Chaos, fehlgeschlagene Politik Fuel Fire Crisis in der Innenstadt von Eastside Sros. Tägliche Brände und ungeprüftes Chaos haben die Innenstadt von Eastside in einen Ausnahmezustand – die Situation ist nicht nachhaltig, schreibt Jillian Skeet.

Nobody wants to admit it but the majority of people in the Downtown Eastside are homeless by choice and see no benefit in reintegrating into society. There’s many stories of people who are homeless because they refuse to accept the rules of social housing (for example no drugs or whatever). What do we do for these people? We can’t arrest these people as being homeless isn’t a crime but they take over neighborhoods and storefronts, do lots of petty crime, and leave their garbage everywhere (ie antisocial behaviour).

For all other people, this is what I would do if I was in charge of the Downtown Eastside/Province:

– Refuse all resources to unhoused people who recently arrive from out of province (to solve the issue of other provinces sending us their homeless), and give them transportation back to their home province

– Build social housing at scale

– Enforce rules/laws on public drug use

– Institutionalize anybody who overdoses or gets extremely high on drugs like heroin or crack in public. They should wake up in a rehab facility and never leave until they are clean and have a job/housing/a plan.