The High Cost of Homelessness

Opinion
Barry Artiste, Now Public Contributor
Granted there are some who truly deserve to be housed, such as young families and retirees working minimum wage jobs, but in my experience in dealing with many (Drug addicted, Lazy, and Drug dealers) why should taxpayers shell out cash to those who do not deserve our pity?
Society did not put a needle in their arm, they did, it is not like they did not know the warnings of drugs, as society has spent untold billions worldwide warning them. Drug Dealers on the other hand seem to get caught and convicted time and time again, only getting a slap on the wrist and are released over and over again by a lienient Justice system we pay for !  We would have less homeless if the courts imposed a Zero Tolerance on Drug Dealers, life imprisonment, and a National  Selective Service for those who enjoy living off us, yet are able bodied, The Selective Service would teach the unemployed a skill and put them to work on government work programs, forest clearing, tree planting, road work and berry picking, we are currently bringing in people from other countries because Governments state we have a shortage of Labourers, certainly not from what I have seen.  Do you notice how many homeless seem to have a plentiful supply of cigarettes on hand, but no money for food or shelter, but money for tattoos and piercings?
They look young, fit and able to do work, an lets face it, there are more youth out there in DTES than anywhere else.  Let em work for a change, there are many programs for those who wish to work. Immigrants fresh off the boat find work, why not Canadians?
In ending, I have had to enter more homeless shelters and crack dens that I care to remember , feces, urine,empty food wrappers, grafitti etc. What landlord in his right mind would welcome anyone who does this to his property, a property he is forced to maintain or suffer media backlash all because the homeless trash time and time again and do not appreciate a roof over their heads, knowing the Public purse will care for them. Mark my words, you build more shelters and housing for those who do not deserve it, and they will come.  They will come from all of North America for a Free Ride  in the Land of Left Coast of BC. Very few homeless in this Province are actually from this province, Why? Because word of mouth spreads like wildfire that BC has historically been an easy touch since the Hippie days of the 1960s. 

The Solution !!  Drug Dealers get Life Imprisionment for the lives they continue to destroy.  The 37-55K to house the homeless, well I would take that money put it into work programs, anyone able bodied person who wants a roof over their head will be required to work for it on infrastructure programs, including picking berries, they would get a living wage as well. No one should get a free ride, though our government seems to think Laziness is a disability, where as the able bodied seem to think welfare is a Career aspiration.  Then and only then will homelessness be solved, otherwise this province will become a endless moneypit for the taxpayers trying to build and care for the many homeless who continue to come to British Columbia looking for a Free Ride. 

Speaking of free ride, I was driving along Boundary Road and Hastings, when I came upon yet the same homeless young person with a new sign, this sign stated "Car Out of Gas" please Help, God Bless and Happy Easter.  Previous months I have seen the same person with a different sign such as "Hitchiking to Alberta, lost wallet, hungry and broke, anything will help".  I stopped and told him at the stoplight that Labour Ready was hiring, apparently he didnt like my advice.  I put it this way, if his aversion to work is so ingrained in his head, why help him? The effort he puts into begging for 8 hours a day could have made him a salary at one of the many temp help labour pools.  No matter where I go all over the mainland the people are all the same, only the story on the cardboard signs change. As for me, I say Screw em.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=11fdf74c-9130-41b3-b902-4273591ce59d&k=77775

The high cost of homelessness
Every homeless person costs system $55,000, an amount that could buy supported housing for each of them

Lori Culbert, files from Randy Shore, Vancouver SunPublished: Friday, March 21, 2008

VANCOUVER - We've been counting them and governments have been scrambling to try to help them, but a recent university study has been looking at a new question about homeless people in B.C. - what each one costs taxpayers a year.

The answer is $55,000 per person, or an annual total of $644.3 million in health, corrections and social services spending for all the homeless in B.C.

But the conclusion of the 150-page report - written by five academics at Simon Fraser University, the University of B.C. and the University of Calgary - is that B.C. taxpayers could even save money if that cash was instead spent directly on supported social housing.

Below is a related story on a Visitors view reported in the media which is in stark contrast to what Every Politican in British Columbia calls the " Most Bestest City in the World to Live in" and why all three lefty parties promising change for the homeless did little over the past three decades and will continue to sit on their flabby moist asses collecting your money and generous benefits. Yet for some reason, the historically unclued public still buy their useless rhetoric time and time again, in the belief they as voters have done their part by voting for idiotic promises thus while sipping their $9.00 Lattes, absolve themselves of blame and  thereby wasting their tax money on politicians inflated salaries, when workable solutions are at hand as I previously stated in this story, but will never be implemented, by a unwilling workforce of able bodied  dregs on society. 

 http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=0a19f278-6e27-43dc-a2b2-5d71d2c59272

Approach to social woes a moral failure by all three main B.C. partiesMiro Cernetig,
Vancouver SunPublished: Monday, March 24, 2008

Betty
Anne and Max Hunter crossed Canada by train to celebrate their
honeymoon. They got more than just scenery, though, when their train
trundled into Vancouver.

"You have such a beautiful country,"
Betty Anne said in her warm Texas drawl, sipping a beverage inside the
Terminal City Club. "But we were so surprised when we got into
Vancouver."

"Oh," I said. "Why's that?"

 Welllll . . ." she hesitated, clearly not wanting to be impolite.

I urged her on.

"Well,
when we were coming into Vancouver on the train, there were all these
homeless people living on the side of the train tracks and on the
streets, under plastic tents. It looked like something out of one of
those movies about the Depression. I was surprised, we didn't see
anything like it in your other cities..."

She took a breath.

"Then,"
Betty Anne continued, "when I was coming out of the hotel, this young
woman came up to me and asked me for money. She said that someone had
stolen her horse.

"At first I didn't know what she was talking about. I asked Max, 'Why would she have a horse?' "

Max, sipping a beer, looked up.

"I told her horse is the word for heroin," he said. "The girl was saying someone had stolen her drugs, Betty Anne."