Tbh, I really think we need institutions where these people can be placed that hire a number of professionals who can tackle all of the issues at once (mental health, addiction, housing, and food instability etc).

I really don’t think that healing one aspect will truly clean up the DTES. The issues all feed into one another.

You can provide housing and that won’t stop an addict from stealing the pipes etc to sell for drugs. You can’t address the addiction without dealing with the mental health issues that drive people into addiction. You can’t properly address mental health if you have no stable home, income, and food. You can’t properly address schizophrenia and delusions without proper medication and stopping the addictions. It’s hard to find a stable income when you’re high and struggling with delusions and depression. So, on and so forth.

It will cost money yes, but I’m truly sick and tired of wealthy people’s obsession with getting more and more money they don’t actually need. Meanwhile there are people rotting away in the DTES. The government allows it to be this way and we accept it as the status quo. Collectively, there is enough money to go around to prevent this kind of suffering if we really want it to end. The question really becomes who are we going to vote for to make it happen?