this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
103 points (100.0% liked)
Canada
7215 readers
431 users here now
What's going on Canada?
Communities
🍁 Meta
🗺️ Provinces / Territories
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Northwest Territories
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Prince Edward Island
- Quebec
- Saskatchewan
- Yukon
🏙️ Cities / Local Communities
- Calgary (AB)
- Edmonton (AB)
- Greater Sudbury (ON)
- Halifax (NS)
- Hamilton (ON)
- Kootenays (BC)
- London (ON)
- Mississauga (ON)
- Montreal (QC)
- Nanaimo (BC)
- Oceanside (BC)
- Ottawa (ON)
- Port Alberni (BC)
- Regina (SK)
- Saskatoon (SK)
- Thunder Bay (ON)
- Toronto (ON)
- Vancouver (BC)
- Vancouver Island (BC)
- Victoria (BC)
- Waterloo (ON)
- Winnipeg (MB)
🏒 Sports
Hockey
- List of All Teams: Post on /c/hockey
- General Community: /c/Hockey
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Montréal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Football (NFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Football (CFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Baseball
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- Toronto Blue Jays
Basketball
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- Toronto Raptors
Soccer
- List of All Teams:
unknown
- General Community: /c/CanadaSoccer
- Toronto FC
💻 Universities
💵 Finance / Shopping
- Personal Finance Canada
- BAPCSalesCanada
- Canadian Investor
- Buy Canadian
- Quebec Finance
- Churning Canada
🗣️ Politics
- Canada Politics
- General:
- By Province:
🍁 Social and Culture
Rules
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Some one in BC interviewed about safe injection sites said it is not a help, it just lengthens the slow path to suicide. Oof.
That's because they're only one part of a whole solution. The issue was never the drugs themselves. The reasons people get addicted to drugs are largely systemic in nature. Systemic solutions for systemic problems.
I should lay out that I believe in housing as a basic human right and think that everyone is entitled to a safe and warm place to sleep. But even when arguing from a practical standpoint it's next to impossible to find a job that will hire a person with no address and possibly no government ID (need an address to get documents!). For people to even have the chance to turn their lives around they NEED a personal living space to store their belongings. Doesn't even need to be any more complex than a hotel room.
I understand the frustrations with safe consumption sites, but they are realistically solvable, and the only reason we haven't solved them is because all these politicians are too myopic to realize the long-term benefits of actually helping our communities. They do provide a real service with the guarantee of medical staff on hand and 100% pure doses that won't instantly kill you. The problem is that without all the other things in place they look very silly.
There are ways around that part, if we cared enough to implement them. There's a street in—I think it was Italy?—that actually has no physical existence. Addresses on that street are used to give people with no permanent housing something to write on forms that ask for an address, so they can collect mail, including legal documents and government support checks, or apply for jobs. That doesn't solve the problem of living space directly, of course, but it might be enough to provide a starting point for some people. Or it would if we had enough reasonably-priced housing.
Calgary has another system - the homeless shelter downtown has some short-term residences where you can have an address and phone number for job hunting. (And a warm place to sleep.)