[Glenco]

For what?

You tell me

 

[IanO]

They have plans for a nursing and residential project.

 

[TAS]

Hearing that the very open and public spaces in Norquest are having significant safety and theft issues

Well, post secondary institutions are mostly funded by the province, maybe Norquest will have better luck than the city in reaching out for support.

 

[crisp]

Hearing that the very open and public spaces in Norquest are having significant safety and theft issues

A foreshadow of the new central park.

 

[Greenspace]

Due to the opening/proximity of Hope Mission/Navigation Centre. Hopeufully they can get it sorted out.

 

[crisp]

I personally can't be optimistic in this case, due to the societal norms we seem to have now accepted. This isn't just an Edmonton issue, Edmonton just getting hit hard by it unfortunately.

Too big of a woke movement in too short of a period, normalizing drug use and defunding the police, while not working on a real solution. I'm sorry but while handing out free clean drug kits and narcan kits may save lives, they also promote increased usage. We now accept people shooting up in a park, metres away from kids playing (yes I've seen this with my own eyes in Calgary and why I would never raise a child in the core).

Apologies for derailing the thread, rant off.

 

[David A]

Due to the opening/proximity of Hope Mission/Navigation Centre. Hopeufully they can get it sorted out.

Unfortunately, downtown Edmonton largely remains the dumping ground for much of northern Alberta's social problems and other than giving the occasional appearance of action, the Provincial government doesn't seem to have much interest in fixing it.

 

[EtoV]

Yeah but when the province drops its problems on cities, it's a lot easier to blame the municipality. Drug use/homelessness shouldn't even really be the purvue of municipalities, but it becomes their problem when the province doesn't deal with it, as it's something that's visible at the local level

 

[SarcasticMarmot]

I personally can't be optimistic in this case, due to the societal norms we seem to have now accepted. This isn't just an Edmonton issue, Edmonton just getting hit hard by it unfortunately.

Too big of a woke movement in too short of a period, normalizing drug use and defunding the police, while not working on a real solution. I'm sorry but while handing out free clean drug kits and narcan kits may save lives, they also promote increased usage. We now accept people shooting up in a park, metres away from kids playing (yes I've seen this with my own eyes in Calgary and why I would never raise a child in the core).

Apologies for derailing the thread, rant off.

Edmonton never defunded the police. We have the 2nd highest level of police funding in the country. We have a grand total of 2 public safe injection sites, and have never implemented safe supply, despite the rants of willfully uniformed opinion columnists. Lots to be critical of with how we have responded to the drug crisis but we have not normalized drug use at all. What we have is a complete failure of our social safety net where more and more people's live suck so bad that doing drugs on the street is the only way to relieve the pain.

 

[Greenspace]

While EPS is the second highest funded in the country, I find them somewhat ineffective and don't focus on the right things for a variety of reasons. They are only accountable to the province really (police commission can ask questions). They suffered lack of officers and absenteeism during the pandemic like any other employer. At one time over half of their officers where on leave.

But now we're past that, province has provided money for more than 50 new officers and yet they still refuse to really implement any kind of community policing program. They openly admit they forgot how to do it, most of their officers have less than 3 1/2 years experience. They also just don't' want to do it. It's tough work and it's less efficient. But it's what businesses and community say they want, what they were doing 5 years ago. They are responsive when you talk to them, and being a front line officer is certainly a very tough job, especially in the core.

We have a lot of front line social services concentrated Downtown which attract disorder. We don't have an updated Public Safety Bylaw to persuade anyone from doing drugs wherever they want. There's a lot of behaviors that's simply going unregulated. The province has opened 10,000 new drug treatment spaces since 2019, and tripled the capacity of shelters last year. It's not perfect by any means but it's not nothing. Just allowing any kind of behaviors in important visitor, business, cultural areas like CBD, transit, parks, etc is just not tolerable to the average citizen.

 

[StoneCutter099]

Hearing that the very open and public spaces in Norquest are having significant safety and theft issues

How do you define significant? I'm not hearing that NQ is seeing anything more or less than what other organizations are seeing around that area. What have you seen/heard? Genuinely curious.

 

[StoneCutter099]

They have plans for a nursing and residential project.

The Teaching and Research Continuing Care Centre Project you are referencing has been suspended. NQ is rumoured to be working on something else for the site.

 

[Gronk!]

Thanks for updates on Norquest, @StoneCutter099. That is the purpose of this thread. There's a dozen other threads to discuss the ongoing homelessness issue.

 

[IanO]

The Teaching and Research Continuing Care Project you are referencing has been suspended. NQ is rumoured to be working on something else for the site.

Figured as such given how old the proposal was, but it did give indication as to future plans.

 

[IanO]

How do you define significant? I'm not hearing that NQ is seeing anything more or less than what other organizations are seeing around that area. What have you seen/heard? Genuinely curious.

Second hand from a few, but similar to MacEwan, real concerns about theft, inappropriate use of facilities, trespassing and open drug use.