T3G
Senior Member
Perhaps, but I expect more comprehensive and constructive solutions coming from our politicians. What the hell are we paying them for? You don't get to clear out an encampment and then wipe your hands and say job done.
|
|
|
- Thread starter animatronic
- Start date
Perhaps, but I expect more comprehensive and constructive solutions coming from our politicians. What the hell are we paying them for? You don't get to clear out an encampment and then wipe your hands and say job done.
zang
Senior Member
What, If you keep taking away their homes, they’ll stop being homeless?
evandyk
Senior Member
No, but they will go to the remote ravines. Which is terrible for a host of reasons, but we need our parks back. As it stands now, there won't be any sledding at Dufferin Grove this year because there are tents at the top and bottom of the hills.
Richard White
Senior Member
This was exactly the point I was trying to make.
If you make the parks themselves inhospitable they will leave and go elsewhere. There is a fine line between having nowhere to go and things being unsafe for the general public.
Look.. St James Park is not a campground. Allen Gardens is not a campground. Hell.. Queens Park is not a playground! These are all parks where families and young children go. I don't care where the homeless go but having unsafe and unsanitary conditions where children play and the public go is not ok.
I am sorry but the public should not feel unsafe walking through a park just because someone has nowhere else to go.
Perhaps Queens Park should turn some provincial parks into homeless shelters and ship them out there. I hear Pancake Bake and Neys are nice this time of year.
evandyk
Senior Member
Just use Queen's Park. There are no children's play areas there. But the politicians don't want it in their back yard.
Richard White
Senior Member
No but families do use that park along with people walking dogs and going to U of T.
Do you really want something happening to an 18 year old female university student walking through the park at night?
zang
Senior Member
"Think of the children!"
Do you have any kids? I do. I don't feel unsafe with homeless people in the park. Maybe you've just become too comfortable.
Richard White
Senior Member
No but I was just accosted on my lunch by a mentally disturbed homeless woman in Corktown. She was screaming, yelling and hitting me with her bag of clothes.
Then as I was walking back to work, the 121 was on diversion due to an encampment fire at Gerrard and River Streets.
Maybe you don't feel unsafe in a park but not everyone has the same level of comfort. You can't just assume everyone is ok with walking through a park full of mentally ill or otherwise addicted homeless persons.
Towered
Superstar
I have kids and I'm definitely not ok with encampments in parks, especially anywhere near play areas for children.
Thinker
Active Member
I am sure they are aware that they are homeless. Why not follow the model some cities in Ontario, provide them with tiny home shelters, I am sure there is still plenty of city land is available. It’s easy to judge, but I am almost sure, none of us ever had to live and sleep in parks or subway or sewage grates to keep warm
DSC
Superstar
Poor budgeting and too many consultants behind soaring cost of Toronto subway projects, study reveals
Doug Ford's four priority transit projects cost Ontario taxpayers more to build than comparable projects in cities around the word, researchers found.
www.thestar.com
SubHuman
Active Member
Not to just pick on you, as this is commonly heard from politicians and others --
When we see someone staggering around with little or no idea of where they are or what they're doing, who has been soiling themself, wearing the same clothes for years, and/or yelling at the invisible demons that exist only in their mind, why is "homeless" the main term used to describe this? I don't doubt that they likely have no fixed address, but that's not really at the top of the list of their problems. More importantly, it avoids doing anything to improve the situation by ignoring it and pretending it's something else.
The people like this who are the most problematic, for themselves and the rest of us, should be in some kind of institution (psychiatric, long-term health care, or drug rehab) and not left to wander around and endanger themselves by doing things like continually shutting down subway lines by climbing onto the tracks and walking into the tunnels until they get killed by a train when doing it for the 7th or 8th time, urinating in the streetcars, throwing rocks or bottles through windows, constant shop-lifting, etc.
Leaving them there does not do anything to help them (or the rest of us).The TTC and our parks should not be de facto substitute institutions that lack doctors, nurses, attendants, and security staff.
Maybe instead of giving $200 to everyone, tell the province to use it to set-up and staff more of these institutions. And also tell the municipal authorities they might need to sometimes physically move some of these mentally unsound individuals to these institutions, in spite of being afraid that it might "look like you're being mean to them" or some such misguided child-like attitude used to excuse their fecklessness.
Last edited:
lenaitch
Senior Member
So it sounds like some people are ok with encampments, just someplace where they can't see them.
In my mind, there are different types of people who are homeless and living rough. Those who have hit bottom, for whatever reason, and need a hand-up to get back on track, They would likely use a shelter and/or some kind of transitional housing and benefit from other kinds of support. Those who have simply shunned society and consciously made peace with living rough. I have a brother-in-law who is essentially a hermit. He's not homeless, but lives on an island up north. He's quite content with his chosen lot in life.
Finally, there are those who suffer from addiction and/or mental illness. They may or may not access a shelter. The province can build all manner of treatment centres, mental health facilities, what have you, but without more coercive legislation to impose involuntary treatment, the problem will persist. Most of this group either do not perceive they are ill or addicted or lack the ability to seek and maintain treatment.
The challenges are Charter-compliant legislation and the willingness to impose and standby involuntary treatment, which will be wildly unpopular with large segments of society (and therefore voters).
In my mind, there are different types of people who are homeless and living rough. Those who have hit bottom, for whatever reason, and need a hand-up to get back on track, They would likely use a shelter and/or some kind of transitional housing and benefit from other kinds of support. Those who have simply shunned society and consciously made peace with living rough. I have a brother-in-law who is essentially a hermit. He's not homeless, but lives on an island up north. He's quite content with his chosen lot in life.
Finally, there are those who suffer from addiction and/or mental illness. They may or may not access a shelter. The province can build all manner of treatment centres, mental health facilities, what have you, but without more coercive legislation to impose involuntary treatment, the problem will persist. Most of this group either do not perceive they are ill or addicted or lack the ability to seek and maintain treatment.
The challenges are Charter-compliant legislation and the willingness to impose and standby involuntary treatment, which will be wildly unpopular with large segments of society (and therefore voters).
SubHuman
Active Member
Northern Light quoted the Ontario Mental Health Act here -
https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/homelessness-on-gta-transit-catch-all.37846/post-2060443
https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90m07
No new legislation is required.
And "wildly unpoplular" with what segment of voters? The ones who think it's a good idea to keep letting mentally unsound individuals repeatedly climb onto the subway tracks untill they get killed by a train? The crack and meth dealers?
Last edited:
lenaitch
Senior Member
I am well familiar with the Mental Health Act. None of the provisions speak to being simply an addict in need of treatment, or a person suffering from a mental illness who is either simply undiagnosed, refuses to take meds, etc. The physician, JP and police authorities are to transport for assessment or examination, they are not authorities in and of themselves, for admission, The criteria that the examining physician at a facility must meet to sign a certificate of involuntary admission are fairly strict, specific and subjective. The behavior must indicate a threshold of serious bodily harm to self or others; being a social burden, nuisance, indigent, petty criminal, slobbering addict or most other things that society doesn't like about the homeless don't qualify.
I have taken people for assessment, some under a physicians application, up north where distances to a facility can be significant and entail an overnight hotel stay. Twice, when I returned home the person was already there. Not only were they not admitted after a cursory examination, they gave them a bus ticket.
If you don't think there are any number of groups, be they advocates or simply those ready to rise up against the 'heavy hand of the State', you haven't been following the news. Quite frankly, I think the NDP would have apoplexy.
I don't follow it closely but I'm not sure the Ontario Mental Health Act, particularly its involuntary provisions, has been Charter challenged. If it was that straight forward, I wonder why the Ford government would muse about invoking the NWS clause if required.