The group Stop the Sweeps led a press conference urging the City of Vancouver, police and park rangers not to evict anyone, and to suspend enforcement of the Park Control Bylaw.
It’s not so much that they refuse shelters and help, it’s that the help comes with strings that, for various reasons, they can’t deal with.
Sometimes it’s not being allowed to bring posessions, or to sleep separate from your spouse, but most of the time it’s drugs. Many shelters won’t let you use, or won’t let you be in the shelter if you’re obviously tweaking, and certainly won’t let you deal. This isn’t really a bad thing: it’s a serious safety issue to have someone out of their mind and/or around open flame and/or getting into fights.
So the homeless who can’t give up their addiction stay on the street, or in tents, or squatting.
The real problem is drugs. The real solution is to make drugs free, legal and only available in treatment facilities. Want to get high? Go to the facility. Want to get high but don’t want to go for treatment for various reasons (mental illness, psychosis and/or “I just wanna have a good time”). Nope, sorry.
Try to skirt the law? Involuntary-but-humane incarceration.
Plus, making drugs free pretty much cuts petty crime off at the knees. It hurts organized crime, too.
It’s not so much that they refuse shelters and help, it’s that the help comes with strings that, for various reasons, they can’t deal with.
Sometimes it’s not being allowed to bring posessions, or to sleep separate from your spouse, but most of the time it’s drugs. Many shelters won’t let you use, or won’t let you be in the shelter if you’re obviously tweaking, and certainly won’t let you deal. This isn’t really a bad thing: it’s a serious safety issue to have someone out of their mind and/or around open flame and/or getting into fights.
So the homeless who can’t give up their addiction stay on the street, or in tents, or squatting.
The real problem is drugs. The real solution is to make drugs free, legal and only available in treatment facilities. Want to get high? Go to the facility. Want to get high but don’t want to go for treatment for various reasons (mental illness, psychosis and/or “I just wanna have a good time”). Nope, sorry.
Try to skirt the law? Involuntary-but-humane incarceration.
Plus, making drugs free pretty much cuts petty crime off at the knees. It hurts organized crime, too.