Solutions not just relocation and consolidation

I am strongly in favor of offering services to assist the homeless population that want help and as such we need to find a better solution to the problem than what we currently have. A large portion of the homeless crisis is one of addiction and mental health and the lack of resources as well as the lack of desire of the population to seek help.

I have worked extremely hard to be able to provide for my family and purchase an income property to help us in our retirement. Currently our neighborhood has become a foraging ground for addicts to steal cars, catalytic converters, home burglary etc. We are finding people sleeping in the easement paths and as a result although our property taxes keep going up, the desirability to live in our area goes down.

Having lived in other cities that established camps, where the camps go, the crime and filth goes. If we are going to establish camps there would need to be strict monitoring and services. It would make sense to set these camps up in more commercial areas to reduce the impact on homeowners. Situate them away from schools, provide laundry, bathing, mental health and addiction services. Crime, impact on investment income, foraging through garbage, child safety etc. are of great concern to the people of Vancouver and unless we have resources to support this endeavor, which includes more police, more medical staffing, mental health and drug counseling all this is doing is inviting more trouble and consolidating it into groups. Clean and sober living facilities have requirements for their residents to be involved in some sort of treatment program and be compliant, we should be providing and requiring that otherwise all we're doing is setting everyone up for failure.