CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Having just been to France. I was very puzzled, that yes, there are homeless people but no and I mean zero zombies. Is it just that the drugs we have here are not there?
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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
darwink
Senior Member
Pretty much.
whatchyyc
Active Member
I believe as well you're only allowed to serve alcohol with the fencing set up around the patio, which will probably only be able to fit in the central zone
adamyyc
Active Member
Yeah, that seems like an antiquated North American thing. As though the 3 foot fence magically demarcates where liquor can be consumed, while there are people doing illicit drugs everywhere else on the street. Hopefully that can be resolved through a bylaw.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
That is a gut punch.
Because what that tells me is that there is no stopping the drug crisis here, there's just forcing it to the shadows or at best very slowly making it better.
If it isn't in Europe because there is no demand then it will never be in Europe as long as there is no demand.
It is here because there's a demand for it. Safe supply can help the illicit demand by being a safer substitute. Treatment can help by stemming the demand. There is just no stopping the supply because you cannot inspect everything coming into the country, and even if you could the compounds are almost constantly changing so you have no idea what you're even looking for.
This is morbid and would cost a lot but the only reasonable thing I can think to do is to arrest them for open drug use. As for what happens after they're arrested, I have no idea.
During this construction they'll be moved off of Stephen Ave, like they've been removed from Olympic Plaza. So for at least a little while they won't be here but sadly they'll be somewhere else. I fear what happens when the safe supply facilities close, there's a gross comfort in knowing where to avoid.
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Chowda7
Active Member
Housing grant helps fund Calgary initiatives
The City of Calgary has announced the first round of funding recipients under the housing capital initiative.
www.ctvnews.ca
trtcttc
Senior Member
I think this would be a pretty good outcome if it’s achievable. Unfortunately, there’s no putting fentanyl back in the bottle. Decriminalization doesn’t work here because we don’t pair it with strong, enforced treatment. Some provinces, including AB are passing forced treatment laws, but that’s in very exceptional circumstances, requiring multiple inputs from the judicial and medical systems. It’s only going to affect those with past violent tendencies or contact with these systems and won’t help/affect most drug users. Those decriminalization programs in Europe were paired with mandatory (not necessarily punitive) treatment for everyone. I think that’d be a good start, get those that are not fully gone to right their life, and stem the flow of more people having severe addiction issues.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Yeah, my conclusion was all you can do is try to slow down the demand. Safe injection was/is a communications problem. If you supplemented the street supply with a safe supply that's some demand gone. That ship has sailed. Treatment does also removes some demand but we're undertaking a decades long process. I truly believe it will take that long. Unless you take dramatic, and almost unlawful action, of rounding them all up and putting them out to a "wellness" farm until they're "better".
CBBarnett
Senior Member
It's also a proportional problem related to local population. The Beltline has continued to grow and get increasingly vibrant despite these issues - it's reached a critical mass of local population that the issues themselves seem less severe because there's more other "normal" activity going on.
It doesn't really solve the ultimate problem of addiction and poverty, but perception is entirely different because there's so much other activity going on all the time. More normal activity and eyes on the street also tends to push anti-social activity elsewhere (except jerk trucks and loud motorbikes on 17th Avenue of course).
Downtown, East Village both don't have that critical mass of local population to overwhelm the problem. They also have a far higher proportion of weekday "tourists" who don't really love downtown but come here for work 5 days a week. The result is an imbalance and exacerbation of safety, drug and homeless issues, partially based on more activity, but partially based on how the average visitor perceives the problem as a "downtown issue" as opposed to an "issue in my neighbourhood". Leads to different responses and advocacy (e.g. if I visit a place I don't like, I'll just not visit as much, if I live in a place that has an issue I'd advocate for improving it).
Exacerbating the issues of low population combines with terrible urban design - there's a million forgotten places downtown no one cares. Most of the streets are shabby and hostile for humans, every nook in corporately owned big office blocks is another opportunity. Again it doesn't solve the problem, but you don't even have that "push" that forces anti-social stuff into other locations. This feeds right back into the perception that downtown has this issue.
To be clear, it's not just perception - addiction and poverty are real problems especially in the downtown. But it's interesting how subtle differences in population and design change the level of panic over it community by community. For example, my neighbourhood facebook group is in full-blown panic mode because of a single bottle-picker in an alley sighting.
It's a tough issue to deal with. I can't help but wonder if these addictions are even resolvable, with relapse rates for Fentanyl high no matter treatment is used. From what I've read it looks like forced treatment doesn't return better results than what we currently have, but I suppose the addicts would at least be housed and looked after rather than out on the street. If we are at a spot where we can't reasonable treat the addictions, or we have a really low success rate rate, we need to think outside the box on how to stop the flow. Maybe there needs to be harsher punishment for people trafficking and selling the Fentanyl?
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
I guess maybe I got a little too focused on demand, maybe you can do some things on supply but I wouldn't put that much money and effort into trying to stop supply. Supply to me feels a bit whack-a-mole.
The other urban development thing that I think about, with the downtown specific issue @CBBarnett talks about, is that if you're closing Stephen Ave as well as the already closed Olympic Plaza that does mean less people circulating around that part of downtown. Glenbow is also closed for another couple years. Not having people in that area of downtown for years during the day or at night could really make that part of downtown an issue. At least during the day there's active construction but at night I could really see the lack of people in the area, because it is a construction zone, could cause an issue. Especially once those areas do open up, you'll need to convince people to come back into that area. Could be a tough sell.
It does feel like it. There will always be supply, even with harsher penalties, but maybe it would slow down supply enough to at least slow down the rate of new users, and help slow down the amount of new dealers? Right now there's not much of a deterrence to trafficking or supplying fentanyl. Someone got 16 years for tracking recently, but many of the sentences are like 6-10 years, which in Canada translates to about half that.
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outoftheice
Active Member
Sand and umbrellas added to the Eau Claire Plaza beach chairs. I'm actually starting to get excited about seeing this space fully opened. I think we will all be pleasantly surprised...
haltcatchfire
Senior Member
Too bad they didn't consider the sun position when placing those chairs and umbrellas. They run north-south with the head at the south end. Enjoy your feet in shade and the top of your head burned.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
I once got burnt sitting under an umbrella all day because the sun was reflecting off the sand. So no matter what, I'm vulnerable.