rake
New Member
Honestly, I'm always incredibly surprised to see these types of posts. I have lived downtown (not centrally, properly downtown) for 9 years now and I can honestly say I have never felt safer than I currently do. Obviously, there are clearly people who have had a different experience to mine but I can't help but feel there's some strong recency bias occurring with these perceptions. I will say this year has been particularly difficult with COVID and the rebuilding of the Herb Jamieson Centre and there has been a noticeable uptick of visible homelessness, but I would expect it to be fairly temporary.
At the risk of generalizing (a sure sign I'm about to unfairly generalize!), I also tend to find people who really fixate on railing against homelessness and the uncomfortable activity surrounding it seem to mostly oppose meaningful investments/programs to address systemic issues of poverty and tend to default to supporting higher enforcement instead - which has failed pretty spectacularly to actually address any of these complex, challenging social issues.
McKeen has disappointed me on a lot of portfolios, but he's generally been one of the strongest advocates on Council on mental health issues (and to a lesser degree, poverty and homelessness). My greatest critique is that he says a lot of great things without really championing the programs and spending to back it up.
At the risk of generalizing (a sure sign I'm about to unfairly generalize!), I also tend to find people who really fixate on railing against homelessness and the uncomfortable activity surrounding it seem to mostly oppose meaningful investments/programs to address systemic issues of poverty and tend to default to supporting higher enforcement instead - which has failed pretty spectacularly to actually address any of these complex, challenging social issues.
McKeen has disappointed me on a lot of portfolios, but he's generally been one of the strongest advocates on Council on mental health issues (and to a lesser degree, poverty and homelessness). My greatest critique is that he says a lot of great things without really championing the programs and spending to back it up.