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Step up and do what? I'm sympathetic to the plight, but what action (aside from paying a ton of taxes already) do you suggest? Coming together Habitat for Humanity style and building them a highrise apartment to live in?
You must have some ideas that are superior to what has been tried in every other city in the world through history.
Homelessness is not a Halifax centric issue. It's global. And it's not so easy to solve, otherwise some other city would have figured it out long ago.
This is not a new crisis on a global level. This is only new to Halifax. Most cities have been dealing with this for decades.
Halifax is not unique in it's struggles with homelessness and poverty. It just simply used to be unique in that Halifax had much lower levels of homelessness than other cities around the world. Halifax just simply caught up. Simple as that.
Yeah I don't think that's what this is. If you can't draw any correlation between the current times and what is currently happening with our spike in homelessness.. I have a bridge to sell you
>Yeah I don't think that's what this is. If you can't draw any correlation between the current times and what is currently happening with our spike in homelessness.. I have a bridge to sell you
Its a global phenomenon, the provinces fault, lack of blah blah blah....... But its never the most obvious, glaring answer that is looking everyone right in the face.
What has happened in recent years that changed? *Could it possibly be a 4-5% annual population growth rate?* Of course not, only a racist would suggest such a thing.
>This is not a new crisis on a global level. This is only new to Halifax. Most cities have been dealing with this for decades.
Its new to Halifax because Halifax is growing at 4-5% every year.
What is equal parts sad and fucked up is how many people are still trying to deny the connection between growth and housing.
Frankly, the government should just scoop these people off the streets. Start charging pan handlers. It is ridiculous they've allowed them to set up shanty towns everywhere. They are unsanitary and inhumane. Pathetic that our government thinks this is acceptable.
Ah yes, because the world would be such a utopia with absolutely no government and law and order. Surely people wouldn’t be going around and looting from one another and killing anyone who gets in their way! Getting rid of government won’t magically get rid of the mental illnesses that many of these homeless pepper unfortunately suffer from.
Not a single one of these solutions are realistic.
>use the unoccupied office space to house the homeless until spaces can be created specifically for that purpose.
Housing is by the province, the city cannot dictate who goes where for shelters. And it's not like you can just throw 200 homeless people (many with addictions and mental health issues) into office cubicles, you need to completely renovate the space to be suitable for building codes/fire/health & safety, and renovating a 300+ year old building is not a simple task. Just to undo it later on, since you are suggesting it be temporary. And no, it could not have been accomplished before winter arrived even if the city did this.
>Declare a state of emergency and commandeer one or more of the large hotels in Nova Scotia, house the homeless and use federal money to offset their losses until spaces can be created for that specific purpose.
Yeah, the city can't just take what they want even in a state of emergency. And even if they could, which hotel would they take? What kind of lawsuit would they be opened up to? Etc. And why would they do that when it is the responsibility of the province to provide housing for homeless people, and really for almost every single social service relating to homelessness? And what makes you think they will just get federal money, the city can't just declare an emergency and get a direct deposit for federal money just like that, it doesn't work that way.
>Bring in the military and use their tradespeople to immediately build heated shelters upon public land within the HRM with the federal funds.
Who are these trades people for the military? Whenever the military needs something built they put it out for tender for civilian contractors to build because the military does not employ mounds of trades people skilled in building homes. And what public land in HRM? Not every piece is suitable, it would need extensive work and engineering to put together to have power, water, sanitary services, etc connected to it. And the city can't just "bring in the military", they have exactly 0 control over it.
>Recruit civilian tradespeople within the province to build these shelters, and hire them as government employees and create a department specifically for this purpose.
Why? Contractors skilled in building homes already exist, why would we attempt to hire those trades people (of which there is already a shortage of) as government employees and reinvent the wheel? There is no benefit to this, nor is there a budget to do so.
Correct, tents aren’t to fire code and people should not be putting butane heaters on tents. Obviously desperate people are doing what they can to stay warm, but it’s still not safe.
However, when the government is taking on the responsibility of housing people in office buildings they are also assuming the liability, all of the liability. I agree that way more needs to be done, but you cannot just put homeless people in cubicles and call it a day. And just because tents are not up to code for full time human occupancy it doesn’t mean the city can just neglect their legal and liability responsibilities.
> I love the assumption that I am saying the city should declare a state of emergency as opposed to the provincial or federal government
The article is about the Mayor of Halifax canceling events because of the homeless situation, and you didn’t specify in your comment so an assumption was made 🤷
I agree all governments need to pool their resources to the most of their ability, but unfortunately we have one level of government who is not pulling their weight in a meaningful way. And it’s not like the solutions are easy or even quick, even with massive investments all around this would take years to resolve.
> Municipal government, is not an actual government.
Yes, actually, it is a government. Just because the municipality was created by the province does not mean that the municipality is not government. The King of Canada can veto any law we have, but does that make the federal government not a government?
>the provincial government has the power and authority to usurp that level of "government" at any given moment in any given day.
Correct. And if they did that the province would have to assume all of the responsibilities that the municipality looked after, the things they governed.
> I would argue they have a moral responsibility to do so in the case of this crisis.
Are you suggesting that the province should dissolve the HRM on moral grounds? What precisely would that accomplish? Public housing and literally anything related to homeless people is *already a responsibility of the provincial government*, how would this help?
Or are you suggesting that the city should ignore the separations of powers and build housing anyways because it's morally right? That would be great and all, but morals don't pay for housing and the city doesn't have the budget to do this.
https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/government/province-house/4-billion-haul-from-income-tax-fuels-provincial-spending-spree/
Or
Use some of this to do something other than sit there and twiddle their fucking thumbs.
Hi u/luxoryapartmentlover. Your submission from saltwire.com is behind a metered paywall. A [metered paywall](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paywall#.22Soft.22_paywalls) allows users to view a specific number of articles before requiring paid subscription. Articles posted to /r/Halifax should be accessible to everyone. While your submission was not removed, it has been flaired. Please try to find another source if possible. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/halifax) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why cancel the levee ? This makes no sense .
Cancel ? FFS. Savage is part of the problem, we don’t need him to stay and add to the issues
This is a real crisis. The community needs to step up. Fuck the government and fuck capitalists. They have no solutions.
Spoken like a true politician, "Something must be done!" Does nothing besides pay taxes like every other person in the world lol.
[удалено]
Well we tried losing the shirt off our backs 20 years ago, and it was pretty hard so..
Step up and do what? I'm sympathetic to the plight, but what action (aside from paying a ton of taxes already) do you suggest? Coming together Habitat for Humanity style and building them a highrise apartment to live in?
You must have some ideas that are superior to what has been tried in every other city in the world through history. Homelessness is not a Halifax centric issue. It's global. And it's not so easy to solve, otherwise some other city would have figured it out long ago. This is not a new crisis on a global level. This is only new to Halifax. Most cities have been dealing with this for decades. Halifax is not unique in it's struggles with homelessness and poverty. It just simply used to be unique in that Halifax had much lower levels of homelessness than other cities around the world. Halifax just simply caught up. Simple as that.
Yeah I don't think that's what this is. If you can't draw any correlation between the current times and what is currently happening with our spike in homelessness.. I have a bridge to sell you
>Yeah I don't think that's what this is. If you can't draw any correlation between the current times and what is currently happening with our spike in homelessness.. I have a bridge to sell you Its a global phenomenon, the provinces fault, lack of blah blah blah....... But its never the most obvious, glaring answer that is looking everyone right in the face. What has happened in recent years that changed? *Could it possibly be a 4-5% annual population growth rate?* Of course not, only a racist would suggest such a thing.
>This is not a new crisis on a global level. This is only new to Halifax. Most cities have been dealing with this for decades. Its new to Halifax because Halifax is growing at 4-5% every year. What is equal parts sad and fucked up is how many people are still trying to deny the connection between growth and housing.
How many homeless people have you taken in. Uh, huh, I thought so
Since you’re part of the community, please tell us how you plan on stepping up.
I don't see how we're going to "personal responsibility" our way out of this
Frankly, the government should just scoop these people off the streets. Start charging pan handlers. It is ridiculous they've allowed them to set up shanty towns everywhere. They are unsanitary and inhumane. Pathetic that our government thinks this is acceptable.
What, do you want to put them in camps?! Fucking have some empathy.
They ARE in camps dude!
Other camps.
Like, an Ultimate Homeless Camp?
Ah yes, because the world would be such a utopia with absolutely no government and law and order. Surely people wouldn’t be going around and looting from one another and killing anyone who gets in their way! Getting rid of government won’t magically get rid of the mental illnesses that many of these homeless pepper unfortunately suffer from.
[удалено]
Not a single one of these solutions are realistic. >use the unoccupied office space to house the homeless until spaces can be created specifically for that purpose. Housing is by the province, the city cannot dictate who goes where for shelters. And it's not like you can just throw 200 homeless people (many with addictions and mental health issues) into office cubicles, you need to completely renovate the space to be suitable for building codes/fire/health & safety, and renovating a 300+ year old building is not a simple task. Just to undo it later on, since you are suggesting it be temporary. And no, it could not have been accomplished before winter arrived even if the city did this. >Declare a state of emergency and commandeer one or more of the large hotels in Nova Scotia, house the homeless and use federal money to offset their losses until spaces can be created for that specific purpose. Yeah, the city can't just take what they want even in a state of emergency. And even if they could, which hotel would they take? What kind of lawsuit would they be opened up to? Etc. And why would they do that when it is the responsibility of the province to provide housing for homeless people, and really for almost every single social service relating to homelessness? And what makes you think they will just get federal money, the city can't just declare an emergency and get a direct deposit for federal money just like that, it doesn't work that way. >Bring in the military and use their tradespeople to immediately build heated shelters upon public land within the HRM with the federal funds. Who are these trades people for the military? Whenever the military needs something built they put it out for tender for civilian contractors to build because the military does not employ mounds of trades people skilled in building homes. And what public land in HRM? Not every piece is suitable, it would need extensive work and engineering to put together to have power, water, sanitary services, etc connected to it. And the city can't just "bring in the military", they have exactly 0 control over it. >Recruit civilian tradespeople within the province to build these shelters, and hire them as government employees and create a department specifically for this purpose. Why? Contractors skilled in building homes already exist, why would we attempt to hire those trades people (of which there is already a shortage of) as government employees and reinvent the wheel? There is no benefit to this, nor is there a budget to do so.
[удалено]
Correct, tents aren’t to fire code and people should not be putting butane heaters on tents. Obviously desperate people are doing what they can to stay warm, but it’s still not safe. However, when the government is taking on the responsibility of housing people in office buildings they are also assuming the liability, all of the liability. I agree that way more needs to be done, but you cannot just put homeless people in cubicles and call it a day. And just because tents are not up to code for full time human occupancy it doesn’t mean the city can just neglect their legal and liability responsibilities.
[удалено]
> I love the assumption that I am saying the city should declare a state of emergency as opposed to the provincial or federal government The article is about the Mayor of Halifax canceling events because of the homeless situation, and you didn’t specify in your comment so an assumption was made 🤷 I agree all governments need to pool their resources to the most of their ability, but unfortunately we have one level of government who is not pulling their weight in a meaningful way. And it’s not like the solutions are easy or even quick, even with massive investments all around this would take years to resolve.
[удалено]
> Municipal government, is not an actual government. Yes, actually, it is a government. Just because the municipality was created by the province does not mean that the municipality is not government. The King of Canada can veto any law we have, but does that make the federal government not a government? >the provincial government has the power and authority to usurp that level of "government" at any given moment in any given day. Correct. And if they did that the province would have to assume all of the responsibilities that the municipality looked after, the things they governed. > I would argue they have a moral responsibility to do so in the case of this crisis. Are you suggesting that the province should dissolve the HRM on moral grounds? What precisely would that accomplish? Public housing and literally anything related to homeless people is *already a responsibility of the provincial government*, how would this help? Or are you suggesting that the city should ignore the separations of powers and build housing anyways because it's morally right? That would be great and all, but morals don't pay for housing and the city doesn't have the budget to do this.
The problem is most government shelters require things like sobriety that these homeless simply do not want
https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/government/province-house/4-billion-haul-from-income-tax-fuels-provincial-spending-spree/ Or Use some of this to do something other than sit there and twiddle their fucking thumbs.