The situation with homelessness and addiction in Canada
Posted by AnaDrkch@reddit | expats | View on Reddit | 78 comments
Hi everyone
We recently moved from Europe to Canada (first to Vancouver and now to Montreal) and the situation with homeless and addicted people on the street is shocking. When I got out of the metro station I saw 2 guys with needles and the police were talking to them. 5 min later police just let them go.
So when does it become normal and is the government trying to solve this situation? I started considering moving back to Europe because it feels that all ratings on Numbeo and so on are just fake and the reality of what we facing is completely different.
cleopathea@reddit
Yeah, they’re not really doing much to combat it, especially in BC. Legalizing drugs is what they’re pushing for. I’m from the US, and I had the exact same experience in Calgary. It was absolutely insane. Every time I walked to the bus, I’d see at least 10 people strung out, talking to themselves, stumbling around. More than once I was on the C-Train and someone just lit up a crack pipe and started smoking it. It’s bananas.
Actual_Night_2023@reddit
Have you not been to New York or California???
xvszero@reddit
What do the police do in the case you described in your home country?
AnaDrkch@reddit (OP)
They would take these people to shelters where specialists would work with their addiction
xvszero@reddit
What if they don't want to go?
AnaDrkch@reddit (OP)
So soon we should all stay at home because not dangerous to be outside? It’s already unsafe. I don’t think is normal life when the only choice is to stay in the car or at home. What about kids who see this?
Hot-Tea8411@reddit
Maybe that's your only choice because you have an irrational fear of the homeless or lived a sheltered life. I've been in most large Canadian cities and 95% of the time the homeless or addicted don't bother anyone. None felt particularly unsafe. Most of the other 5% can be handled with a little tact and decency. As for the ones who cannot - well every social group has its arseholes.
You know, the irony is expats like you drive up the rent and asset prices in these cities. Increasing the affordability crisis, and as an indirect consequence, diseases of despair - since local people can't get on in life and have no options left.
You're thinking these people are the problem to be solved - when in reality if you had an ounce of self-awareness you'd realize that you yourself are helping to drive the problem. Then you walk around complaining about having to live near the poors you're pushing out through gentrification, and how you don't feel safe in a neighborhood you chose to move too because the internet said it's cool.
Fit_Apartment264@reddit
you should see it in the small towns. Areas ruined by these people.
AnaDrkch@reddit (OP)
You same immigrant like me. Canada is young country of immigrants. And problem with addicted and so on getting worse because some people prefer not to react to problem. Like « if it not in my home I don’t care » but your home not only 4 walls in apartment. And if everyone would be aware of situation and try to change something, push government to do some action, maybe it’s would be not so bad.
VoyagerVII@reddit
Why do you assume that it is dangerous just because there exist homeless people there? Even if some of them are addicts (and not all of them are), mostly they're no danger to anyone except themselves.
AnaDrkch@reddit (OP)
I think there a lot of danger because people under drugs can act unpredictable and agressive. And most homeless what I see here using drugs at the street.
VoyagerVII@reddit
People who aren't homeless use drugs too. You'll never know which people you pass on the street may be on drugs, and you'll never know which of those who are on drugs will behave aggressively. Most people on most street drugs are not aggressive; they're just foggy-minded and drowsy, because most street drugs are in the opiate category. It's really only the methamphetamine group that tends to cause aggression. And the number of perfectly respectable-looking, suited individuals who use meth is pretty high.
In short, your biases against the homeless are deluding you about how much danger you're in, both in your current city and in others with fewer of them. Yes, there's a correlation, but it's a modest one, and you're treating it as if it were decisive.
dude707LoL@reddit
Have you lived near a homeless shelter before with said homeless and addicts roaming nearby at all hours?
If you haven't, I don't think you can be on this moral high horse and judge other for not feeling good about it.
shaunibauni@reddit
Weird thought that all homeless people are dangerous. They don’t have a house/place to live.
digitalnomad23@reddit
go gaslight elsewhere
everybody in austin knows if your bike gets stolen, go look for it in the homeless camps, they commit a shitton of crime and cause a ton of problems, it's the same in every city
AnaDrkch@reddit (OP)
I clarified in my post about addicted people. When someone on drugs it can be unpredictable. But unfortunately a lot of homeless people it ones with addiction and become addicted with easy access to drugs
xvszero@reddit
I don't stay at home. I'm from Chicago, nothing in Canada scares me lol.
Yabadabadoo333@reddit
Where in Europe? I’ve been to lots of places in Europe that were about the same.
Vancouver absolutely has a homeless crisis which fentanyl has made much worse. It’s the worst in Canada for sure.
Montreal is pretty rough around the edges but always has been.
Triseult@reddit
Montreal always had some homelessness, but nothing on the scale it has now. Vancouver was the canary in the coal mine in regards to addiction and homelessness, and the canary's long gone.
digitalnomad23@reddit
we used to have like 8 homeless people who just stood there with signs, that was pretty much all they did + some crust punks with funny signs. now there's 8 on one corner, and many of them are having psychotic episodes, look and act violent, there's an air of menace around, and both atwater is just super sketch now, complex desjardins of full of homeless also, who wants to shop in the middle of feeling like you're going to get mugged or passing by reeeking smelling people and all their shit? it's gross af
AnaDrkch@reddit (OP)
Last 2 years I lived between Paris and Grenoble. Grenoble rated 10th most dangerous cities in Europe. And I never saw something even close to what is going on in Canada
Able-Exam6453@reddit
Grenoble is extremely dangerous? Good god I’m amazed
Neat-Composer4619@reddit
I was going to ask the same questions. So many people living in tents around the highways in Paris. I just went to Portugal and there were lots of people 'living'' in sleeping bags at the Lisbon train station. People sleeping on the ceramic benches around the police station. It can't be comfortable. Hard and cold for sure.
AnaDrkch@reddit (OP)
It just feels unsafe and each day when I go downtown I see some kind of situation
xvszero@reddit
Yeah it's pretty bad, I'm in Toronto and it's an issue. I'm just not sure that police can do much to help. You can't force people to get better and criminalizing everything doesn't really work.
As far as safety I guess that depends. I'm a 6'4 male so strung out people don't tend to mess with me nor am I afraid when they do, but I can see how it would be much different for other people.
Appliance7717@reddit
"criminalizing everything doesn't really work"
Are you sure about that? Then why is Singapore such a success?
xvszero@reddit
A success at what?
kettal@reddit
canada has stronger personal legal rights than france . case law.
notthegoatseguy@reddit
Do you plan on trying to be a busybody and get into this drug addict's face, make fun of them, snap pictures, or try to steal their drugs?
Because if you're not, nothing is going to happen to you. They exist and so do you.
G-ACO-Doge-MC@reddit
Europe doesn’t have an fentanyl/ tranq crisis. The homelessness here is on a much lower level
MtlBug@reddit
It got SO much worse in Montreal in the last few years, but especially after COVID it became a lot more evident. I can't say the government is doing anything specific about it, truth is the healthcare system is veey much broken already, and regular care such as emergencies and family doctors are hard to access by the population in general (in Montreal, at least), so I imagine there are not going to have many resources for addicts to recover that soon. They're pushing more in the sense of building some "safe" injection centers and discussing the expansion of medical aid to dying for people with mental health issues. For me ate least, it all sounds like a dystopia.
digitalnomad23@reddit
i'm from here, and have just come back for a visit and i'm shocked at how shitty and dangerous st laurent and atwater area have become. i felt super unsafe around atwater...that used to be a decent mall to go to, full of students, now i talked to a staff at canadian tire and she said it's all crackheads now, that's definitely how it felt. i took an uber back and felt unsafe even waiting for that.
stuff like "safe" injection centers will just make it worse -- it will just kill whatever neighborhood you put them in as al lthe homeless disfunction will follow wherever those centers are. there's very good reason no one wants a homeless shelter in their neighborhood.
MtlBug@reddit
Yes, it's really sad. About the safe injection centers, I understand that they're trying to reduce the risk of OD and provide some sort of medical care, but if you can't get longer help for the addicts that might want to get rid of the addiction... What's the point really.
Also in a very shitty move, they're opening one just 50m from a middle school near the Atwater market. People around the area are very upset by this.
digitalnomad23@reddit
this sounds harsh but i personally think it's better to let people who are trying to kill themselves via habitual hard drug use overdose than it is to destroy an entire neighborhood and community via these "safe injection" centers.
it's good to have compassion for people in these difficult and extremely disfunctional situations but it should not come before the lives, health and communities of normal people
you can see the end game of this type of mentally ill thinking in the usa, where entire every single public space has been sacrificed to put interests of mentally ill violent crackheads over that of normal people who work, live and visit downtown (and who also pay to keep the crackheads alive) it's insane
Stuffthatpig@reddit
Harsh but fair. I agree with the assessment. Why are we prioritizing the needs of a tiny population over everybody else? Why is wrecking neighborhoods where everyone lives desirable? I have little sympathy for addicts and unfortunately have no solutions.
digitalnomad23@reddit
exactly this, why do we allow the city to prioritize a tiny group of extremely destructive people over the needs of normal people, particularly while these addicts are only kept alive through the welfare and social services *that the productive people pay for*. I used to live in the condos around atwater, it was a beautiful neighborhood then, with westmount on one side and those beautiful century homes south of it on the other. now it's scary to go there in broad daylight. st laurent has always been "edgy" but never dangerous, all these beautiful neighborhoods ruined and for what? so crackheads don't feel harassed while they shit and piss everywhere?
BimboObsessed@reddit
They should make every welfare recipients undergo random drug tests. Enough is enough.
xinit@reddit
I know someone who works with safe injection in Vancouver. He gets a chance to talk to the people who come in, gets to know them, and convinces some to enter longer term care when they're ready. Sometimes finding spots is hard, even for the professionals. Entering on your own when you're addicted is hard, and jail definitely isn't going to help.
BimboObsessed@reddit
Not jail. But people who commit crimes and are a danger to themselves and others go to jail. People who are criminally insane that pose a risk to themselves and others go to mental institutions. So why not make people who are abusing substance that can hurt them go to rehab?
BimboObsessed@reddit
It is because our dear government decided to decriminalize drugs. add to that the fact that suppliers are lacing everything with fentanyl and now a new drug called tranq which makes people bend over and walk in circles. The conservative government promises to criminalize drugs and find rehabs.
RumiField@reddit
The federal government is aware of the housing problem and has earmarked 6 billion dollars toward building thousands (millions ideally) of new units. So housing is coming, it's just working through the cogs right now at CMHC and other banks (I work in real estate). Plus in 2024, I'm thinking a lot more houses will go on the market. Our real estate industry is pretty messed up in general all over the country due to an overly lax relationship with Chinese investors, but in terms of immediate "surface" fixes, yes housing is coming. The number of immigrants Canada let in these past two years has been double the yearly average prior to this and we were not prepared infrastructure-wise.
But welcome.
_X_marks_the_spot_@reddit
Exactly how much housing is coming, when is it coming, and will it be enough to house the more than 1 million newcomers we have coming into the country every year?
Anonymo123@reddit
Been to both Vanc and Montreal countless times, out of curiosity did you not do a visit before you moved?
I can't rely on any internet data anymore, I have to visit some place to be sure. I am planning to move myself and I have to visit each location a few times to be sure I want to make that commitment.
homeless is bad in nearly every major city, and its not getting better.
dude707LoL@reddit
Welcome to Montreal. A small population of the internet likes to praise Montreal. I got curious and moved there for about a year. I hated it. I couldn't wait to get out.
The whole Montreal smelled of urine to me when I used to do my daily long walk from plateau to either jean talon or CBD directions. It's either smelly or just straight up covered in litters.
During winter all the addicts move into the metro, it was a daily thing for me to see people smoking a crack pipe inside major stations and on the train. Pretty much everywhere you walk in the city, you will see lots of homelessness, addicts. Even the normal young people are constantly high and drink a lot and pee everywhere. I used to smoke weed daily, but when I moved to Montreal, being surrounded by so much degenerates just turned me off drugs and alcohol for good.
digitalnomad23@reddit
montreal was always the slightly shitty "edgy" city with a lot of charm in canada, but as a local coming back for a visit after a long time away, many neighborhoods have gone firmly into the sketchy af territory, i've never felt unsafe anywhere before in montreal, even when i was a 20 year old woman at 2am and i felt unsafe now in several areas. the sheer amount of violent and mentally ill aggressive homeless is so much. before we had some homeless but they'd just sit somewhat harmlessly with a sign, some where funny, they were unsightly maybe but didn't make you feel unsafe. now there's so many of them and many seem like they could attack you, or they're just outright having psychotic episodes on the street.
oldehappycat@reddit
This is sad news to someone who had many happy times in Montreal. Sometimes I fantasize about returning to Montreal, so this is sobering.
digitalnomad23@reddit
yes i feel the same
so many years of my life and memories here, i don't like to see this happen to the city that to me, is the shining jewel in north america
ElGordoKuka@reddit
Canada is worse than most developing nations in regards to the open drug use. The whole country is terribly overpriced for what it offers
Averygreyyy@reddit
I moved from downtown Toronto to Montreal so I was used to homelessness being rampant in my neighbourhood. There used to be a ‘tent city’ directly behind my old apartment and I would interact and see homeless people daily, however most would just sit on the ground and not bother you unless asking for some change.
My first week moving to Montreal I witnessed 3 different homeless people assault random civilians on the street.
A homeless man screamed and then spat in a man’s face who was just sitting on the train with his friends and minding his own business (this was around 9pm).
One of them grabbed my backpack and tried to rip it off of me while I was leaving the train. It was a packed rush hour train and nobody did anything.
A homeless woman screamed bloody murder at me for looking at her while I was crossing the street and began chasing me.
Montreal has some of the highest taxes in Canada but they do not use that money to give these people a place to go that isn’t the metro! I often see police in the station however they are just standing in a group while there are addicts shooting up on the train. It is a very sad situation and I feel so unsafe travelling within the city. This is just the new ‘normal’ for big Canadian cities. I can’t wait to leave.
pussyseal@reddit
Yeah, I was scared when a naked woman sat on the crosswalk and paralysed the traffic in the downtown of 0.5 mln city. The police couldn't move her agaisnt her will. Also, I saw a man on a bus, he did an injection without hesitation.
Locals are used to it. A car in Canada is crucial not only for convenience but for personal security, as you can isolate yourself from incidents like that.
digitalnomad23@reddit
no locals aren't used to it, this is a recent development. i grew up here and it was never like this. montreal used to be a city where you could walk safely at all hours on the main streets even as a young 20 year old woman. i've been away since 2019 and have just come back and it's shocking -- it has started to feel like american cities that are totally ruined by being lax with the homeless
pussyseal@reddit
Oh, I meant locals tend to ignore this, as they were less surprised during this sort of performance I described above.
digitalnomad23@reddit
they are habituated to the abuse, i suppose, but they shouldn't be. this is unacceptable
so they can lock grandma up during covid for the crime of going over for christmas dinner but do nothing about some unhinged lunatic naked in the middle of the road? put her in jail, end of story bye
386DX-40@reddit
There are two competing approaches to what can be broadly grouped as "the fall of man". Let's use this umbrella term to encompass all the ways we go down like drugs, alcohol, insanity. There are schools of thought on how to deal with this inevitable consequence of life, one is "harm reduction" the other we can call "if he dies, he dies".
With harm reduction, we accept that many people at one time or another may fall and we need to do our best, to give them a soft landing. The opponents of this approach believe that by providing a soft landing, we give the notion of being a homeless crackhead some semblance of normality and thus blunt the essential stigma and horror. The "if he dies, he dies" camp believes that the best way to fight homelessness and drug use is to equate it with certain sickness, ostracism and eventual death, the sort of "not even once" campaign.
The latter approach is certainly less humane, but more beneficial for the vast majority of people. You can see it in action in cities like Moscow.
Appliance7717@reddit
What's Moscow like?
AppropriateStick518@reddit
LOL!!! Just figured out Numbeo is complete BS?
Appliance7717@reddit
But there are apes especially in this forum who quote it like its gospel written by the Messiah...
rollingstone1@reddit
This seems to be a common issue in developed countries where the wealth gap is growing.
Zealousideal_Rub6758@reddit
Yeah definitely. It’s not rocket science - income inequality heavily correlates with crime and drugs
Own_Egg7122@reddit
My sister and her family had to leave Montreal to Ontario for the same reason. She could not feel safe raising a child there.
mandance17@reddit
Well in Vancouver you basically had the Canadian government selling off the city to rich Chinese people and there is no recovering from that horrible plan. Now no one can buy a home there for less than a million and that’s basically a crappy small house.
FrauAmarylis@reddit
I lived in Germany,and there were a lot of homeless. They slept in sleeping bags outside the Staatsgalerie. There was a Salvation Army truck that would feed them warm meals.
Todoslosplanetas@reddit
I haven't been to Stuttgart in quite some time, but I was in München and Frankfurt the winter of 2023 and saw very few homeless people in both cities (compared to what you see in North American cities of similar size). There's a place (Franziskustreff) near the Main, in Frankfurt, that feeds people in need. It was actually surprising not to see a lot more homeless in the vicinity.
Hour-Preference4387@reddit
Lived in US and DE. Germany has some sketch places (Bahnhofsviertel in Frankfurt M., Görli in Berlin, Steindamm in Hamburg) but it's no where near as bad as any major US city. I would choose Bahnhofsviertel at 2am over Lexington Market in Baltimore at 2pm any day.
Tardislass@reddit
I saw some in Berlin laying on the benches by the grocery stores. They also would shoot up. Not much you can do if they aren't bothering people.
LiveDiscipline4945@reddit
I can’t comment on homelessness but you bring up an important point - cost of living stats may be accurate at the population level but they say very little at the individual level. Especially food consumption is very individual. Meanwhile crime statistics are worthless - depending on the country, the police may have a political agenda to under or overreport certain crimes.
m0nsieurp@reddit
Partir de France pour s'installer au Canada. Sélection naturelle.
xinit@reddit
Is it solved by throwing them in prison?
Glass_Confusion448@reddit
There is nothing anyone can do to help addicts who aren't ready for and willing to enter treatment (without changing the law to force custodial care), but there are programs trying different approaches to homelessness:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/10/cash-payments-homeless-canada/
digitalnomad23@reddit
throw them in jail
digitalnomad23@reddit
so i'm from montreal, moved away for a long time and just came back the past few days for a visit, and i'm going to tell you i'm shocked too. the number of sketchy violent homeless that make you feel unsafe is off the charts now, and montreal was never a city that was like this, there were never hoods downtown that made you feel unsafe. atwater is a total shithole now, i was talking on my cell with friend while i was walking and as i got closer to atwater i literally said to my friend, let me call you back i feel unsafe to have my iphone out, it's that sketch. today i was at place desjardins and just the amount of reeking smelly homeless in the mall, who wants to go there anymore? it's disgusting and gross.
the ratings on numbeo or whatever are surely based on how things used to be. even in 2019 (last time i was here) none of this sketchiness was present at all, and i've lived here for decades prior to this.
therealkingpin619@reddit
Yet there is a push to allow legalizing illicit drugs.
Situation is dire. They can't force anyone to do anything.
People facing all sorts of issues (affordability of housing, doctors, proper pay) but Canada just wants to slap a band aid by discussing legalization.
Avg leadership running the nation in an average way.
On the brighter side, there are other cities too which are smaller and more affordable in Canada. Only issue is finding a job.
_X_marks_the_spot_@reddit
If only
Todoslosplanetas@reddit
Such minor detail.
_X_marks_the_spot_@reddit
We keep trying to warn people not to move here...
psomifilo@reddit
Canada is in pure decay. I have lived in suburban contexts in BC and Alberta, and the situation is not that dissimilar. Can't wait to come back to Europe.
Todoslosplanetas@reddit
Actually, by the looks of it, it'd seem that the more the government "helps" the worse the situation gets. And that applies to all the countries using the same strategy as Canada's.
Rustykilo@reddit
If you like Vancouver style city you should check out orange county, California. It's the same vibe but warmer and way less homeless people. Just don't go to LA lol they have the same problem. But orange county, ca cities like Irvine, newport beach, Laguna Beach are nice and clean.