jhappy77
Active Member
My main issue with housing first is there is a significant chunk of the homeless population is unwilling or uncapable of following basic rules, leading to chaos for everyone nearby. Here in Vancouver, some druggies were starting fires in the SROs every couple weeks (via genius moves like using a blowtorch to do meth indoors, or creating a jerry rigged charging system for their stolen ebike collection). This closed down nearby businesses and in general many people started to avoid Granville Street. If this type of person is getting free housing, free food, free everything on the taxpayer dime, then we should do the rest of society a favor and move them somewhere far outside the city where they aren't going to harm everyone else along the way.
As a society, we've become unwilling to enforce any sort of lasting consequences for the subset of homeless people who are anti-social "agents of chaos". All compassion and no toughness is just called foolishness. We need to be both compassionate for those who need help and tough to those who are abusing the system. And if we can reduce the anti-social behavior that's harming communities, there will be more support and acceptance for programs giving housing and help for people who need it and appreciate it.
As a society, we've become unwilling to enforce any sort of lasting consequences for the subset of homeless people who are anti-social "agents of chaos". All compassion and no toughness is just called foolishness. We need to be both compassionate for those who need help and tough to those who are abusing the system. And if we can reduce the anti-social behavior that's harming communities, there will be more support and acceptance for programs giving housing and help for people who need it and appreciate it.