Canada's Failed
Social Housing Model? 

Politicians at all levels of government are spending billions of tax dollars on the same failed housing projects that routinely get burnt down or destroyed by flooding, linked to residents using drugs or ignoring smoking rules.

• Vancouver firefighters respond to more than one fire call at day at single-room occupancy (SRO)  homeless housing. 
   

• The public must demand better, compassionate solutions that offer  recovery from repeated overdoses and further brain injury.
   

• First responders are exhausted reviving the same victims multiple times in one day. Despite billions spent, homelessness & overdoses worsened.

Consumption site
opposition growing

• Associate professor political science at the University of Guelph Dave Snow, writes: analysis shows how the federal government, courts, and news reports from mainstream media outlets remain strongly supportive of supervised consumption sites, despite growing concerns about the efficacy of this approach to drug addiction.

Barrie Mayor Declares
State of Emergency

• Barrie, Ont., Mayor Alex Nuttall declared a state of emergency in response to growing homeless encampments, lawlessness and crime.
   

• "Encampments are not acceptable in the City of Barrie. The people who live in tents could turn to resources available," he said.
   

• "If you refuse that help you cannot stay in these encampments. Our city will not allow lawlessness to take over our community."

Premier Eby admits drug decriminalization failure

• Rick Ilich, chair of UDI and CEO of developer Townline,  demanded Premier Eby  reverse harmful addictions policies that have hollowed out downtown cores.
   

• He questioned why social disorder was allowed to prosper while the provincial economy was "smothered regulation... all unfolding prior to Trump ever being our favourite excuse for everything.”

Repeat Offender Arrested In Sexual Assault Of Three-Year-Old

• "A 25-year-old man who police allege forced his way into a home during the night in Welland, Ont., and violently sexually assaulted a toddler inside has been arrested and charged.
   

• Neighbours and friends say they are outraged that the man had been released from jail in March from a previous child sex offence."

First Nations Banish
Member Drug Dealers

• Last month, Saskatchewan’s Buffalo River Dene Nation announced they would begin evicting members from reserve housing for drug activities. 
   

• First Nations across the country are actively banishing drug dealers in an attempt to curb skyrocketing rates of drug overdoses, striking a sharp contrast with government strategies prioritizing harm reduction and lenient treatment for drug trafficking.

Safe Injection Site
Impacts on Toronto

Since the Toronto injection site opened in 2017, former addict "Allen Malloy says disruptive activity by individuals who use drugs has increased in the area around the site.
 

• Derek Finkle, who lives across the street from the centre,  witnessed several drug deals in front of the centre, and has often picked up needles off his street, as drug-related litter began to pile up.
   

• Last July, a shooting across the street from the centre left 44-year-old Karolina Huebner-Makurat dead. The innocent mother of two was not involved in the altercation that led to the shooting, but was hit by a stray bullet.
   

• A proposed class action lawsuit has been launched by area-residents against the centre, over safety concerns.

When a Street Dies,
a City Dies

• Survey by the Business Improvement Association of B.C. on street crime.
   

• Of 350 business owners surveyed, more than two-thirds said disorder has increased in the past year, citing drug and mental-health related activity, more homeless encampments, broken windows and doors, theft and violence.
   

• Nearly one in five business owners said their business may not be financially viable beyond next year if conditions do not improve.
   

• John Clerides said his store experiences vandalism, including broken windows, and shoplifting. He estimates it costs him $10,000 to $15,000 a year.

Violent Assault on Pandora St.

• A Victoria man is recovering after a violent beating late last month near the corner of Pandora Avenue and Vancouver Street.
   

• James Tomaney, 33, was walking toward downtown after getting off a bus around 11 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 28, when he was reportedly approached by two men who stole his cell phone...and beat him badly.

Addicts shouldn't
make drug policy

• Drug addiction severely impairs a person’s judgement, often making him a threat to himself and others. Someone who is constantly high and must rob others to fuel his habit is a self-evident danger to society.
   

• North American drug-reform activists again promoted the importance of treating addicts like public-health experts.
   

• "Throughout the country, public health officials pushed for radical pro-drug experiments, including giving away free heroin-strength opioids without supervision, simply because addicts told researchers that doing so would be helpful. "

Billions Spent on Poverty Industry, No Improvement

• In 2014, Vancouver Sun reporters Lori Culbert and Pete McMartin wrote a series on the various "government social welfare programs — and their cost to taxpayers — in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES).
   

• Over 100 programs existed just for housing. Thirty provided health care, 30 offered family services and a miscellany of another 100 services — including a food bank for pets — brought the total to 260 social welfare agencies operating solely within eight square blocks.
   

• Those 260 programs served just 6,500 clients. And the cost to taxpayers? Over $360 million annually — almost a million dollars a day. It did nothing to eradicate the misery and living conditions of the people who lived there.
   

• Nothing, absolutely nothing, has worked." 

Fires, floods, crime, open drug use, lawlessness hurting
our communities 

A Global News story found:

• In 2016, SRO (Single Room Occpancy) social housing structure fires were around 100 calls per year, jumping to 378 in 2023.
   

• The Vancouver Sun reported: about 3,128 fires were attributed to butane torches and lighters between January 2023 and April 2024, including 356 at SRO buildings.
   

• Fire officers said over 50 per cent of the fires are caused by “smoking materials...related to substance, mental health in a vulnerable community,” (Capt. Matthew) Trudeau of Vancouver Fire Rescue said.
   

• A Vancouver city report says residents in SROs are "67 per cent more likely to experience a structure fire."

Addiction Experts Take

Homelessness, addictions and mental health experts like Simon Fraser University's Dr. Julian Somers have long advocated for proven strategies that avoid warehousing addicts together in hotels or single-room occupancy (SRO) buildings.
 

• Successful clinical intervention and recovery - based approaches, like his global medical peers say, are key. 
   

• The BC (NDP) provincial government ordered him to destroy his decades of research proving their harmful experiments of "safe supply" (publicly-funded addictive drugs)  or "drug decriminalization" don't work. The federal government said in July 2025 it will stop funding "safe supply".

• Media has since revealed former BC Government Provincial Health Officers like Dr. Perry Kendall actually own or benefit from taxpayer-funded contracts to distribute these harmful "safe supply" drugs. Those same drugs are now linked to alleged pharmacy corruption and addicts selling their taxpayer-supplied drugs on the street. Some of these addictive pills are even given to minors.

Toronto West End Injection Site Safety Concerns

• A Toronto west-end community health centre managing a supervised consumption site in Toronto has "fenced off a parkette following reports of violence and open drug use in the outdoor space."

Increased Street Disorder,
say BC Businesses 

• Many BC businesses may not survive next year due to growing street violence, drug and mental health-related activity, homeless encampments, broken windows and doors.  
   

• A Business Improvement Association of British Columbia (BIABC) survey found more than two-thirds (67%) of business owner respondents say street disorder increased last year.
   

• One Kamloops business owner said he loses around $1,000 every day  to shoplifters.

No Answers on Safe Supply

• After years of BC NDP government's experiment with taxpayer-funded harmful drugs being given freely to addicts, public has no answers on efficacy or outcomes.

• Has the policy reduced ­overdose deaths or prevented new opioid addictions?

• Are these drugs being sold on the street to others, like minors (diversion)? 

• The truth is: either the government doesn’t know — or it knows and refuses to release the data. 

Hundreds of floods impacting businesses below social housing

• About 200 floods were recorded over several years in a BC Housing managed hotel for the homeless, impacting the Vancouver club owner below.
   

• Other merchants on the Granville strip say they're facing a rise in open drug use and injections, increased crime and broken windows with minimal response from social housing managers to compensate for lost staff wages and business revenues. 
   

• Other cities like Victoria and Vancouver, Prince George, Nanaimo, Toronto, Winnipeg are suffering from these failed ideologies.

Social Housing Staff Views

• "Government-funded advocates fight evictions of dangerous tenants

• Besides the fires, SROs have unending conflicts and dangers to manage – many created by damaging public policies like safe supply and decriminalization and government-funded tenant advocacy organizations.
   

• Between 2019 and 2023, five DTES (downtown east side) facilities drew 31,000 police calls – which averages out to almost 6,200 calls per hotel – including a weapons-related call every 40 hours, with data obtained by Daily Hive.
   

• Those of us trying to run safe buildings find ourselves constantly defending against state-funded advocates who fight our efforts to evict residents when they pose a serious danger to other tenants."

Naked Man Urinates on Woman

• A 31-year-old woman was walking near West Pender and Beatty Street when she came across a naked man on top of a parked car.
   

• Police say the man started yelling at the victim and ran at her, knocking her to the ground. He then proceeded to urinate on her.
   

• Police say they have arrested a man in his 20s, and he was taken to hospital under the Mental Health Act.

BC NDP Ignores City Request for Drug-Free Housing

• Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog wants "a safe place when you’re trying to remain clean and sober" that's not "surrounded by people in active addiction," or "where drug dealers and others can come and annoy you or take advantage of your vulnerabilities.”