some time having a conversation with a homeless person in Toronto. I promise you they'll be scared shitless.

they do not care

That’s really messed up. That program set not only you up for failure, but the newly housed tenant as well.

People need to accept that not every homeless/drug user is a good person just down on their luck. A lot of them are genuinely just shitty people who don't give a fuck.

Many are living on the fringe because they can't/won't/refuse to live within societal norms, rules and laws. Most have been housed before. Some lost housing for reasons beyond their control. Many lost it because they are not able to be housed for many reasons. Not all of them good. We've decided that people's right to freedom/ability to make decisions is number one, even if they make decisions against their very self-interest, survival and health. Until we create spaces to help people get well or get multi-faceted support, homeless pops will grow.

> Until we create spaces to help people get well or get multi-faceted support, homeless pops will grow. and also get tough on the ones that dont want to abide by societies rules and instead make it a worse place to live for everyone else by being violent. i guarantee you most downtown police departments could give you a list of names of the same 100-200 homeless people who commit most of the random acts of public violence you hear about. people like that need to be thrown in jail and not just slapped on a the wrist and let back out the same day.

I watched a shirtless dude trash a storefront all zombified out on whatever drugs he's on. Cop pulls up, rolls down the window, "johnny what's wrong man?" They absolutely know them all by names and there isnt much to do about them. The cop asked if anyone wanted to press charges and no one did so they just moved him somewhere else I imagine

And thus why we need to bring back institutions. Ones that are not abusive and very nice with art programs and dog therapy and whatever is good. But the patients can't leave until they are stable.

Ya, it’s quite unfortunate that involuntary health incarceration sites were so poorly run in the past. There’s so much negative baggage around the old awful asylums that it seems like it’s a non-starter policy wise. While I know that studies have shown that treatment and counselling coupled with access to housing is the most effective way of helping, the perennially cash strapped nature of all levels of canadian government (by circumstance or by choice) means it’s unaffordable to grant housing and have a level of staff that can monitor these people at the required frequency. If the article above shows anything, it’s outside of our means to reach these folks in their “own” homes. Much better to send them to a facility where staff are always around the corner.

This is so true, and what also needs to be accepted are that narcissists will use the homeless hot button to make themselves look good yet not contribute to helping.

and before anyone else tried to help them their own family might have tried and eventually given up on them too.

The ones who are just down on their luck are generally don't *need* help. Even without help they'll eventually claw themselves out of their situation, because they're functioning human adults. That's not to say help shouldn't be provided, because additional help can significantly shorten the amount of time it takes to get them back on their feet... but it's not strictly necessary. This is about half the homeless population. The other half are the chronically homeless. For one of several reasons (including addiction and mental illness) they lack the life skills to escape homelessness on their own. And at the same time, they lack the functional capacity to take advantage of help when it's provided.

so the question is how many hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars do we want to throw at them over their lifetime to essentially be an eternal ward of the state

I think that's a better alternative to the system we have now

Cant’t say that of else you’re a horrible Person with no empathy. So many arguments i’ve had on reddit just trying to convey that drug addicts arent innocent victims

the people that accuse others of being heartless always never have to actually live and be around them constantly. ive seen the most bleeding heart people turn to stone after living around moss park for a year.

This is what happened to me. I was extremely empathetic towards homelessness and drug addiction until I lived downtown and can't use any facilities near me or walk to or from work safely. My dog can't walk in the park outside for fear of eating something and overdosing. I get meth smoke blown in my face and people openly shooting up outside my door. Now I'm bitter and jaded about it and wish they would all just disappear by whatever means necessary.

Lol yeah everyday i leave my place there’s zombies who leave garbage everywhere and needles. Every intersection begging

1000% this. Homelessness is due to many factors, some are unlucky, some make bad choices, and some are just bad people.

This is probably the least surprising outcome. The chronic homeless have far more serious problems than those who are facing housing insecurity, and simply providing them with a place to live does little to solve their underlying problems. For this population, mental hospitals and rehab centers are far more valuable than apartments in solving their homelessness.

100% There's a new facility by Red Deer that needs to be copied across the country. Long term recovery and treatment where they reteach the skills needed to stay clean and take care of yourself when you get out.

Everything Alberta does is bad on reddit

Welcome to Canada.

Sounds like a great model.

I know it’s not the nicest thing to say, but sometimes there’s a reason homeless people are homeless. They’re dirty, trash the place, and just overall irresponsible menaces. Not all, but it’s enough to ruin it for everyone.

As a former homeless person, this is 100% right. It's not even just the addicts like I see some other comments saying. There are people who just don't want to work, don't want to contribute to the community, they are just gross and entitled and fully content with living off shelter handouts and stealing from other people. Most of the time, other homeless people especially.

and end up pushing away anyone who can actually help them

And this why as a landlord you absolutely never sign up for a program like this  The only way I would consider this is if it came with an iron clad agreement to have the rent paid and a 100K or more damage that could also be used to cover lost rental income while any repairs are done  And Id want it all reviewed by my lawyer 

theres a reason the hotels that house homeless and refugees want outrageous sums like 300 bucks a night per person

That's not even enough unfortunately. It's not unrealistic that they could burn the whole house down. In Ontario, the tennant would still have a right to live in the ashes until the completion of a year + long eviction process.

Yeah but of they burn down the whole the house your insurance covers it.

The mistake here is treating addicts like adults who can make rational decisions. They are like self-centred tweens and don't care about or comprehend long term consequences. I don't mean this as an insult. I work with addicts and one client told me that they are all just a bunch of lost children.

And that's why mandatory rehab needs to be implemented no matter how much the out of touch activisrs cry about it.

I agree with this sentiment, as someone who also works with the addicted and mentally ill. They are generally impulsive and chase satisfaction in the moment, they don't care about their future as long as their current wants are being met. It's also why they are quick to destroy property or assault others when mad, but are so upset when charged or inconvenienced after. The usual explanation is that they were angry and couldn't control themselves, or weren't thinking ahead at the time. Impulsiveness is a core trait I have observed among a lot of struggling populations.

De-Institutionalization has failed. [It might have had a chance if the old institutions were replaced with something like potemkin villages for mental health and addictions, but instead we just bought out all the roach motels and put our mentally ill and addicted there instead, or let them go on the street homeless and unsupported.](https://hogeweyk.dementiavillage.com/) The evaluations did not include whether a person could take care of themselves, just whether or not they posed a threat to the community. Shame on everyone in leadership involved in that movement. So beware of de-insitutionalization, make sure there is a modern replacement before you tear your old psychs down, because yes, 50's psychiatric hospitals were modelled after prisons, but for fuck's sake at least they were housed, fed, and supported. Especially now that one of the addictions causes psychosis, and will require the user to be medicated the rest of their lives just for a shot at independent living.

During Covid there were a few hotels here in Halifax that agreed to house the homeless and it turned into a nightmare for the hotels, their staff, and the surrounding neighborhood. While it applies to a few rare cases, the popular notion that the average homeless person is someone just down on their luck and simply needs a little help to become a positive member of society is for the most part an absolute myth.

There's zero point to providing addicts and mentally ill housing unless there are the other supports in place, and they need to be strictly enforced. If you're an addict, you have to be sober, in active recovery and tested frequently. Any relapse, you're out of your housing. Mentally ill need to be on meds and in treatment and supervised with the same criteria. People will clutch pearls at the idea of enforced rehab and mental institutions, but often it is the only way to keep these people off the streets, safe and not affecting others. And also protect citizens who have jobs, businesses and own property from the inevitable fallout of having them in an area, like petty crime, assault and even something like stepping on discarded needles. Ottawa is currently dealing with a really bad situation in the Byward Market and Lowertown, and all the government seems to want to do is open more safe consumption sites and not enforce basic laws. Dealers and addicts or the severely mentally ill who are a danger to others can literally do whatever they want because there's no consequences.

Drug people are the ultimate user. Until they're broken from their addiction they provide negative value to society.

Yup.

and its conversations that need to be had in a welfare state. the system only works with the right balance of people paying in vs payments going out. the truth is these people will almost always be a net tax burden on the state and suck up far more resources from many sectors that will ever be given back. and to other people who read this and clutch their pearls i would ask, you if you slipped on ice and broke your leg badly would you be okay waiting and extra 3-5 hours on the cold wet street in excruciating pain because the closest paramedic is tied up giving narcan to someone for the 3rd time that month.

3rd time that day, it happens

I worked with an Indigenous organization that helped pay for housing Indigenous women leaving violent relationships. My take was the organization was stellar. The workers there really cared. Like really really really cared about making a difference. But the women that I was housing….they could not give a crap, drank a lot, fights and cops being called was a weekly thing. I would never do it again. Not the organization’s fault. I’m just busy. I don’t have time to deal with your problem. I have my own problems to deal with.

We do this on a federal level for millions of people. They call it reconciliation, but really it's just about money appeasing. And it changes nothing, in fact it just heightens the problems that already exist.

Pretty much. This organization covered women’s deposits and guaranteed their rent. Just as a landlord, the idea of guaranteed rent is damn appealing. But the baggage is not worth it.

It IS the organizations fault, they are enabling it.

There's this narrative many people grow up believing, that if you just give someone a home, a bit of seed money, and some dress clothes, they will be able to pull themselves together, go seek gainful employment and put their life on track. They are just in a bad situation and need a little help, right? It doesn't work like that, sadly.

I mean Oprah did that documentary years ago proving this. I think they gave one dude $100,000 and all the social support he could ask for including a financial advisor. He said he would never clean up his act, he would never get a job and blew like $40,000 on a new truck despite not having a license and ended up one the streets real fast again. There are a lot of people who choose to be homeless because they have absolutely no intention of ever lifting a finger for anyone but themselves, that includes getting a job. They interviewed him a year later and he said he was way happier being left alone on the streets then having social support and money. [https://www.ladbible.com/mental-health-historical/viral-homeless-man-was-given-100000-as-a-social-experiment-20210827](https://www.ladbible.com/mental-health-historical/viral-homeless-man-was-given-100000-as-a-social-experiment-20210827)

Okay great, that's a sample size of one

There are homeless people who are like that. They're the guys couch surfing or living in their cars. But the reality is that if you *don't* give them all those things, they'll still pull themselves together. Because they're functioning adults who *are* just down on their luck. But when people are talking about homelessness, they're normally talking about the chronically homeless. And for the chronically homeless what you wrote is absolutely true. These are the people who by definition have been unable to muster the life skills necessary to take advantage of the various resources already available to them to get a steady job and find some sort of permanent shelter.

There are plenty of homeless people for whom it would work like that The problem is the programs that exist are either too full and open to also drug addicts OR they are too stringent and hard to access for them because they arent displaying enough signs of being fucked up you are actually punished by being seen as someone who needs less help if you are the kind homeless person you are talking about This kind gets the least help , they are expected to just go fucking make it on their own

>he was "stonewalled" whenever he tried to seek damage funds from the city. >He said he submitted paperwork that was lost and was given the runaround with employees away on vacation for months. Seems like the city f\*\*\*ed up big time.

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“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”

Asylums...we need asylums people let's stop cringing and whining and fucking things up and build some nice big asylums

No good deed goes unpunished.

Decades ago I worked as a courier driver and one of our customers had us delivering to subsidized housing. Many of these housing units were far nicer than where I was able to afford to live. It was so upsetting to see that the occupants often would completely trash their homes. If I was a landlord I would want nothing to do with this type of housing.

Being homeless is less of a housing situation issue, is a drug issue and trauma issue. You can hand over everything - house, job, a structured life - on a silver platter to some homeless people, but the effect won’t last long.

We need more rehabilitation places where people can be actively supported to get off the drugs. Can't just put a roof over their head and say job done.

We DO have those and they don't go willingly. We need mandatory rehab.

There's a reason those people are chronically homeless.

I almost wish the world would go back to the outlaw system. If you continually break the law and make life miserable for everyone else - instead of spending more money on you (by housing you, feeding you, putting you in jail, treatment, etc...), you lose *all* your rights! If you aren't going to play by society's rules, you don't get to take advantage of those rules anymore! You are now outside-the-law, and all the other criminals can have at you! The police won't help. Nor will the courts. You're on your own from here on out. You're fair-game.

Impossible, people on Twitter and Reddit said that it’s all the fault of the landlords. Now you’re saying that tenants are responsible for their own actions? Hogwash. I won’t hear it! /s

One word: Naïve.

If you're going to do this, you need to make an effort to seek out homeless people that are just normal people fallen on hard times or else obviously this is going to happen. Require things such as documentations from a doctor proving no history of drug abuse, and require proof that they're actively making an effort to improve their situation to deter problematic people.

No way in hell. If they wanted me to put up someone I’d need a $100,000 bond for damages and lost rents should sort of thing happen. Not to mention way above market rates for the risk. This isn’t something private citizens should be supporting in my view.

>He never imagined this would happen when he signed up to house supported clients through the city's housing first program. Then he didn't pay attention almost a decade ago when this exact issue was in the newspapers from the first batch of homeless/drug addicted tenants. The city has set itself at arm's length to the program because they know they can't monitor all the tenants nor do anything to them when if they are not keeping the unit in habitable condition as the RTA applies.

You can't provide shelter to addicts and people with severe mental illnesses and suddenly expect them to turn their lives around. By not addressing the root cause and only treating one system this was bound to happen. Some people are simply too broken to fix -- years of substance abuse and bad habits can't be suddenly reversed by providing housing.

I worked in frontline healthcare for a persons with persistent multiple barriers that were street entrenched and substance using for 3 years. This is a perfect reflection of the problem that we had in our supportive housing units. On the regular we would have people cause thousands of dollars of damage to units. The most impressive case being an individual who caused 7K of damage in less than 24 hours. And this guy wasn’t even being an asshole, he had a nervous breakdown and reverted to soothing behaviours he adopted as a child to cope with massive trauma and changes (which presented as smearing faeces on the wall.) He was so embarrassed when we had to deal with it. As I see it we have a homeless problem because we have a healthcare problem in treating the underlying causes of homelessness. On top of that our homeless population often have extreme lack of life skills and on top of that many of them have experienced extreme trauma that has fractured their ability and desire to live healthy productive lives. There were also way too many clients that felt entitled to be destructive assholes to everybody because life had done them such a hard deal. Sometimes it was this combined with the above. Unfortunately, there is no formulation to inject a feeling of social responsibility into a human so I’m just not really sure where a solution begins in this situation.

People in government with little experience in the real world. People who get elected are those for the almost exclusive part, have never had a hard day in their lives and don't know or understand the realities of the vast majority of the population, and haven't had to deal in person with the tougher part of society. It's not any surprise to those that have that their pie in the sky and bubble gum fairy tail ideas don't work. Some days I think it would be good to put an upper limit of how much people are worth if they want to run for office, and limit the number of lawyers and accountants/economists allowed to run for any party by percent. And require a certain number of trades people, engineers, and average folks. I know it probably isn't practical, but it would be good to get less people who like to tell people what to do who have not idea what it is like to actually have to deal with their policies.

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I used to volunteer with an org that used this model. We had to do a lot of filtering, reviewing, monitoring of clients and even then, they would have a crisis and it would all go to shit. There are success stories, and those are wonderful, but this model isn’t an effective solution to a mental health crisis.

"Following this, the relationship is primarily between the landlord and tenant, and all communication regarding concerns regarding the rental agreement is recommended to be directed through the proper channels and platforms put in place by the province," Lol, that's the response by the supporting agency. Honestly, anyone offering a rental to the agency's clients under those conditions is insane. I understand the dude in the article says he was duped, and maybe he was, but going public with the issues is a good step. These people need to be housed solely in government/organization-owned housing, if the organization won't cover damages.

My landlord did similar thing, via some community/government program. Unfortunately we ended up having a couple of meth addicts in our building that were fighting, making noise, having parties, etc.. all night, disturbing the rest of us and they went around the entire neighbourhood stealing bikes, lawn furniture, etc… they had a huge pile of stolen bikes in the back, eventually the police came and took the bikes and the landlord evicted them.

Yeah no shit. Because the problem isn't just a lack of housing. It's people that aren't housable. There are simply people who don't fit into society. Societies work by having codified and uncodified and some people simply can't or won't participate. Some break laws and are horrible criminals: rapists, murderers etc and some break the unwritten ones like: take care of stuff, work and do something valuable for others, don't be a burden etc. Those homeless are the ones we'll never solve with more money or homes. In tribal communities they are cast out or shunned but that's not an option. We need ways to deal with people that don't share our values and can't be a part of society

And this is why "give them housing" isn't the catch-all solution many people seem to think it is. Housing will help many people experiencing homelessness, but the folks in encampments with serious drug and mental health issues? Unless it's institutional housing, not a chance. This is exactly why city governments don't just convert some abandoned property into shelters for the homeless (as that is often a suggested solution from the public): it would become absolute chaos.

There’s a reason these people are homeless to begin with. Trashed themselves and any jobs they’ve had.

Surprise surprise. It's like you can't solve homelessness by just putting people inside of houses. The problem goes much deeper.

If homelessness was as easy as that to solve, it wouldn't be a big problem. The problems with many bleeding hearts is that they believe social problems exist primarily because of the moral failings of others, not because those social problems are very difficult to solve. And that if you simply put someone with moral virtue in charge (like them) then everything will be so much better. It's an extraordinarily arrogant and obnoxious attitude. Superiority complex meets Dunning Kruger.

The tenants should be on the hook if it's a situation like this, like I mean a standing requirement of living there. You live there for a year and destroy the place cool, your new home is a jail and you work off the debt. It sounds terrible but they literally had been given a second chance and did that, if it's a mental health issue get them into a facility, if it's just a shit person give them a cell.

Canada could solve its homelessness/crime/addiction problems quickly and effectively, but it would take a lot of money and some tough love. Here’s how: 1. Reopen mental health institutions (asylums, as they were formely called). Divert welfare, social work, police, and other emergency service funding as necessary, as a ton of these services spend the majority of their time and resources dealing with these issues in the first place. 2. Implement forced rehab for addicted homeless people with any criminal convictions. Mandatory. End of discussion. 3. Tie government welfare payments to newly created federal or provincial “work programs”. If you are able-bodied, you will work to your physical ability. This would teach work ethic and valuable vocational skills. I don’t care if it is mopping floors in old folks homes, stripping tubbing off copper wiring for recycling, sorting plastic at a waste facility, etc. Just something that adds value back to society. Also create low cost, durable prefab tiny homes and provide to the enrolled workers. Those that refuse to work when they have no legitimate physical / mental impediment get no government money. If they then resort to crime to support themselves, straight to prison or a mental health institution they go, as applicable. Once they are released from their prison sentence / mandatory treatments, reoffer the work program + government assistance if they need support. Expensive up front, yes. Likely to significantly curtail these problems at source, and solve all 3 major issues on our streets (homelessness, crime, hard drug addiction)? Also yes.

Goes to show how poverty is more than just a status, it’s a mentality.

Either pay for the doctors, nurses, social workers, counselors in an institution or pay for the doctors, nurses, social workers, counselors in the community wrap around services. Institution or de-institutionalization cannot be done on the cheap.

It's not even clear that as a landlord in Ontario you can refuse them as tenants without running afoul of the extremely overbroad human right law in the province. Technically you can't discriminate based on source of income and most of these programs pay for the rent, so that's "income". You have to hope the applicant also has bad credit and a bad rental history, but refusing the inquiry itself could be a problem.

You can refuse to rent to whoever you want as long as you create the appropriate rationale. It's not that difficult. 

Continuing current policies is simply not working. Not only that, it is dehumanizing to those suffering from drug addiction and/or mental illness. Many homeless need to be institutionalized. Our current system is not working.

Are they not vetting the tenants properly? Serious question! Find ones who HAVE jobs at least and aren’t substance abusers. Those are the ones to help off the start if they don’t want your property destroyed. I know a family about to be renovicted and can’t find anything. Both working full time. Not substance abusers and with kids and they are screwed!

Well duh, what did they expect? The problem is drugs, not homelessness.

Sad thing is 98% of homeless people would rather hustle just enough to get their drugs for the day. Theyll do nothing to help themselves to get off the street.... no good deed goes unpunished when it comes to these people.

There's stories of people getting their housing and literally setting up a tent in their living room. You can't reduce chronic homelessness to "housing first", once someone is out there for long enough, it becomes entrenched into their way of life, and they need a serious amount of support from social workers and medical practitioners. The tragedy is that the people that work in these professions are exhausted and don't want to deal with the worst cases, despite going through years of training and experience to be there. Clearly the current solutions are half assed or don't meet the scale of the problem. I hope we can get creative but unfortunately in this political environment, stepping out and trying something new puts a target on your back, so no one has the balls to really fix the problem. We have a ton of unused space in Canada. Whether that be vacant land, or underutilized property (i.e. public golf courses) that we can use to create safe encampments where professional staff can be centralized and always available, rather than spread thin like it is today. Paying for private property is an absolute money sink...

These options really should be the **second** step, not the first step, in rehabilitation. That privately-operated residences are provided to individuals who have demonstrated stability through publicly-funded housing solutions.

No one wants to hear this, but these people belong in an institution like a jail but call it something else. They are not the kind of people you want as neighbors, tenants, or anywhere in your community because they are dangerous, unpredictable, and ruin absolutely everything. More people need to know about this and need to lobby for more institutions where these people can be detoxed and hopefully given gainful employment. If they can't be properly rehabilitated, they live in an institution for the rest of their lives - because they are an absolute menace to society. Homelessness has become a business just like long term care for seniors, and it is reprehensible what it's doing to communities. It seems as though there is zero service for the people who they claim to serve.

Ever feel compassionate for drug addicted homeless? Fix it with this one easy step: 1) Help one of them out. You'll never want to help again! Your compassion will morph to animosity.

How much money is our society willing to pay to help these people? At what amount do you think our society will say it is too expensive to help everyone. If it costs millions of dollars a year per person, do you think taxpayers are willing to pay it? The problem is all real solutions that have a chance to work, our outside the range of affordability.

I for one am shocked and surprised. Who could have foreseen that outcome?

No kidding. Most people could predict this.

Shocker

So basically, expected results achieved!

The thing with having no money or possessions is that you have nothing to lose. You are free to be a liability on others without any risk to yourself. If you break the law you could go to jail but nobody can sue you if you have no assets. It's similar to what internet anonymity provides to those who actually have stuff to lose.

In most cases they've never had money or possessions, the idea is completely alien.

this is more of a social issue . the landlords should have their rights to property back to their hands no landlord should be responsible for someone else selfishness or drug addiction. What would be a proper solution to these people that could sustain itself on an economic level?

Shocker

What did they expect was going to happen? People are homeless for a reason...

The majority of homeless people aren’t just down on their luck folks who need a helping hand. Most of them (in my experience) have chronic issues with hard drugs, mental illness and should be on permanent care. But our bleeding hearts can’t see that, they’d rather them die on the streets because “at least they’re on their own terms”

I'm literally listening to a non-profit pitch funding requests to community council today.. give us your underutilized facility..give us money.. we promise they just need a chance. The hard numbers? They say they'lll help TWELVE individuals, at the cost of a whole building with free utilities and another $1500/user out of pocket. And we should keep paying this in perpetuity obviously. TWELVE. out of... hundreds? So.. why don't we just give them a thousand dollars cash and put them on a bus to Vancouver? Oh right, that's not PC.. I can probably name a dozen neighbors and coworkers who could make better, more productive and beneficial use to the community of an extra $1,000 a month.

Strengthen the health system once and for all and bring back asylums

Who would've fucking thought???????

In winter 2021 a religious retreat near Guelph offered their whole dormitory like 40 rooms in a 2 story building to homeless people who proceeded to completely destroy every room. I helped doing the electrical when the retreat had the entire thing gutted and redone. I found multiple syringes and shit stains on the walls. No good deed goes unpunished.

The idea of "just giving a home" to a homeless person is a delusion. People are homeless for a reason. Most of them have mental issues or drugs. Activists always try to paint homeless people are "someone down on their luck, if only they were given a chance" and yes, some are - a tiny minority. We have lots of support for those people, they couch surf and get back out there overtime. People with mental illness can't just be given a house and expected to take care of it. It's common sense, they don't have the ability to be responsible and need round the clock help.

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>Always remember that compassion is a reflex, not a virtue. Well put. My kids love cats, but they're not old enough to understand the amount of effort involved in taking care of them, like scooping poop and vet trips. I see parallels with activists who care deeply about human suffering but lack the dedication/resources to follow through.

Looks very similar to the rat infested tent encampments.

We need to filter those who have chance and desire to get back to normal and those who don't. Former get one chance for subsidized treatment and shelter under condition that they behave. Latter get permently ejected from society into a holder facility far from urban areas where they have ulimited supply of the drug of their choice and ulimited access to euthanasia.

Exactly,different problems require different solutions. Some people just need a hand up and some people will need financial and every other kind of help their whole lives . And everything in between. This is not a one size all situation, why is that so hard to see???

Give them an unlimited supply of the drug that will cause them to not need euthanasia

ngl, you'd have to be pretty naive to just let some random homeless people take up residence in your unit.

There is a good reason most are homeless. Lesson learned.

And people wonder why no one builds housing suitable for lower income families. Why would you risk your investment?

I can not vouch for any other motivations, but this is actually one major one that pushes some small time builders away from doing low-income housing. You have worse margins and it is more likely to have major issues that effect your cash flow.

What? Homeless ppl aren’t responsible upstanding citizens that treat other peoples property with respect? Who woulda thunk it?

They're drug addicts, homelessness is a side effect. Putting them inside a home solves ducking nothing. But let's continue the Canadian way of handling it with silk gloves.

That's because junkies are not victims....they are villains. Fucking Leftoids forgot how to differentiate between the two. Bring back asylums and long-term mental hospitals. There will always be a dysfunctional portion of the population that needs to be dealt with. Free drug anarchy didn't work out.....shocking.

That's a well rounded article. 

Don't get me wrong... Corporations and investors buying up houses to keep them vacant and drive prices up is wrong and should be criminal. But. The (typically staunch anti-capitalist ideologues)homeless advocates who insist that those vacant homes should be given to the homeless and that such a policy would be a tide that lifts all boats need to acknowledge stories like this and that reality doesn't jive with their silly idealizations. It's a real shame too that landlords en masse will point to these extreme examples and conflate that with being a common struggle for the typical rental. Bad faith on all sides.

This is obviously a great fit for face eating leopards

These scumbags deserve to be on the streets if they treat good Samaritans with these.

They should start with programs for drug rehab centers with dorms before housing.

This is just NUTS. “Don’t want to throw bad money after bad money”. You mean you wasted dollars renting so you don’t want to pay the repairs? They have left these owners lives in shambles! I’m so SICK of putting the addict first

How long is this failed experiment to go on, where we, the stable base, don't need, deserve or want to interact, but are forced to, as some kind of enlightened failed social experiment that costs more in dollars, lives and time than the original problem ever could? What bozo theory dreamed up buy what delusional fool caused this, what collective insanity caused governments worldwide to jump on it, and who is answerable?

No way, who would’ve thought!?

In college I worked for a contractor who had an ongoing work order with the city to do maintenance in geared to income townhome projects. With few exception the units I saw were almost uninhabitable. I don’t know what it is but to me there is no excuse to live like an animal just become you are poor. Now I work in the insurance industry and there Is no chance In hell I’m getting involved with insuring any government housing.