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Vancouver Off-Topic / Current EventsThe off-topic forum for Vancouver, funnies, non-auto centered discussions, WORK SAFE. While the rules are more relaxed here, there are still rules. Please refer to sticky thread in this forum.
Repeated felony crime that goes unpunished, and is pretty much encouraged at this point
While Criminal code and punishments are federally defined, Criminal cases are tried in provincial court. Lenient sentencing is a provincial judging issue.
There is power in the existing criminal code to instate harsher punishments, without needing to go the blanket approach of mandatory minimums.
LoL "I drove from the Monaco to Lyon and I didn't see human shit on the ground or piles of needles ANYWHERE, therefore Vancouver is a shit hole."
Find your wrong way thru Paris you'll find the shit you're looking for.
Take Google maps route from the Fairmont Lake Louise to Fairmont Chateau Whistler and tell me if you see any shit on your way there.
Land in Vancouver and go stay at the fair mont and you’ll have a nice handful of dirty needles and shit on your boots in no time.
Dunno what else to say like outside of seeking out homeless people, I walk 12,000-15000 steps in a day through residential, commercial, neighborhoods of cities all sizes in touristy and definitely not touristy spots. And as I said comparatively there are no homeless people.
Don’t know what else I can do. You come to a big city and walk much of the area and there’s nothing to see.. so now I have to drive out to like homeless enclaves to prove myself wrong? Homeless people and drug addicts hang out where there is action to pan handle etc. if I’m taking transit all over the place and staying outside the city and taking busses, trains, etc. and still not seeing them, not really sure what else you’re looking for?..
Stay in small towns no one’s heard of “well of course there’s no homeless there!!!”
Stay in major, massive cities “well you’re in areas they aren’t!!!”
Ok?
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Wtf are you even rambling on about. Ah the old "we're so terrible because my wife's company had to move from what has been the epicenter for 50+ years" argument?
Of course the DTES is fucked up, as is Metrotown, and New West station, Surrey Central, Maple Ridge etc. Do you know how far apart those are? And how miniscule those areas are in relation to 'Vancouver' as a whole?
Also, your experience as a traveller is not going to be remotely close to what a local experiences. You bring someone over from Europe for a month to live here and we'll see if they leave with a positive or negative impression.
And for someone who's so sick of hearing about Covid, you sure do seem to bring it up a lot, far more than anyone else here.
I’d say yes, it is kind of a big deal for crime and homelessness to push a small business out of their lease due to concern over personal safety. Especially when that concern was not there when the lease was signed 2 years prior.
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Hondaracer why are you still living in Vancouver? Move if it's so bad. You seem unhappy with all 3 levels of gov't. Find somewhere that fits you better.
I don't know why anyone is defending Vancouver in regards to homeless people. I rarely go down there anymore but when I do it's staggering how bad it is. Me and the wife went to a show at QE theater the other month and went for a walk since we were early and after 10 minutes we just turned around because it was all bums lined up against the buildings and it smelled like piss. I had the same experience in Seattle for comparison.
I haven't been to a downtown core anywhere even remotely hospitable weather wise in North America that wasn't littered with homeless people.
I don't think Vancouver is any worse or any better. Actually I lie, I think it's significantly better than almost any USA main city.
It's probably the worst in Canada though... but it's also the best climate so should anyone be surprised by that? I mean, if I was homeless in Canada and had even 10% of my brain functioning I'd slowly make my way to Vancouver too.
Land in Vancouver and go stay at the fair mont and you’ll have a nice handful of dirty needles and shit on your boots in no time.
Dunno what else to say like outside of seeking out homeless people, I walk 12,000-15000 steps in a day through residential, commercial, neighborhoods of cities all sizes in touristy and definitely not touristy spots. And as I said comparatively there are no homeless people.
Don’t know what else I can do. You come to a big city and walk much of the area and there’s nothing to see.. so now I have to drive out to like homeless enclaves to prove myself wrong? Homeless people and drug addicts hang out where there is action to pan handle etc. if I’m taking transit all over the place and staying outside the city and taking busses, trains, etc. and still not seeing them, not really sure what else you’re looking for?..
Stay in small towns no one’s heard of “well of course there’s no homeless there!!!”
Stay in major, massive cities “well you’re in areas they aren’t!!!”
Ok?
That's exactly the point I'm making in the flaw of your argument about driving around Lyon. You just pointed out your own strawman argument for me
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Originally Posted by skyxx
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I've lived DT for over 10 years now, worked DT for almost 20 years and have been coming downtown on weekends (with my parents first, then on dates) for like almost 30 fucking years.
Is it a fucking zombie apocalypse hellscape? No of course not. Don't be an idiot. I live outside of the business core but I walk every day up and down streets in every direction from Gastown to Coal Harbour to . It's perfectly fine, and the grime and homelessness that you see has been a part of the fabric since I've been coming here in the early 90s. I had some skid threaten to kick my ass back in 2006 on Seymour. A drunk native guy called me a "chink" one time I wanna say... 2010? Nothing since. Anecdotal? Sure but like I said I'm out on the streets every. single. day.
Is it worse than before COVID? Yes. But it's also noticeably gotten much better the past few months with the return of Office workers and Tourists.
There's literal ghettos a few minutes walk from the main tourist port of Marseille. I parked my rental car on the street and then had a ton of people come up and start staring at us. I noped out of there and into a secured parking lot. There's no where in Vancouver I would feel unsafe doing that. Even the DTES. Maybe because my ethnicity and i don't wanna sound racist but the ethnic makeup of this town lends towards safer streets and less confrontational behaviour. Not so in a lot of the world, Europe included.
I've lived DT for over 10 years now, worked DT for almost 20 years and have been coming downtown on weekends (with my parents first, then on dates) for like almost 30 fucking years.
Is it a fucking zombie apocalypse hellscape? No of course not. Don't be an idiot. I live outside of the business core but I walk every day up and down streets in every direction from Gastown to Coal Harbour to . It's perfectly fine, and the grime and homelessness that you see has been a part of the fabric since I've been coming here in the early 90s. I had some skid threaten to kick my ass back in 2006 on Seymour. A drunk native guy called me a "chink" one time I wanna say... 2010? Nothing since. Anecdotal? Sure but like I said I'm out on the streets every. single. day.
Is it worse than before COVID? Yes. But it's also noticeably gotten much better the past few months with the return of Office workers and Tourists.
There's literal ghettos a few minutes walk from the main tourist port of Marseille. I parked my rental car on the street and then had a ton of people come up and start staring at us. I noped out of there and into a secured parking lot. There's no where in Vancouver I would feel unsafe doing that. Even the DTES. Maybe because my ethnicity and i don't wanna sound racist but the ethnic makeup of this town lends towards safer streets and less confrontational behaviour. Not so in a lot of the world, Europe included.
Imo you’re substantially downplaying it. Or you simply don’t experience parkades and other common areas as you are just going to and from businesses which are already open and home.
I don’t live downtown but a stones throw away. My wife worked at homer and pender for 4 years prior to moving to Broadway and my dad has worked at the Scotia tower for 25+ years. Both experienced a DRASTIC change to environments they typically felt safe in before. As I said, my wife’s building regularly either had multiple people sleeping in the entry way (awesome for a woman on her own to try and confront a sleeping homeless person in order to gain access to her work place) or she had piles of shit and needles in the alcove of the door.
Same went for my dad, the parkade he parked in would have literal encampments of people who snuck in for the night, people shooting up, PILES of used needles in door ways and corners.
If you go on overdose deaths alone, obviously the epidemic of drug addiction has gotten SUBSTANTIALLY worse.
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439 deaths were reported in VCH by the end of December of 2018
And yes, I get that many deaths occur “inside” residence but extrapolate that data to however you want and you come to the same conclusion.
Your example of Marseille is like the worst case example. Frances second largest city, a port town overrun with North African migrants? Hardly a representation for almost anywhere else in Europe.
To Mikes points with affordability, things are hardly affordable in these cities I’m talking about, or really anywhere in Europe in a major city. In Rome, Lyon, Croatia, etc. 2 bedrooms in any city centre are going for 400k+ Euros. Rome was extremely expensive for what you got. In a city almost 6 times the population of Vancouver. And again.. no homeless people sprawled out in the streets, no drug paraphernalia littered everywhere.
You cannot tell me anything I’m saying is wrong.. if you’re a tourist and you fly into Vancouver, you stay at any hotel downtown, you’re going to be literally stepping over homeless people and needles as you walk around downtown. That is simply not the case in pretty much any of these major cities Of Europe. Again, with a very similar climate, with similar if not greater populations.
In terms of left VS right thing.. it’s hard to quantify that in Canada because there are basically only two places you’re going to be homeless, Vancouver and Toronto. However when you look at the homeless per capita in the states, the top 5 are all republican states and it looks like 75% of the top 20 are as well.
I don’t really care left or right, it’s just time to fix it. It’s fucking embarrassing and disgusting the state we’ve let it get to.
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To Mikes points with affordability, things are hardly affordable in these cities I’m talking about, or really anywhere in Europe in a major city. In Rome, Lyon, Croatia, etc. 2 bedrooms in any city centre are going for 400k+ Euros. Rome was extremely expensive for what you got. In a city almost 6 times the population of Vancouver. And again.. no homeless people sprawled out in the streets, no drug paraphernalia littered everywhere.
Dude, this is literally a hyperbole. I had family visit over summer that have never been here, and we went everywhere including downtown. Not once did they mention about how there vagrants everywhere, nor did we encounter anything which you described like poo or needles, other than the DTES core.
So either my visitors didn't encounter any because the situation isn't as bad as you describe, OR they didn't encounter any because they're tourists who only spent a few weeks here, just like you did in Europe, on which you seem to be basing your entire comparison on.
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You cannot tell me anything I’m saying is wrong.. if you’re a tourist and you fly into Vancouver, you stay at any hotel downtown, you’re going to be literally stepping over homeless people and needles as you walk around downtown. That is simply not the case in pretty much any of these major cities Of Europe. Again, with a very similar climate, with similar if not greater populations.
We are literally telling you you're wrong. Your opinion, fine - but factually, there aren't homeless people sprawled on the streets, and certainly not EVERYWHERE.
I searched "vancouver downtown vlog", and just skimmed through this one. She had a blast, and not once in the footage of 15 minutes was there anything you say there is, not even off-angle. Also shout-out to Westopher for making it in the video lol.
In terms of left VS right thing.. it’s hard to quantify that in Canada because there are basically only two places you’re going to be homeless, Vancouver and Toronto.
The right in Alberta gave all the homeless people bus tickets to BC. If you want homelessness dealt with you're going to need left wing groups in power.
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Originally Posted by Hondaracer
You cannot tell me anything I’m saying is wrong.. if you’re a tourist and you fly into Vancouver, you stay at any hotel downtown, you’re going to be literally stepping over homeless people and needles as you walk around downtown.
You can't know what the experience of a tourist is like because you can't be a tourist in your own town. Aside from the anecdotal evidence from the people who have been a tourist there, like one of my coworkers who goes out of his way to stay downtown when he's even vaguely near the area, if it was anywhere near as bad as you seem to think nobody would go there and the hotels would be struggling. Not sold out like the last time I was down there.
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Originally Posted by maksimizer
half those dudes are hotter than ,my GF.
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reading this thread is like waiting for goku to charge up a spirit bomb in dragon ball z
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OH thank god. I thought u had sex with my wife. :cry:
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Not gonna lie, even in North van, I see needles near my place regularly in certain areas, but the fact is, it’s easy to avoid these spots. If I were a tourist, I certainly wouldn’t be strolling around there, kinda like if I were in Paris I wouldn’t be strolling around there either.
Canada has a drug problem. Vancouver has a bigger drug problem, however, the inequality that creates these problems as Mike said, is a result of policy that allows inequality based on capitalist, conservative fiscal policy. We can talk about how “liberal” we are here, but actual liberal, socialist financial policy doesn’t exist. It’s all just battling against 200 years of capitalist engrained structure that is exponential over each generation that’s hitting a tipping point. What are conservatives going to do to turn it around? Filling the jails full of thousands of people for drug crimes? Is that going to stop addictions issues? Does that work in the US? Has it ever worked? Or has it created a whole larger generation of dangerous felons from being put into a situation of hopelessness? Nothing will change until the root of the problem is addressed. The lack of opportunity for people is the biggest driver of violence, theft, and drugs that society has. Ask any former felon what their motivation was and it’s almost always inequality and lack of opportunity for a better life. Address the root of the problem and over generations it can be fixed, until then, get used to it. It’s only going to get worse. You can blame the current government cause it makes you feel warm and fuzzy or you can objectively look at the situation and what got us there. The first option is easier, so you can see why people do it. It’s always easier to bitch and blame someone for the problem than to address how to fix it.
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Originally Posted by boostfever
Westopher is correct.
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Originally Posted by fsy82
seems like you got a dick up your ass well..get that checked
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Originally Posted by punkwax
Well.. I’d hate to be the first to say it, but Westopher is correct.
I don't have any solutions other than to do as little harm and create as little inconvenience as I possibly can for the people around me from a societal perspective.
But I also don't bitch about the problems either... I don't feel I have a right to when I haven't done anything significant to tackle them and only have a surface level (re: likely highly inaccurate or sanitized) understanding of those problems and their related issues.
Historically, fewer than 33 per cent of all assaults in Vancouver were considered serious, meaning cases where a person used a weapon or caused bodily harm. Beginning in 2020, the proportion of serious assaults increased by 40 per cent
“Importantly, the historical data shows that assaults in Vancouver have not only increased in number but have also progressively become more serious and more violent,” said the report, noting an average of four unprovoked assaults occur every day in the city.
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Six-fold increase in anti-Asian hate crimes
Other data highlighted in the report said there was a six-fold increase in anti-Asian hate crime in the first eight months of 2022 relative to the three-year average preceding the pandemic.
Despite efforts by the VPD to increase community awareness and facilitate the reporting of hate crimes, there are reasons to believe that VPD statistics under-estimate the true extent of the problem
The biggest spikes in the three categories tracked by the association were in needles collected, with 3,237 (an 82 per cent hike over last year) and 3,772 graffiti tags removed (a 578 per cent increase over last year)
Hard statistics though must be just subjective as what do they prove?…
This idea of can’t complain because I haven’t done anything.. what else can I do other then vote or contact my city council etc? These problems are so far beyond even the municipal level of politics no one can have an effect on then outside of total reform.
So we live with a couple left leaning mayors who the problems have become substantially worse under, now Ken sim comes in and it’s like “a business man?!?! A conservative devil????”
We are at the low of lows right now. As with federal politics, it gets to the point where anything is better than the status quo. Doesn’t matter liberal conservative, you could call it X party and Y party. After an extended period of time where things have gotten substantially worse, what other option do you have but the alternative?
I don’t disagree with Westophers point about lack of opportunity etc. but when career criminals are roaming the streets looking to put a pipe through your head, there comes a time when this segment of society are better off kept away from the general public rather than sent through the system only to reoffend and ruin yet another life. That’s the path we’re heading down rather quickly.
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Last edited by Hondaracer; 11-16-2022 at 10:08 PM.
But weetophers point is that people don’t just disappear and you can’t just execute everyone who commits a crime… so rehabilitation is important and it’s something that’s been missing from pretty much every society.
The problem is that there’s always going to be 1 failure… 1 person who re-offends and then everything is a failure no matter how many success stories there were. How do you battle this cognitive dissonance?
It’s the same thing that’s making you think someone os roaming the streets wanting to put a pipe through your head… I’ve literally never ever had that thought myself anywhere in Canada, but I understand it because I have had that thought in Oakland or a few other places before.
Is your feeling coming from reading stats? Or actual gut feelings? Or experience? I think that’s important to analyze.
But weetophers point is that people don’t just disappear and you can’t just execute everyone who commits a crime… so rehabilitation is important and it’s something that’s been missing from pretty much every society.
The problem is that there’s always going to be 1 failure… 1 person who re-offends and then everything is a failure no matter how many success stories there were. How do you battle this cognitive dissonance?
It’s the same thing that’s making you think someone os roaming the streets wanting to put a pipe through your head… I’ve literally never ever had that thought myself anywhere in Canada, but I understand it because I have had that thought in Oakland or a few other places before.
Is your feeling coming from reading stats? Or actual gut feelings? Or experience? I think that’s important to analyze.
I don’t have much fear for my own personal well-being as I think I’m fairly cognizant of my surroundings, have some level of intuition when it comes people and scenarios I put myself in.
I’m moreso concerned with the safety of friends and family. It’s probably an unfounded fear if you break It down statistically, but with pretty much non-stop violent random assaults occurring on a daily basis. Those people who are assaulted are somebodies friends/family.
In terms of reoffenders, I think it’s one thing to say that for the person that does a couple B&E’s for drug money. It’s a different story for the person with hundreds of police encounters over a decade or more. Those people are better off not being alive period. Maybe it’s the system that created that person sure, but that person is now beyond rehabilitation or ever becoming a contributing member of society. These people are net losses to their contributions on this planet.
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So who gets to decide when that threshold is crossed?
That's a massive morality question that humans have struggled to answer since crime was even a thing.
The US executes the most people for criminal acts, but no developed country has worse crime than them... so I don't think that works.
I mean, in that model, perhaps this guy isn't alive anymore?
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Mental health supports
Vancouver Coastal Health addictions adviser Guy Felicella was among keynote speakers at the recent townhall and says he was alarmed to hear that many residents attribute the issue to the city's homeless crisis.
"That to me is so far from the truth," said Felicella, who has overcome his own challenges with addiction to become an advocate for people living with economic and mental health challenges.
Guy Felicella struggled with homelessness and addiction for decades in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. He now uses his experiences to mentor others in similar situations.
"I don't know who's doing random attacks, but it's highly unlikely it's people who are homeless. They're just trying to do their thing, day by day, to survive," he said.
Felicella says the assaults are a symptom of wider challenges surrounding a lack of supports for people struggling with mental health, addiction and housing insecurity.
More than 1,700 people were assaulted unprovoked by a stranger in past year, Vancouver police review finds
"It's really challenging to go through life and try to feel supported and not getting any," he said. "You're carrying a tremendous amount of shame and guilt, self-hatred and low self-worth ... it comes to a bubbling point where you just lash out, and it's often out of character."
Following Vancouver's virtual town hall, organizers say they're taking what they heard to the province to advocate for more supports, including a push for improvements to the supportive housing model.
“I’ve never seen the Downtown Eastside in a more desperate state,” he said. “I’ve never seen it worse. I worked down there 20 years ago for a number of years and I thought it was pretty desperate. We’re headed in the wrong direction in that neighbourhood.”
And.. I’m done. Enjoy
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