You know, for all of the times I hear this, I'm not sure I've ever seen a tent city in actual downtown, not even in the parking crater. I've seen an improvised shelter here or there tucked into an alley or taking advantage of a heat vent or a bit of shelter from the rain. There was a cluster in a vacant lot over in Boyle Street at one point just around the corner from me, and while it sucked to see them out there in the middle of winter, they were quiet and kept to themselves. They were easily less disruptive than hockey fans or the truck fetishists who get the jet engine sound package on their Ford F-16000.
Also, I can't emphasize enough that EVERYTHING used to be MUCH worse on the whole violent crime front from pretty much the first oil bust to the early 2000s. The core was full of stabby bars and sleazy by the hour hotels. We had an active gang war over the cocaine trade with mysterious (still unsolved in some cases) explosions and late night gun battles and knife fights at wedding receptions. And we had a huge issue with street prostitution (yeah, when Mordecai Richler wrote about streetwalkers plying their trade on Jasper, that was an actual thing) and all of the sorts of sexual predators that brought out. It sucks folks are sleeping rough, but boy oh boy do people forget a whole bunch of context.