I get that people are upset and we have a right to feel safe in our own city, but what you are proposing is not possible. You cannot mandate someone enter a shelter or go to jail in a free and democratic society. What you are describing is Dickensian England where poverty is criminalized.
I don't imagine I will change any minds that believe the houseless population is living a "party summer", but at the very least the argument should be called out for its ridiculousness.
The homelessness of today is not the homelessness of the 80s or earlier. Especially in canada. We have significant social supports.
It’s almost always related to serious drug use and mental health. People experiencing poverty, while not easy, do have supports and rarely fall into long term homelessness without drugs/mental health becoming an issue. Poverty due to income is decently well served in canada (but always room to improve).
But drug use and mental health problems in public aren’t a poverty issue. You can give those people all they need for housing, food, a job, etc. it doesn’t help, their needs are different.
And in the public realm, the risks and consequences are different. It’s not just regular people hitting tough times. It’s people with schizophrenia and generational trauma using drugs that cause violent and erratic behaviour. The risks to themselves and to the public are significantly worse than in other eras of homelessness.
We need a new response. One that doesn’t dehumanize those needing help, but one that also doesn’t dehumanize the grandma, university student, single mom, child, and everyday citizen that wants to safely move around their city. We need 0 tolerance for assaults and bodily harm to random Edmontonians.
At this point I would literally support having the army engaged with our LRT…
I have 3 friends that bought second cars for their households this year so they could stop using the train. That’s a mostly permanent decision to never use the train again. We cannot recover what we’re losing from allowing this to be a problem for so long.