Crime and safety in PG's downtown.

My attempt at a nuanced perspective.

There’s a lot of talk about safety downtown right now.

There’s an upcoming Town Hall on Safety being led by Councillor Sampson, a recently-formed public committee comprised of Councillors Klassen, Skakun, and Polillo to analyze some of the repeat crime offenders and how it affects the downtown crime rates.

CKPG released a segment about the recent fires downtown that suggests a relationship to the drug crisis. A Citizen article covers one of the businesses who first-hand experienced a fire and even offers some empathy toward the unhoused folks who live downtown. The Citizen’s publisher is writing about repeat offenders and the amount of the city budget going toward policing. CBC put out a piece about an ongoing lawsuit over who owns the responsibility of The Achilleon explosion last year. That’s just the last week.

Like I said - there’s a lot.

Why write about this?

As someone who writes pretty frequently about downtown (usually moreso poking at the urban planning failures or asking questions about the myriad of capital P plans we’re managing), I’ve seen a few Reddit comments suggest that I’m ignoring the real problem that is happening downtown - the unhoused people, the crime, the drugs, and the safety.

My inclination has been to largely disengage with those comments - at most, linking back to my October newsletter about the difference between “downtown problems” and societal failures but, lately, I guess I’ve been thinking there’s a bit more to examine here.

You could look at this newsletter, screaming from the rooftops for the damn sidewalks to be made 36 inches wider to help walkability, and then go downtown and see people struggling in the deepest depths of addiction and mental health crisis, people lighting fires and vandalizing property, and conclude I’m maybe yelling from the wrong rooftop.

---

Some thoughts on downtown, right now.

I spent a good portion of last weekend downtown.

A couple meals out with friends, attending the Rube & Rake show at The Art Space on Saturday, a couple Sunday errands - I guess I’m reasonably qualified to provide an “average citizen” report on how safe downtown “feels” right now.

And that report is a tough one.

We had a string of encounters across our time downtown that, very broadly, felt somewhere on the border of uncomfortable and unsafe. These encounters involved individuals who were clearly deep in crisis. We did our best to ensure everyone was safe but I also felt pretty unqualified to deal with the level of crisis at hand so a lot of our tasks were to make sure the people were being helped by someone appropriately qualified - and, to be honest, that also felt a bit unclear.

I guess I would also say this: we had a really nice weekend.

We supported our local restaurants, we supported our local arts scene, we spent our time and our money downtown and inside of doing so, we were left to interface with the really sad ways in which society has failed many vulnerable people around us.

I’d even argue that interfacing with these people is important. It’s easy to talk about things in the abstract but when they’re in front of you, you have no choice to grapple with the challenges and, hopefully, advocate for the solutions. Maybe it spurs you to make some donations or pay closer attention to your elected official’s comments - hopefully it spurs you in the right direction.

But still, there’s a bit of room for nuance here.

The role of the media and the public narrative.

What about some of those stories up top?

Downtown businesses are being sincerely affected by this and even if the business community’s anger and frustration is sometimes directed wrongfully at the people experiencing homelessness and not the systems that CAUSED all this homelessness, the result is still a perceived threat to their hard work and their economic stability.

The current media ecosystem isn’t doing these business owners (or these houseless people living in crisis and addiction) a lot of favours - the BC United and Provincial Conservatives have been running a genuinely impressive boogeyman campaign against things like safe supply, encampments, and downtown crime and advocating for things that are only going to make these people’s lives harder. Often times, they lean on these business owners to talk about their fears to fuel a their own public narrative that the WHOLE THING is broken and only they can “FIX” it!!

A common word you hear across frustrated business owners, citizens, and politicians is that we need to offer these people “treatment.”

Maybe I’m just cynical but I kind of want to ban this word from public discourse. I don’t even know if many of these people could specifically tell me what they mean by that. Is it rehab? Is it forced rehab? Is it trauma counselling? Is it access to a doctor? A doctor who won’t force them into rehab because rehab might kill them? Is it education? Job training? All of it? Some of it? None of it?

My house needs “fixing” from time to time - but I know I’m expected to determine if I need a plumber, an electrician, a carpenter, etc. and then call in the right resource. I sometimes worry our politicians have gotten lazy with their terminology and have this safe word “treatment” that allows them to do 0 homework yet still appear like they care.

I guess what I’m saying here is I get why some people are tripped up on their feelings and their words.

---

So what’s the conclusion?

This topic can be deeply uncomfortable. There’s a reason I wrote the first draft of this on Monday morning and edited it all week until late Friday morning to publish it.

I think learning to talk about uncomfortable topics is where we need to start because the opposite - where the only people speaking about it are the ones who are saying hurtful, damaging things - is the worst possible outcome here.

I think we’re allowed to be frustrated about the situation that is unfolding downtown and we’re allowed to portion that frustration between the unhoused people who may be suffering from trauma and addiction, and the business owners who are left to manage the fall out of their suffering.

My overarching hope is that our actions (and our calls for actions) are motivated by breaking systems that created these problems, not breaking the people who are a result of them. My hope is that the people who care more for commerce than people are not the only ones talking about this issue.

When I set out to write this newsletter, I remember thinking I wanted it to be a place of exploration. I wanted to try to say something of substance about this city (and region), not just stay in the safe lane of easy talking points. And I say this, not because I see myself as some white knight brave soldier looking for a medal of honour, but I think kind of the opposite - I’m really trying to figure a lot of this stuff out and, in doing it publicly, I hope providing a bit of space for others to do so as well.

---

A bit of a different recommendation this week but one that feels relevant.

In my day job, I’ve recently started doing some work with Foundry PG.

If you don’t know anything about them:

https://foundrybc.ca/who-we-are/

They’re an arm of the YMCA that focuses on helping youth in our community between the age of 12-24 with integrated services - both social and medical supports.

There’s many different organizations helping the people who live downtown so please feel free to support any of them but you can also join me in making a donation to our local Foundry here.

I’ve got some great topics planned for the upcoming weeks including a public takedown of that other newsletter writing rascal

Andrew Kurjata

so stay tuned for newsletter drama.

Alright! Take care. Have a great weekend.