jeremycaradonnayyj.bsky.social
Victoria City Councillor and CRD Director in Victoria, B.C. PhD in History. Loves gardening, cello, beekeeping, democracy, climate action, cycling, and family. Views my own.
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Yeah, hit me up if you do. We always have a tent set up by our house.
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LOL
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Good point
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I’ll wait to read the article before drawing any conclusions. 🌈
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This sounds exciting. Will the Province start funding the things they’re supposed to fund and stop downloading things to us? Is that the theme that’s changing?
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The name of this riot is spot on.
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No, a somewhat closer one
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Somehow Fernwood got away Scott free
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Land grants for the new art gallery is one of the amenities.
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I don’t know. It’s years off from knowing what the rates may be. There will be market rental and stratified and live-work space. Because of the many other amenities provided by this development, it wasn’t required to offer as much affordable housing as we see elsewhere.
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Yes. The live-work spaces are intended to be affordable to artists. The other housing probably is not.
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It’s a unmissable event. There’s not much actual cycling. They putz along and dance at various locations.
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I’ll bike rave on your behalf.
The organizers plan on doing them pretty regularly FYI
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A good placement system absolutely takes people’s individual needs and wants into consideration. Nobody wants to live permanently in shelters, let alone the street.
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Yup. It’s a totally doable reform. But the incompetency runs deep.
I hate to say that, because I do think BCH does a good job at RGI and higher levels of housing, but they are not tooled to deal with encampments, dual diagnosis health issues, flow-through, etc etc.
An expert commission is needed
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I won’t forget. My experience is that the hardest cases are most visible and get the most attention — e.g. the Globe articles.
We’ve now gotten 41 people housed out of the parks. Their VATs are mid-level & allow them to function in housing.
We’ve had much less luck on Pandora, with much harder pop
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Depends on the individual. The range of options include: in-patient treatment, complex care, supportive housing, affordable housing (non-supported “shelter rate” or “deep subsidy” homes), or market housing with rent supplements.
Figuring out who goes where, and backup plans, is the challenge.
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I’m not an expert on these things, and they’re super complex.
What I hear from the providers is that they want reforms, competency from BCH or a new organization, and some type of case worker or housing ambassador who works with individuals, serves as a guarantor, and helps folks build community.
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Thank you, I have read it and learned a lot.
My forays into this world have focused on the reliable providers. I won’t name names, but they’re familiar to us both. People we both know and respect. They all day the same thing, which is that they are risk-averse based on past experiences.
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I’m in complete agreement with you. In some Victoria shelters, folks are living for 3+ years.
In both shelters and supportive housing there is a lack of movement upwards in the housing continuum.
This is a major systemic problem beyond my capacity to solve.
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I’m shocked that BCH hasn’t been completely re-orgged. Either that needs to happen, or the Ministry of Housing and Ministry of Health need to take over coordination.
BCH is not set up to do this work, let alone cities such as Victoria.
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I think we’re saying versions of the same thing. People get stuck and don’t move up.
But housing providers are adamant that many people need to get stabilized before moving up to independent living arrangements.
Tiny town has now had two cohorts who went from street to shelter to TT to permanent
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My current advocacy focus:
1. Need BCH to create “flow-through” housing & shepherd individuals up the continuum.
2. Focus on the folks in shelters.
3. Province needs to fund 2 more low-barrier facilities for the hard cases
4. Victoria should not be the priority location for new facilities
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…some guarantor, such as BCH or a case worker, shepherd a person through the continuum, and if a living arrangement doesn’t work out, then there’s a backup plan for that person. For instance, back to supportive housing.
With this guarantee, the non-market housing providers would take on more risk.
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It’s too complex to explain here, but basically non-profits that run shelter rate housing are risk-averse. They’ve been burned before with difficult tenants. They’d prefer, say, a low-income senior to a person coming straight from shelter or street.
De-risking this situation would require that…
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I haven’t been able to figure this one out, especially because buildings approved afterwards have advanced more than Russell.
BCH has become a black box and they are way under staffed and lack capacity. John M, one of the competent ones, just left for the new Burnaby housing corp, for instance.
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For some, supportive housing could be permanent. For others, it should be a stepping stone to affordable or market.
I’ve been working with non-market housing providers to understand this systemic issue. Boils down to fear of taking on risk + lack of mandate from BCH to help folks advance.
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Yep. Exactly. A major issue in Victoria is that folks get stuck in shelters for years. There’s very little flow-through, with tiny town a rare exception.
Frankly, supportive housing wasn’t ever supposed to be the permanent housing it’s become. Few folks are moving up in the housing continuum.