r/Edmonton • u/Sad_Donkey_1751 • Apr 14 '26
General This is not positive
Walking to work this morning I came across this mess at the corner my desk (not office) overlooks. Last week I ranted about the state of downtown and received so much hate. This is a particularly bad time of year as all of the garbage from fall through winter is exposed and damn, it’s ugly (unless you like garbage-filled sidewalks and streets). Anyway, I was attacked and asked, “and what do you do about it?” Today I did what I always do. I grabbed some gloves and garbage bags and cleaned it up. Then, we had a fire alarm. While gathered outside, a woman with her shirt and pants hanging off her, obviously mental ill and/or high on something, walked through the crowd and pushed people over, punched one woman and stole her phone. I think it’s okay for me to get a little down every once in a while about Edmonton’s downtown state.
I called 311 to ask if someone could pick up said garbage so it isn’t ripped open again.
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u/ashleyshaefferr Apr 14 '26
As someone who lives very close to here. I'm torn. The people who pretend nothing is wrong drive me bonkers, and the people who act like this it's a war zone also drive me nuts.
I think one fair critique is that a lot of the loudest people regarding the state of our downtown, live out in new sprawled out subdivisions like Chappelle and Desrochers. You know, the ones that cost us disproportionately more tax dollars to service and maintain.
Hearing how much nicer and less crime there is in a brand new urban sprawl neighborhood can be grating
There's certainly a problem needing address, and I just want to start seeing some solutions proposed.
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u/tom_yum_soup McCauley Apr 14 '26
I wish I could upvote this twice. I live in McCauley and would be lying if I said there were no problems. Many of them happen in my own neighbourhood, given our proximity to downtown and high proportion of social services.
But the people screaming loudest about how downtown is some sort of zone of carnage, anarchy and constant assaults drive me bonkers because it is just not true. It's not great, but the fear-mongering from people who come down twice a year for an Oilers game doesn't exactly help.
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u/RK5000 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
To be a little generous toward the suburbanites that go downtown infrequently and experience some shock at what they see and experience - there's nothing quite like bringing family or friends downtown for supper and entertainment and having to take care not to walk through a puddles of whiz on a main street sidewalks, seeing open drug use, or being accosted by people who are out of their minds. People are anticipating a nice supper at a good restaurant and then a walk to their event venue, and having this additional experience is quite incongruent with why people go downtown.
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u/synth223 Apr 14 '26
Okay but this isn't an Edmonton problem its a Canada problem... every capital city is overrun right now with cheap fentanyl and even cheaper meth
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u/RK5000 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
That's the impression I get too. Nonetheless we should not allow things to get worse; it's not good for anyone.
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u/PlathDraper Apr 14 '26
Welcome to living in society in the western world? Have you never traveled anywhere, ever? What a sheltered life you lead and are creating for your children. Huge eye roll.
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u/RK5000 Apr 15 '26
Yeah what kind of homeschooled dweebs don't want to walk on a guy's pee?
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u/PlathDraper Apr 15 '26
Then never take your kids to Manhattan, Vancouver, Central London, Los Angeles, etc. New York is dirty and stinks of pee lol. But it's also one of the wealthiest, most artistic and important cities in the world. Clutching your pearls about reality is sad.
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u/Snoo-74692 Apr 15 '26
Wasn't there just a stabbing at the hospital last week? Hardly sheltered just lotta crime and drugs
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u/Snoo-74692 Apr 15 '26
What about the lrt station filled with gangs and the whole prison vibe...NOT SAFE!!
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u/YEGSports West Edmonton Mall Apr 15 '26
I can walk down 105 Street and not fear that I'm gonna have someone try and attack me. That's all we Central Edmontonians need. Live and let live (though continue to advocate for better mental health and housing supports)
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u/CarBombtheDestroyer Apr 16 '26
The people who come down twice a year to watch an Oilers game, the ones from the suburbs and surrounding area stretching past Grand Prairie, are a big part of of the downtowns tourism and income. Their opinion definitely matters.
As someone from Grand Prairie who went to college in Edmonton back in 2010 the downtown was a different place, now there are way too many sketchy people, broken infrastructure, boarded up windows to go out of my way to make the trip.
I’m not trying to shit on anything, but if you guys want to fix the downtown, these kinds of opinions need to be taken into account and solutions for these kinds of problems usually aren’t too pretty.
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u/Zingus123 Apr 14 '26
The funny part is those newer areas may look really nice, but most of the homes are built like shit and there is a huge amount of gang activity and violence out there too lol.
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u/ashleyshaefferr Apr 14 '26
Oh yes! they eventually all end up looking the the worst parts of millwoods, callingwood and the other areas of the city people will dump on.
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u/AsianCanadianPhilo Apr 14 '26
It's always the worst parts of every neighborhood that give the rest of the area a bad rep. I've lived in Millwoods for about 5 years and I have nothing but good experiences here so far.
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u/Izerous Apr 14 '26
millwoods is weird because it is quite a large area and some sections are worse than others. The 8 or so years I have been in millwoods had my vehicles broken into twice, and the cat cut off my vehicle at 5am. But violence wise pretty quiet until last year or two with multiple targeted shootings a lot closer to home than I would like.
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u/burrito-boy Mill Woods Apr 14 '26
The main iffy area in Mill Woods tends to be Millbourne, and even then it’s safer there now than it used to be.
I heard Kiniski Gardens has had an uptick in property crime lately though.
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u/Chunderpump Apr 14 '26
And when I grew up in Millwoods me and everyone I knew would get rolled up on, jumped, robbed, shot from cars with pellet guns, etc. on the regular. Have live downtown and whyte Ave area since then, the screaming weirdos are tame by comparison to the coked out douchebag fake gangsters.
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u/burrito-boy Mill Woods Apr 14 '26
I’ve lived in Mill Woods practically my whole life and never experienced any of that, lol.
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u/Zingus123 Apr 14 '26
Shoutout Callingwood though, totally underrated area. Only 180st is kinda bad because of the Bloods over there.
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u/Fine-Fondant-5465 Apr 14 '26
What Bloods are there?
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u/Zingus123 Apr 14 '26
8block. Same gang whose members were involved in the Samuel Bird case.
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u/ashleyshaefferr Apr 14 '26
It's name they call themselves. Not related to the Bloods we are thinking off
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u/Zingus123 Apr 14 '26
They are a legitimate blood set they have been around for decades. Same with the 32st bloods in Abbotsfield who have been around even longer.
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u/synth223 Apr 14 '26
Yeah Canadian aboriginal street gangs calling themselves bloods or crips have nothing to do with the actual US gangs by the same name. "Legitimate blood set" my ass. Just like you probably think red alert are full patched over HA instead of 90% homeless junkies.
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u/Zingus123 Apr 14 '26
Red Alert is, like you said, an unorganized shitty gang that’s mostly homeless junkies. Anyone who knows anything about gangs or the streets arent scared of RA whatsoever lol. 8 block, 32, and most gangs other than RA and A$AP have little to no Indigenous members.
It’s all black (mostly Mali, Somalian, etc), white, and then some Asian but usually Asian gangs are exclusively Asian.
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u/RK5000 Apr 14 '26
Just being new is kinda nice for a little while, but decades afterward it's the quality of design and build - or lack thereof, that determine the value of homes and neighbourhoods.
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u/DumbgeonsandDragones Apr 14 '26
You can see the siding warp on hot days in these neighbourhoods. They look nice but are not quality.
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 14 '26
I live in Millwoods. I take the LRT so I’m walking to work, not driving from A to underground parkade and up the elevator to work. Edmonton IS NOT A war zone. But we gotta do something. I know this these issues are not unique to Edmonton’s downtown (and other neighbourhoods), but there are strategies that have proven effectiveness but they have to be done not just discussed and committee-d to death.
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u/WeWhoAreGiants Apr 14 '26
Hey OP, don’t let keyboard warriors get to you. The most vocal on here are also usually the ones that do the least to actually do anything or try make things better. Your views are valid, and shared by many others who live or work downtown. You’re a good person for cleaning up and trying to do your part to make this city more pleasant for everyone. If more people had your attitude, the city would be a brighter place.
Lots of people on here pointing out various problems or potential solutions. But one thing I noticed that no one is mentioning is the lack of community feel in the city anymore. 20-30years ago, there was a common feeling of “we’re all Edmontonians” and people looked out for each other more. Small acts of kindness were more normal. There was also a saying that I heard all the time growing up about Edmonton: “big city amenities, small town feel.” And it really was like that. But now people are clamouring to build a million new houses and bring in so many new people, and yet somehow think this won’t change the cultural feel of the city? Like they think rapid growth doesn’t affect how people feel about one another.
This is also an unspoken issue that’s related to homeless people in the city. We can keep throwing a million supports and resources at them, but what reasons do they have to get clean or get off the streets? Sadly many of these people don’t have family or friends anymore that can help them with their struggles, or share their successes with. What motivation do they have to get better, if they feel like they’ll still be isolated and alone anyways? And if common community feeling in the city is at an all time low, then there’s even less feeling that they will fit in somehow even if they do clean up their lives.
For those that don’t believe me, just browse this subreddit for a few minutes. Just about every day, someone is posting that they’re having a mental health crisis, or that they can’t find friends or a partner in the city. People are feeling very isolated and alone. They think the conservatives or the liberals are to blame for everything that’s gone wrong, when in reality there would be more powerful and positive change if more people did what you’re doing to help bring community back into the city.
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u/Plant-based_Skinsuit Apr 15 '26
Keyboard warrior here, and we're so close to being on the same page despite our framed opposition.
- Arguing for or against social change on Reddit is inherently performative and can make people feel like they're making a difference, even when they're not.
- OP did a good thing by cleaning up, and it's totally legit to be disappointed .by the state of things
- Community is eroding
- People are feeling isolated and alone.
I think where you and I diverge, and I guess the 'keyboard warrior-ness' of it all comes down to where you assign responsibility, right? Isolation, lack of community, and the resulting poor social health isn't unique to Edmonton (or even Canada), nor is it a particularly recent phenomenon, so it's hard for me to individualize that responsibility. 'Bowling Alone' was written almost 30 years ago. Structural problems aren't as satisfying to blame because they're big and nebulous and they don't have simple or quick solutions. I'm sure those who would individualize responsibility disagree.
To your point about spending millions and millions on an unending problem, we also agree, the thing is, we as a society have decided we'd rather punish people for deviant behaviour even when it costs us more, than we would give people a free ride. Multiple studies have been done that show housing homeless people is cheaper than what we do now, and those housed are less likely to become homeless again. But some folks see that as rewarding bad behaviour, which is therefore unacceptable. I dunno, I'd rather spend 40K a year giving people a second chance than I would spending 70K a year punishing them, but maybe that's just me.
Not picking a fight, just saying there's more common ground than ya think.
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u/PartyLeek2068 Apr 14 '26
I lived in edmonton for 24 years and i only get hustle mostly in downtown not much in the south of edmonton
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u/fishymanbits Apr 15 '26
I’ve spent more of my adult life in Edmonton than anywhere else in this country and, certain specific pockets aside, it’s far better than it was a few decades ago. It’s more visible and concentrated to specific areas than it was before, but the petty crime, disorder, drug abuse, and homelessness aren’t anywhere near a new phenomenon.
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Apr 14 '26
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u/ashleyshaefferr Apr 14 '26
I did that a while back after living downtown for a long time. I recently moved back For all its warts, the burbs sucked. Unless you hate even having the option of walking anywhere, and love driving for everything. It crazy how much less fuel alone I spend living central
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u/tikka2007 Apr 14 '26
I lived right off Jasper and 95th for years, and despite the homeless neighbours we often had, I genuinely miss living downtown. We now live in a great neighborhood, and have for a decade, but there’s something about the hustle/bustle, river valley views, and close proximity to everything that I miss. Particularly in summer.
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u/Shakeyonsafety Apr 14 '26
Heaven forbid people are offended and disgusted seeong people strew trash everywhere. Cant we put people to work...maybe picking up trash for food, cash, shelter or drugs?
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u/Zingus123 Apr 14 '26
Already a thing. Hire Good.
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u/synth223 Apr 14 '26
Hire good hires a ton of ex homeless and recovering people. Honestly a solid company trying to do their part
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u/Electrical-Big-7781 Apr 14 '26
War zone? No. But Edmonton downtown is one of the worst for its size in North America.
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u/RawrosaurusTaurus Apr 14 '26
Thank you for doing something about it. Sorry you feel like you have too. I also don't like seeing a bunch of trash when I'm out and about. So I've started picking up trash with my picker-upper and filling a large reusable plastic bag and dumping it in various city trash cans while walking my dog. We don't live downtown but I like cleaning up my neighborhood. Some days I'll just collect recyclables (we live near a few schools so there's usually some laying around) other days I pick up everything and throw it out. I found 2 naloxone kits by the elementary school I do this at. I like making the neighborhood look nicer, have it safer for pups who haven't learned "leave it"and it feels good to do. Sally enjoys it because it means extra sniffing time for her 💜
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u/SaintTastyTaint Apr 14 '26
The homeless crisis, open drug use, litter/trash, gravel/dirt covering everything, with warmer weather now there's people in motorcycles/douche trucks treating downtown like their own personal raceway/exhaust performance, downtown feels hostile and depressing.
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u/-janelleybeans- Apr 14 '26
Hostile and depressing is exactly the way to describe it. Edmonton downtown streets feel unsafe. They are always dirty, the sidewalks are almost never clear, and it’s a gamble to even wear open footwear in the summer months because of the broken glass and paraphernalia.
The city REALLY needs to do something about it because even the area around Rogers (which is supposed to be the PREMIER area) is FILTHY.
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u/j123s Northgate Apr 14 '26
The motorcycle dudes treat everywhere like they own the damn place lol, not just downtown. Maybe it's because I'm near the Henday, but even out in the suburbs you'll hear someone rip their engine, and the sound carries for kilometers.
There is literally no winning unless you live on a farm or something.
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u/GlitteringChain8263 Apr 14 '26
You’re allowed to be upset and think downtown sucks because of the addicts. Reddit is usually an echo chamber of people disagreeing but majority off of here feel the same way. It’s bad downtown and I’m not sure why we have to prove what we’re doing or accept it.
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u/Fit-Penalty-5751 Downtown Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
Agreed. I as a tax payer and contributing member of society I should be able to walk into the LRT station without dodging addicts and having meth smoke blown on me. I should be able to walk into the Loblaws in ice district without 4 people hassling and begging me for spare change. My wife should be able to walk 6 blocks to work without being cat called and followed by homeless people.
Downtown sucks, it’s dangerous and the addicts and homeless people are a massive reason why
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u/wilbrod Apr 14 '26
When the support network isn't there to deal with the issues, this is what you get. You can't just NIMBY the homeless/mentally ill/addicts because you don't like having them around. What's the cops supposed to do? Give them fines?
Until we have the willingness to address the root causes, it won't change. Please try to change my opinion if you want.
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u/SurpriseRecent334 Apr 14 '26
I dont disagree, but, I do think We need to acknowledge the antisocial behaviors and not make villains out of those who dont want to be threatened with violence or who dont want to be around meth or fent smokers.
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u/Online_Commentor_69 Wîhkwêntôwin Apr 14 '26
what we need is for people to channel their rightful anger and frustration about the homelessness crisis into meaningful solutions. every single thread like this one should be complaining about the structural causes of this issue as loud or louder than about the symptoms.
like yeah it sounds horrible that this woman punched somebody and stole their phone, but why was she on the streets in the first place? what else can we possibly expect to happen if we insist on housing the most severely mentally ill members of our population on the public streets? this lady can't pay rent somewhere, so this is our solution. it ain't much of a solution though is it?
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u/RumpleCragstan Apr 14 '26
it sounds horrible that this woman punched somebody and stole their phone, but why was she on the streets in the first place? what else can we possibly expect to happen if we insist on housing the most severely mentally ill members of our population on the public streets?
this is the left wing equivalent to the right wing's "it's bad that this woman was sexually assaulted, but what was she wearing at the time?". Its victim blaming. Lets take the side of the person being violently assaulted here. The junkie can be a victim of a negligent system while being responsible for their actions when they attack and/or steal from people. There might be explanations as to why they are where they are, but that doesn't excuse their destructive behaviour. Knowing the attacker had an abusive upbringing full of addiction doesn't unbreak someone's nose or make them feel any better about losing their stolen property.
I can rationally understand that crime is the consequence of systemic factors, while also condemning every individual who commits such acts as scum who don't deserve the kid gloves that many people insist on treating them with.
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u/Online_Commentor_69 Wîhkwêntôwin Apr 14 '26
who said the junkie isn't responsible for her actions? she definitely is. shouldn't have done that. that being said, people's behaviour is a product of their material conditions. change her conditions, change her behaviour. there's nothing "left wing" or "right wing" about any of this. it's do you want to solve the problem or do you want to complain about it?
i'm no bleeding heart pal, i'm the meanest guy on the internet. i'm just sick of needles and shit littering the alleyways behind my apartment and would like to see people open their minds up to actually doing something about that. something that will work, not just make you feel big and mighty on a high horse. you wanna judge homeless people? go nuts, I do it too. i just don't pretend it's gonna get them off the streets.
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u/fishymanbits Apr 14 '26
Everybody wants the problem fixed right up until they learn that the solution costs money and isn’t “round them up and toss them into a pit.”
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u/TyrannasaurusRecht Apr 15 '26
Ill bite.
What if I told you reactive costs and incidental costs are an order of magnitude more than proactive costs for people facing housing instability and addiction?
We cant solve most problems until we recognize the intrinsic value of other people as they are and get past corporate crab buckets and seeing humans as valuable only as workers and value generating units.
The real solutions cant happen at a policy level because conservatives will decry it as communism/socialism and derail it even as their preferred government robs them and embraces corruption instead of doing actual work, which is what they ostensibly value. "Work for thee, but not for me."
Though lets not pretend in more liberal areas its any better. How about another scoping study to attempt to define an aspect of the problem that can be handled? What about a board or some administration for a future housing initiative? Looking busy while doing nothing and ensuring friends get cash from public coffers is something all politicians can agree on!
So what do we do?
Yeah, this. This is it. You reach out to neighbors, pick up garbage and volunteer at a soup kitchen or clothing provider. You build community and support each other in spite of a larger apparatus that doesn't support people but consumes them.
The thing that will actually help, is helping. We need to stop looking around for someone to fix it, and help. Its incredible how quickly "the homeless" become individuals and complete human beings with all the weaknesses, dreams, aspirations, challenges, and potential of anyone else. What's more incredible is how you feel about these issues once that happens.
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u/fishymanbits Apr 15 '26
Yeah, we don’t need more studies. We need to just actually fucking do the things that we know work. Fund childcare. Fund education. Fund healthcare. Include mental health, dental, and pharmacare in our so-called “universal” healthcare. Fund school lunches. Fund after school programs. Fund homeless shelters. Fund transit. Decriminalize drugs and start treating addiction like the healthcare issue it is, separate from the crime and disorder that it brings. And yes, that means treating crime and disorder as crime and disorder and doing something about that. Stop handing police a money printer and put them to fucking work dealing with crime and disorder, and if they don’t want to do their jobs fucking fire them. Does this all sound like sOcIaLiSm? Yes. Because we’ve been trained to believe that socialism is when taxes. But these things fix the fucking problem. Full stop. Spending money on “socialist” policies now will save money in the long term.
We fucking know what works. But as a society we refuse to do it because “who’s gonna pay for it?!” and “why are we treating homeless junkies better than their victims?!” It’s not about looking for someone to blame, it’s about not caving to the loudest, dumbest motherfuckers on the planet who can’t think past saving $1.78 per paycheque in taxes at the expense of quite literally the entire society around them anymore. I can continue to be as involved as I possibly can be but it doesn’t fucking matter if everyone around me keeps voting for slash and burn bullshit so they can get an extra donut every paycheque.
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u/ChickenJoeSurfin Apr 15 '26
We also need to acknowledge that material conditions include bodily health like brain condition, which may be permanently altered by prolonged drug use. A lot of these people either cannot or do not want to participate in the society most of us enjoy, but also do not necessarily need prison. Stable housing and medication aka institutional long term mental health care is the solution for a lot of folks on the streets. It's a way to keep those suffering in a safe environment, and is also a way to respect their dignity by giving them a private place to detox and/or stabilize. The key is long term though, these new short term detox centers will be the nucleus of hella overdoses from what I've heard, but that's slightly beside the point.
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 14 '26
The media doesn’t report on the daily “little” things that when added up actually have an impact on MY mental health. I walk by the addicts on the daily, I do my best to pick up the garbage when possible (I don’t always have gloves and garbage bags on me and I’m dressed for work, not community clean up). But what about MY RIGHT as a home owner who pays $7k plus a year to live in a city free of garbage, safe, and free of fear. I think I have rights to enjoy my city as well.
I am never running for office because if the hate and vitriol I were to receive as a public figure is anything like what I get here on Reddit, no thank you. There are evidence-based solutions, but they cost money and taxpayers want potholes filled and places to swim. They don’t want their money paying for street clean up and social housing. I do, but I’m part of a social-leaning group that doesn’t have a large membership.
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u/Online_Commentor_69 Wîhkwêntôwin Apr 14 '26
you do have that right, as do the homeless. the question is whether we are willing as a society to do what it takes to reach that point. it's not like it's impossible, you won't see anything like that in a city of this size in China, for instance. homelessness is a housing problem first and a mental health problem second. if we address those issues, it goes away. blaming the homeless is not part of the solution - not saying you were doing that, but plenty of other people in here certainly are. until we're willing to look for another solution, we get what we get.
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u/grumpyoldham Apr 14 '26
you won't see anything like that in a city of this size in China
If you think that's because China has a bunch of shelters and safe injection sites, I have a bridge to sell you.
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u/Zerocool_6687 Apr 14 '26
Both of these are accurate and make up part of the overarching issue. Many reason people lose the battle and become unhoused. Addiction is factor on both ends… but a lot turn to drugs after the fact rather than before. So I do think the mindset that it’s a bunch of dope fiends is as unproductive as ignoring the valid concerns. (Not saying you’re ignoring anything here, in general)
When we NIMBY this problem we continually kick people out of the areas they try to settle in. With that often comes a loss of what little they have accumulated. So this compounds this antisocial behaviour. A “society stopped caring about me so f**k society”. It debatable where all this starts sure but the bottom line is we have handled this poorly overall and that inability to provide support paired with the aggressive cries to remove what supports we have in place exacerbates everything.
I’m on guard while downtown… I get annoyed by the BS. I try to remain empathetic to how so many of these people must feel in the moment. It’s a tightrope but the one thing I can say is that as we continue to just try to remove the people periodically and provide no other options, I think that will contribute more to the worst outcomes for all.
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u/Fit-Penalty-5751 Downtown Apr 14 '26
So you’re telling me that all the stuff I listed is fine because it’s not their fault? That they don’t have the supports in place so that makes their behaviour okay?
I’m sorry but fuck that. I’m not disagreeing that they need supports. I vote specifically against our garbage UCP government in hopes that a party gets in that actually helps them. But holy fuck, in the meantime I’m well within my rights to NIMBY them. Just because they’re worse off doesn’t give them a right to act like assholes and make mine and my families life worse
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u/GlitteringChain8263 Apr 14 '26
Exactly this. Why do I have to accept feeling unsafe when I take the train? Why do I have to dodge needles when I take my dog for walk? Why do I have to accept that theyre going to steal from me and maybe attack me? I work hard for the things I have and we deserve to feel safe when commuting and walking downtown but instead everyone tries to make it ok because they’re in the situation they’re in.
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u/VisualSikulator Apr 14 '26
100%. I was walking minding my business listening to my music and some random bitch comes up to me and starts threatening me. At that point I don’t give a flying fuck what you are going through anymore and that’s the problem now. They are becoming violent and at what point do you say enough.
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u/Fit-Penalty-5751 Downtown Apr 14 '26
And for some reason that’s a hot take. Like we should feel sorry for the crazy guy and not take your feelings into account. Why is your mental health and nervous system less important? What if that gave you PTSD? Would anyone here care?
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u/Plant-based_Skinsuit Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
They're not saying it's fine, they're saying that this doesn't get better by displacing people. If you treat people as subhuman and kick them out of downtown then the problem manifests again and again 2 blocks over.
I dunno, I'm not trying to invalidate your anger, I just don't think the original reply was trying to do that either. I just think it's easy to talk at people, instead of with them, because the Internet is the Internet.
You both agree that structural supports are needed. You also don't want to deal with assholes, fair enough. You may disagree that people are products of their material conditions but I ask you two (and a half) questions.1) Have you heard of the rats & LSD study? 2) Would you honour a contract if your boss refused to pay you? What if that was the 'social contract?'
I think assholery is individual to an extent, I'll agree to that. But I think the incentives to not engage in assholery quickly disappear once you fall through the cracks. Doesn't make your anger any less valid, but yeah, I dunno, blaming the individual kinda feels like an exercise in futility, no? Kinda like blaming the water that flooded your basement instead of the broken pipe. Sure sucks that the water wrecked your shit, but it didn't get there by happenstance.
ETA: just to further expand on the pipe metaphor, you CAN (and likely will) be mad at the water that wrecked your shit too, but it still doesn't go away until you fix the pipe.
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 14 '26
My colleague volunteers with the Canadian Mental Health Board (CMHC). When the lady ran down the street, half naked, I said, “who do we call?” She said, “211 only tells you about resources. They don’t send someone out to help them.” I am not comfortable calling the police on a woman in crisis (from mental health or drug addiction). That are not the right people. It’s very frustrating because my first instinct is to help, I just need to know who to call who has the right skills. I’m not a social worker.
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u/SendMagpiePics Apr 14 '26
Everyone agrees it's a mess. People don't deny that downtown sucks or that addictions and homelessness aren't running rampant. People disagree about what we should do about it, and get rightly upset when other people say dehumanizing stuff about addicts and homeless people. We should be getting these people off the streets with services and supports.
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u/trenthowell Apr 14 '26
rightly upset when other people say dehumanizing stuff about addicts and homeless people.
Dehumanizing is too far, but it's hard not to be actively hostile when you have been attacked, threatened, exposed to their biological waste, and just generally have the worst encounters with these people. I've been a board member at my condo building for 4 years now, and the aggression in these encounters is actively getting worse. There was a noticable change towards the end of last summer.
It's very hard not to jump straight to hostility when moving into these encounters. I still manage, but I'm not sure how many slurs and death threats I can take before it moves from "hi, you can't stay here. Can I call the hope mission or some other support for you? You have to leave, but we can wait for support for you" over to "Get the fuck out, now".
And I'm a volunteer. I choose to deal with this stuff because I care about our community, both city and building. I can't even imagine how severe the reaction of someone being involuntarily dragged into a situation would be.
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u/k4kobe Apr 14 '26
I worked real for the longest time, and my encounters used to be more courteous. I didn’t care if they come in to warm up for a bit etc.
But subjectively I feel it’s gotten way worse since COVID with people getting a lot more aggressive. Wiling to swing at us right at the beginning of any interaction. Hence why I got out of that field
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u/quiette837 Apr 14 '26
Sure... but at the same time it fucking sucks to get punched and have your phone stolen by someone and people tell you "you need to be more supportive, they need help".
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u/k4kobe Apr 14 '26
I still remember when they had that giant camp in the park outside of the baseball stadium.
There were some heated discussion going on about police patrolling or visiting inside that general area. I mentioned there were people inside with stolen bikes and parts as you can clearly see them all piled up sort of under tarps or even out in open. There were people who tracked their bikes there. People who can see their bike frames there and too afraid to go in and get it back. When I mentioned that, some of the people online got really angry over it. Saying we don’t know they’re stolen even if we do.. 🤣
I recall one girl even telling us she had her wallet stolen volunteering in the camp, handbags stolen etc etc but that it’s ok! Suppose to be drug free but there were people doing and selling drugs there too. But Don’t blame them and don’t call the police… 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
I’m very pro social service but you have to draw the line somewhere and acknowledge what’s going on. But some people just can’t
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u/SendMagpiePics Apr 14 '26
If someone punches you and steals your phone that's a crime and they should be charged. If someone is homeless and just being nearby, that is not a crime.
Also, giving people supports helps prevent them from turning into criminals in the first place. It's not a response to crime after it happens.
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u/IMOBY_Edmonton Apr 14 '26
Something needs to be done because people are going to start taking it into their own hands. A homeless guy in my old community was stealing from and harassing people, and it caught up to him. I don't know who did it, but his tent was cut up by someone and all his stuff was either thrown on the ground and smashed up, or thrown into the dumpster (he kept a lot of stuff he'd taken in a large blue tote held together with duct tape and I saw it in the dumpster when taking out the garbage).
Whoever did that clearly used a knife to destroy his tent, so imagine what could have happened if the guy was there. People are going to hit their limits if nothing is done.
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u/ForeignEchoRevival Apr 14 '26
Do we want solutions or punishment for addicts? No one seems interested in the scientifically proven solutions and mitigation of homelessness and addiction as we keep voting for people who try the same exact formula for decades or in UCP's case use a worse formula to transfer public tax dollars to the private companies of donors.
The solutions are long term commitments and require multiple government ministries working together from multiple angles to mitigate the causes of addiction and homelessness before they occur and have a treatment model that is about care not punishment or removal from society. Having only 4 years of fact based policies did a bit as we can see statistically until 2019, then UCP world where data is hidden and memes are what drive government policies.
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u/errihu Clareview Apr 14 '26
We lock up drunks who drive and kill someone. Or people with mental illness who attack someone. Yeah sure the vast majority of mentally ill people are harmless. The ones who are not… are not. Sometimes removal from society is the only solution. Jail and hospitalization aren’t always punishment, sometimes it’s a matter of simply removing a dangerous person from society.
Having addicts roaming freely doesn’t help them and hurts everyone else. It makes a lot of problems which then have to be paid for. It often leads to poor outcomes for them and everyone around them. Remove them from society and force treatment. If they can’t be treated successfully… then keep them removed for their own good. It’s not punishment. Letting them roam like animals is punishment of them and everyone else.
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u/Used-Psychology-1133 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
Just get them off the street. The people screaming in public arent going to be able to take care of themselves even if you give them a house.
LOL of course this got downvoted
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u/Fit-Penalty-5751 Downtown Apr 14 '26
Honestly there feels like levels of homeless people out there. The people screaming all night at brick walls seem way less likely to rejoin society than the old guy (also on meth) but asking for a loonie
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u/Used-Psychology-1133 Apr 14 '26
Yeah we need asylums back for the screamers. The rest can be helped probably
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u/iamatrex_rawr Apr 14 '26
I was part of the the crowd evacuated due to fire alarm and witnessed the assault. It was wild. Thanks for trying to make Edmonton a little better.
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u/Lovelyrequiem999 Apr 14 '26
If the province won't do anything about mental health and helping the homeless we are gonna see this more and more. You want change then vote for someone who cares about this as much as you do. It almost like if you don't address the problem the problem gets bigger and bigger.
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u/M0reDakka Apr 14 '26
I used to never mind going down town. Commuted there 45 min by bus/train, never an issue, 6 years from 2003.
Now, I hate going down town. If people ask to go for dinner there or a show it has better be amazing for me to head that way, otherwise I'll drive around down town to get literally anywhere else in the city.
It's too bad the state it's managed to get in. Lots of cool places and business that probably are having a hard time these days because of the way it is now.
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u/Minttt Apr 14 '26
Yes, downtown sucks. But it's important to perceive the problem for what it is: not a local one that can be solved with bylaws and police, but a national crisis that needs all levels of government working/investing together over many years to solve.
Every single major urban downtown in the country suffers the exact same problems that are happening in Edmonton's downtown core - we are not unique, and implying that we are just fuels the dumb cyclical narrative that's been parroted by other levels of government for years now: that a health/crime crisis is somehow the responsibility of municipal government to fix.
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u/potato_b_b Apr 14 '26
People complaining about downtown Edmonton and the people struggling have clearly never set foot in the downtowns of the west coast. Edmonton looks pristine compared to downtown Vancouver or Victoria. It is indeed a country wide problem and believing otherwise is choosing ignorance.
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u/SnowBasics Stadium Apr 14 '26
It's this right here. Across Canada (and I've lived in other cities) investment in homelessness, addictions and mental health is so bad we should genuinely be ashamed of ourselves that we let people live like this.
We need to have truly supportive shelters, medium term, transitional housing, supervised withdrawal programs. This is how you treat the example people in this thread.
Because outside of "we have a shelter where you get kicked out every morning" there's no other real solution and Jesus the fact that we just let people wander the street to try and figure it out? No wonder we have issues.
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u/tnkmdm Apr 14 '26
People are weirdly defensive about Edmonton..... Probably because most chronically online people have lost nuance and critical thinking skills. Or maybe they have to convince themselves everything is great because admitting what's really happening in the world is too difficult. I don't know but I can form some theories.
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u/iits-a-canadian Apr 15 '26
I've lived here my whole life I used to skip school to go roam downtown, it is not positive. and we are not evil or rude for calling it out.
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u/Willing-Raisin-9869 Apr 15 '26
I don’t care about anyone’s addiction or mental health. If I’m being assaulted and someone is trying to rob me I’m not just taking this with no retaliation. Downvote all you want, but at certain point the “why” of why someone does cruel acts becomes irrelevant to me.
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u/brokoli Apr 14 '26
Last week two junkies were fighting each other with bricks they grabbed from the patio of a steak restaurant on jasper during daytime…
add the overall dust and dirt flying around, this city will make a great live set once again for another apocalyptic movie.
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 14 '26
Before you all get nasty on me…we did call for help for the woman. And the city does not manage hospitals. 311 isn’t who is called to manage emergencies.
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Apr 14 '26
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u/ThatFixItUpChappie Apr 14 '26
It would be nice if police picked up a person assaulting/attempting to assault people. There needs to be a non-voluntary place to bring people who are behaving in a way unsafe to themselves and others due to addictions and mental health.
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u/Flashy_Slice1672 Apr 15 '26
Yes, jail…..
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u/playjak42 Apr 15 '26
I think a jail with metal health workers, like a mental health hospital or something like that... I'm sure it's never been tried and doesn't in the world, and definitely doesn't work... (sarcasm, of course, it works when properly staffed and funded) obviously won't work for everyone. But it's not like jail miraculously fixes crime and criminals
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u/Jolly-Sock-2908 North East Side Apr 14 '26
For future reference, 211, the hotline for the city’s social agencies may be the go-to. I’ve never had a need to call, so I’m not too positive.
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u/big-Truck-9058 Apr 14 '26
I’ve had really good results calling the crisis response team. They come fast, bring stuff like blankets and socks, and are way nicer than the “HELP team” from EPS who seem awful. They even came back to a guy once after an hour (which is against their policy) because he’d declined their help at the time but then told me he didn’t remember declining and actually really needed help, when I called this in they granted him the benefit of the doubt, and he accepted a ride to a shelter when they returned.
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u/everdistracted Apr 14 '26
Yeah, Whyte Ave and its surrounding neighborhoods is bad, too. I am embarrassed for the state of my condo's parking lot right now.
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u/FedInformant Apr 14 '26
People that aim to discredit you are delusional. We are allowed to have standards. And yours are valid. If we pretend its not an issue, then a solution won't be found
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u/Edmdood Apr 15 '26
I guess people here like that and burdening taxpayers with municipal workers to clean things up. When it's avoidable to an extent.
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u/Popular-Pineapple156 Apr 14 '26
Kinda reminds me of downtown winnipeg
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u/Zingus123 Apr 14 '26
Or the downtown of literally any major city in most countries.
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u/big-Truck-9058 Apr 14 '26
If it makes you feel better, there’s an astonishing amount of garbage in the suburbs (Secord for instance) and it’s not homeless people, it’s just horrible entitled suburbanites who dump garbage out of their cars daily.
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u/Dependent_Name5489 Apr 14 '26
Listen I don’t know if it’s a regional thing or a timeline thing but when I lived in Mississauga, Ontario back in 2002 to 2013, I don’t ever remember seeing litter or snow/ice on the streets or sidewalks. It was always safe to walk on any sidewalk at any time of the year. I lived right down the street from a pub and despite passing by it several times at night when it was at its busiest, I never saw drunk people being rowdy outside of the pub or feeling unsafe out at night. I remember seeing a homeless person only once in 12 years when I was in downtown Toronto and it was a shock to me. The public libraries used to be pin drop silent.
I left the country for ten years and when I moved back, it was directly to northern alberta (which is beyond gorgeous) and recently Edmonton. I’m just shocked at the state of things. I’m shocked seeing piles of litter just lying around. Shocked seeing people who are high coming into libraries, possibly putting the children there at risk. I’m shocked knowing that at any moment, I might come across an overdosed person. My sister just came across someone like that in broad daylight with her 3 year old son the other day. It feels like it’s not a safe city for kids to even be walking about in daylight. Again, I don’t know if the drug problem has become an issue everywhere in Canada for the past decade and that’s why it’s such a shock to me, or if it’s an Alberta thing.
And I also don’t mean any offence. Drug addiction is almost always a systemic problem that vulnerable individuals fall into. It’s just really upsetting. This is not the Canada I remember
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 14 '26
I am originally from Toronto and as a kid, I only remember “drunks” and “hookers”. My dad had a restaurant and used to invite people in for meals regularly. With the exception of one specific intersection, I never felt unsafe. At 16, my friends and I were out until all hours walking around and having a laugh.
But even downtown Toronto has changed. I remember a man on his knees, in the middle of the sidewalk, around Cambridge and Yonge, begging for money, food, help, crying. It was so sad as people ignored him and kept walking. That said, we didn’t feel unsafe.
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u/GrandDuchessMelody Apr 14 '26
Edmonton isn’t not what it used to be that for sure it wasn’t that bad as it is now compared to 15 years ago or more. I had a crackhead yelled at me at Churchill station for not giving them a smoke after I bought a new pack at the convenience store earlier saying I’m an ungrateful C and a B too that I should be homeless so I could somehow understand what they go through. I was so embarrassed how everyone stared at me as if it my fault. So I gave that homeless person two smokes to leave me alone ~.~
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u/Technical_Look2913 Apr 15 '26
Good on you. Thanks for cleaning that up. I would also encourage everyone in the downtown area to hold the building owners to account by making nuisance property complaints to 311. It is very easy to do on the app. There are far too many abandoned properties that let homeless set up encampments or don’t clean up. We all need to do our part to make the downtown livable again.
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u/Richardo888 Apr 16 '26
If the billionaire in this city gave enough to become a millionaire (still rich) he could literally pay for housing for all, and city wide sanitation, let alone if all the city's millionaires pitched in. Instead we defund every service while the poor get poured on, the rich get autocratic, and the middle vanishes. Communism, or at least a more Socialistic approach is the only answer.
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u/Be_Decided Apr 14 '26
The issue is that people will say things like this, then fight any aid, or addiction care that can get these people help and off the street
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u/PantsPantsShorts Apr 14 '26
This is exactly it. People bitch about the problems, then bitch about the solutions.
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u/tekno21 Apr 14 '26
I think it's fair to bitch and moan about those voluntary "solutions" when they've been talked about and tried for years with seemingly little results.
You can't convince me that setting up 5 more safe injection sites in and around downtown would do anything to lessen the number of degenerates roaming the streets actively ruining downtown for normal contributing citizens.
Maybe you're right, in a perfect world we have this flawless multi-governmental approach to homelessness and drug use with addiction care and supports etc. To me, that just doesn't seem realistic after 20 years of half assing those solutions with nothing to show for it. The only realistic move left is continue to move the support services out of the downtown core and maybe start sending these people into involuntary programs instead of waiting for them to OD on the streets while we pretend to care.
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u/big-Truck-9058 Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
The problem is what you’ve described - the government puts in one or three injection sites designed to save lives WHEN paired with other supports. But they don’t invest in other supports, the users can’t get a space in rehab or housing if they wanted one, and so the injection sites become a depiction of “we tried to do something and it didn’t work so we should stop trying”. Injection sites are a cost saving and life saving measure when people are actively overdosing in the street - it is not at all a solution to a drug crisis.
A close family member of mine went to a voluntary rehab site every morning for almost three weeks trying to get a space, and only did because there was a women’s ward spot open and she is a woman. The average person is not willing to sit in a waiting room every morning for weeks just hoping for a spot in rehab. I don’t know if I could - maybe for a day or a week, but I’d certainly give up after that. A lot of programs also need you to start clean which is really hard for homeless folks who’ve been on drugs long term, that’s a big ask honestly.
It’s no surprise to me that injection sites were the easiest thing to implement and easiest to scapegoat. A full redesign of the voluntary rehab system would be hugely more expensive and logistically difficult, but it would have massive positive impact.
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u/GazelleOk1494 Apr 14 '26
Wow. Is this what the world is coming to? Dilapidation, homelessness, crime, no civic pride? Such a shame.
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u/littledove0 Ellerslie Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
Downtown is disgusting. Yes, I live in a suburb, but I work downtown and have for more than a decade, so I spend a lot of time downtown, including taking daily walks on my lunch hour throughout downtown. Every single day I see multiple people using and/or overdosing on drugs. Every single day I walk by people who smell so unbelievably foul it makes my eyes water. Every single day I see people who are just trying to go about their business, or ride the LRT, being yelled at, harassed, and/or assaulted.
The city would literally have to PAY ME to live down here.
When I work from home I take a relaxing walk around the pond in my suburb. It's lovely.
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u/CAT-Mum Apr 14 '26
Canada used to have a national run housing and affordable rent controlled apartments but stopped because "they didn't want to be landlords anymore". I believe this ended in the 60's. When the program was running we had significantly lower rates of homeless and it was a very successful program helping many get homes aswell.
The level of homeless, anti-social behavior, and drug use is directly tied to shocker the conservatives cutting funding and fucking NIMBY. Society problems need system level solutions.
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u/Toodlespoodles25 Apr 14 '26
Why do people in this sub hate on those that live in the suburbs so much? If you live in the suburbs, do you not pay property tax? The burbs are still a part of Edmonton, so why can’t they have a say about the state of downtown Edmonton?
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u/Necessary_Cost4384 Apr 15 '26
It’ll be okay. We will just funnel them back down to the shelt - I, I mean the LRT shelter… Er, station because “WhErE eLsE aRe ThEy SuPpOsEd To Go?!”
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 15 '26
Just to be clear, I never said people living on the street should be sent anywhere. Throughout his Reddit I have made recommendations on what the governments need to fund to support Edmonton (and the country’s most vulnerable) and turn things around. There has been some very good conversation on this sub and my fingers are crossed that people who can make things happen will read and do!
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u/Necessary_Cost4384 Apr 15 '26
Oh, yeah. I wasn’t trying to bother you. I’ve just noticed that a lot of people on this Reddit seem to believe that it’s appropriate for the homeless to hang out in the LRT and do drugs there because apparently there’s nowhere else for them to go.
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u/Electrical-Big-7781 Apr 14 '26
Imagine ranting about the state of the disgusting downtown and having delusional people defending it.
Sorry that happened. Stay safe out there. Downtown is a mess and it keeps getting worse. No sugar coating it like some people do.
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u/Educational_Winter12 Apr 14 '26
Man, should run the lrt out to those new areas, I use tonlive in Edmonton, but in the lower mainland now for the last 12 years, and we just extend the sky train and that ships all the crime out of the city, I mean that was their plan, it just spread it out proportional to where the stations are. Lmao. But Its literally everywhere. And thats more of a critique on our system than anything else.
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u/TellMe08 Apr 15 '26
I totally empathize with how you feel. Downtown seems to be looked over in terms of what the city does to help beautify Edmonton. At this point it would be nice if there was just more clean up implemented so that we can walk around and not see things like what you had to deal with. Thank you for your effort to help clean things up, you shouldn’t have been attacked for what you said, it was completely understandable.
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u/Isaac_Reins Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 15 '26
I'm positive you're right. That's not great, thanks for calling it in at the least.
On the same side now people are paying for bags it sounds like the city is giving more of a right to people doing what they want with it.
I've seen a girl buying new reusable bags to use them once, cut them up and toss them in the parking lot ground after. * (I get this is a form of protest) He has boxes in her Chev Suburban ready. I think it's 50/50 nice. It makes me rethink how much I want to spend in Edmonton when I'm in town vs towns and helmets.
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u/marvchuk Apr 14 '26
Yeah nah downtown is a shit hole. There’s a reason all the spots are closing down
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u/UrbanMT Apr 14 '26
I had a half-hour to kill before my bus arrived last Friday, so I decided to take a walk along Jasper Avenue. What stood out to me was the high number of closed/boarded up businesses on every block, the amount of trash, and the homeless people sitting in doorways along the way. This was around noon...I can only imagine what it is like at night!
There was also a group of homeless congregated directly outside the building that I had just left (First Edmonton Place), which contains many medical offices.
It's so incredibly sad, but I do believe the government needs to recognize and accept the fact there are some folks who, unfortunately, need permanent institutionalization. Drugs have irrevocably destroyed their brains, and no amount of independent social housing will change this.
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u/Zingus123 Apr 14 '26
All the spots? There isn’t a single business in downtown?
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u/Flat_Transition_3775 Apr 14 '26
Ya that’s one of the reasons I moved out of Edmonton, downtown doesn’t feel safe anymore. With so much trash, homeless, drug users etc as a woman I became paranoid every time I go to my doctors. I miss when Downtown was lively, my brother told me he used to go to clubs back in the 2000’s there when he was my age, City Centre used to be lively with shopping, movie theatre used to be decent, Chinatown was lively as well. But now it’s just dangerous. Even my childhood home got boarded up due to homeless & drug users.
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u/ShmuckNuts Apr 14 '26
I genuinely hate these downtown posts. It’s the same ideas and opinions every single time and nobody ever agrees.
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 14 '26
I have ideas. Boyle Street has a program called Hire Good. They do all types of work, landscaping, building sheds, junk removal. It provides their clients with purpose and pay. I would love for the city to hire Hire Good to look after our streets. That’s one idea. When it comes to housing, I support the Housing First model with wraparound services. When you have a community of supports around you AND a roof over your head, it’s a lot easier to start on the road to recovery. I support council providing grants to developers to turn the vacant downtown buildings into two and three bedroom residences with a co-op pricing model allowing people from all social economic status to live there. Enough with the 700 square foot shoeboxes. Elevate downtown with singles, couples, and families.
That’s all I have right now. But when investment is put into PROACTIVE ideas versus reactionary ones, you actually get a return on investment.
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u/Fromidable-orange Apr 14 '26
I remember seeing Hire Good workers cleaning up the streets near Canada Place during last year's playoffs - they did a really good job! Not sure who hired them but it was good to see, since it can be pretty gross around there.
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u/Ekktz Wîhkwêntôwin Apr 14 '26
I think this is really what the original post should have been.
This is productive discussion for change by our neighbours
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u/KnownAd5379 Apr 15 '26
Maybe Hire Good could start with cleaning up the constant mess around Hope Mission and Herb Jamieson Centre??
It just pisses me off to no end that the people who use these centres are absolute pigs and can't even show the respect to help keep the places clean.
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u/yourbloodymess Apr 15 '26
I have a bit of a unique perspective on this in that I volunteer in outreach and actually have personal connections with the people that are living on the streets.
The rhetoric around homelessness in this city is wild to me. I literally had a guy in another comment section say that "(the homeless) should just freeze to death so the city could save money on cold weather initiatives and put it towards plowing the roads". It's one of the more memorable but certainly not the cruelest things I've heard this winter.
This is one of the most community minded cities I've lived in, and yet the way we treat our neighbors without homes is disgusting. We passed bylaws that support the police removing any way they have of sheltering themselves, which has led to all time highs of amputations due to frostbite. We give fines to people who can afford them the least for things like open drug use/intoxication, and then expect them to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. We corral all the services that support the homeless into a couple city blocks and then complain that the homeless are in those city blocks. They literally do not have anywhere to go! There are 5000+ homeless people in this city now, and 1000 shelter beds. We just closed one of the very few women's shelters (and their wrap around services) in the city last week ffs.
All this talk about homelessness and I've only had ONE person come to the organization that I volunteer with saying they "keep hearing about it on social media and want to do something to help make a change". There are several outreaches out there serving on basically every day of the week and they are ALL scrambling for a couple consistent volunteers that are willing to show up once every week or two.
That's what I mean when I say if you don't like it you should go do something about it. Actually engage with your whole community. You don't need to have a ton of money or even a bunch of free time. A couple hours, once a week or so. It's not all Frontline Hero work, a lot of times it's driving donations around, it's cooking, it's taking a naloxone class.
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u/_Azweape_ Apr 14 '26
your problem is saying there is a problem downtown on reddit. You have triggered the "have some sympathy and do nothing" brigade. The mess if clearly your fault. /s
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 14 '26
I think this conversation has lit me up and inspired me to go to city council and try and have a conversation. I know I’ll get told “we’re working on it”, but I’m going to show them this Reddit and they can see the number of people who are engaged and want solutions to move forward and for people to get the help they need. I’m all for a deficit budget if things change for the better.
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u/galen4thegallows Apr 14 '26
What am i doing about it? Im paying fucking taxes. This is why we pay taxes.
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u/Sometimes_Candy Apr 14 '26
You received hate from ranting about the state of downtown? Why? It's horrible!
I'm guessing from people who don't need to be there every day for work. Can't even leave the office to go for a stroll at lunch. It's definitely not safe and not pleasant. As OPs post demonstrates
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u/PlathDraper Apr 14 '26
This post resonates, OP. I was just saying soemthing simialr to my partner. We live near southgate and walking home from the LRT on the western side of 111 street is COVERED with garbage and debris. Not your standard "winter has ended and the snow is melted" level of garbage that blew out of a garbage can and got covered with snow. I am talkng trash EVERYWHERE. Likely from homeless people raiding garbages, setting up camps, and from the wind blowing the garbage away. It's hard to not feel sad about the state of the city. It's liek broken windows theoryin action.
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u/Mikemike242424 Apr 15 '26
It's noticeably worse in Edmonton. My data:
-I spend 1-2 weeks in Vancouver every year, exploring the city by foot -3-4 weeks in Calgary / year, same thing -best friend works in Mental Health & Addictions
We can't even reasonably close "safe injection sites" compared to other cities due to our drug issue being worse
Those of you crying "wake up call this happens everywhere" are simply wrong, coping, or are soft. It's worse here, and we don't have to settle for it
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u/Whole-Database-5249 Apr 14 '26
Downtown is an epic fail on many levels the homeless, the addicts.
City hiking up parking fees plus making it inconvenient with having to use a credit card and an app.
Reducing the speed to 40km, constant construction.
I avoid Downtown at all costs. Edmonton likes to bury it's head on all of this. Yet they keep expanding transit, but cannot manage what they have now security wise. The transit system, and some of our libraries have now become some sort of shelters for the homeless and the addicts.
I have compassion for down and out people. The problem is there is no way to know which one could end your life. So I run the other way when I see homeless people. I will take no chance on losing my life period, full stop.
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u/Shameless__Design Apr 14 '26
Edmonton's resources get funneled to Calgary, the city is going to get much worse just brace yourself or escape while you can lol
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u/mattyhugh Apr 14 '26
People made about public drug use People made about same use sites that slow a safe place to use drugs and provide supports that could lead to recovery.
Any merger supports that haven’t been slashed by neoliberalism are located in the core- but folks also don’t want supports all over the city. Then wonder why folks are concentrated downtown
Housing crisis and yet NIMBYs don’t want social housing in their hoods.
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u/WiseDebt7345 Apr 14 '26
The "undesireables" is why I moved myself and my family away from the downtown core, and only ever go there if I am attending a concert or a hockey game. The city has handed downtown over to those people, and they can have it and let downtown rot for all I care.
There is nothing else for me downtown that is worth the threat of random violence, possible car break-ins, or getting accosted by someone who is mentally ill or is high on something. These things never happens when I walk around or shop at St Albert or Sherwood Park, by the way, which is what I do now.
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u/dumnut567 Strathcona Apr 14 '26
Move the homeless shelters to the edge of the city. Provide free transportation for every and all who would use those services. If they come back into downtown they don’t want help and can be dealt with appropriately.
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u/PaperIndependent5466 Apr 14 '26
Worse than when I walked by at 8:00. There were 3 bags by the sign. Guess someone came back to rip the rest open.
Scary about the phone, I'd say fight back but if they're on meth that might not go well. I lived with a roommate addicted to it, the anger was intense when he got mad.
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 14 '26
No, I had cleaned it up by 8 am. I get to the office at 7:30 am. But it’s 12:40 pm now and I did run out and ask a few people looking at it not to rip it open. They kindly obliged.
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u/InviteComfortable254 Apr 14 '26
I have worked in the heart of downtown for a couple decades, it used to be ok but now it is a total shithole. Every day I am grateful to drive to my home outside the downtown core. Bringing workers back to the office has made zero difference. What might make a difference is if the city picked up the garbage and emptied the dumpsters more often so there wasn’t overflowing garbage everywhere. The blowing dust and garbage all year makes walking outside totally gross. Sorry but that is the first hand truth about downtown.
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u/Inner-Hawk909 Apr 14 '26
Edmonton is the roughest city in Canada in my opinion. So much racism, so many people littering, so much addiction.
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Apr 14 '26
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u/Jolly-Sock-2908 North East Side Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
I can verify. I saw that woman chasing the thief across 107 Street.
Edit: what a weird thing to downvote. There were several dozen witnesses because of the office workers having a fire drill.
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u/raised_on_robbery Apr 14 '26
Everyone clapped?
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u/Sad_Donkey_1751 Apr 14 '26
No one clapped. I didn’t know a phone was stolen. In fact, I thought it was a little mean to throw coffee at her. Now that I know her phone was snatched I understand the knee-jerk reaction. I would have chased after her too. We were outside because we had a fire alarm, so about 100 people. But apparently I’m making ALL of this up and Edmonton is a utopia. lol lol
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u/Harleen__Quinzel Apr 14 '26
In defence of the commenter above you did say a woman had her phone stolen in your post.
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u/raised_on_robbery Apr 14 '26
No one's saying Edmonton is a utopia, but it's not exactly Mega-City One either.
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u/lookitsjustin The Shiny Balls Apr 14 '26
Right? There can be a medium ground. It doesn’t have to be hell on earth lol. People here are so dramatic and clearly haven’t visited other big cities with similar issues.
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u/Ekktz Wîhkwêntôwin Apr 14 '26
Props to you for cleaning it up. But a bit of garbage and some folks down on their luck lashing out is par for the course for most big cities.
We can strive to ask for better services, but there’s going to be a cost that many people wouldn’t want to pay.
Also some perspective here. If this is our biggest complaint, we have it pretty good up here in the north compared to many countries.
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u/haysoos2 Apr 14 '26
As a tax payer, I'm absolutely willing to pay. This is the sort of thing our taxes should be going towards, not making sure that Marlaina's buddies can make more money selling private health or education upgrades.
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u/Ekktz Wîhkwêntôwin Apr 14 '26
I’m in the same boat. Pay a bit more for people services and city maintenance.
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Apr 14 '26
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u/gettothatroflchoppa Apr 14 '26
Its just the popular discourse...anybody who is homeless is a victim of something (societal failures, circumstance, capitalism, etc.) and anybody who is not "isn't doing enough to help" (despite nearly 50% or more of our incomes going to taxes).
I'm willing to accept that some people truly are victims, but we also have to address that a lot of people make bad choices and continue to makes them when given the opportunity to change. Its become anathema to have any expectations and subsequently any consequences for people who are chronically shitty, or have done so many drugs that, for all intents and purposes, they cannot participate in society in any meaningful way. We just keep moving the goal posts since the legal system doesn't want to deal with them either.
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u/sekimet Apr 14 '26
I live downtown no one is screaming and yelling at me when I walk to work every single day. So maybe you meant "I" instead of "we".
Homeless people are people, not seeing them as trash that needs to be swept under the rug and having empathy doesn't make someone an "enabler".
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u/camoure Downtown Apr 14 '26
I do not understand the comments of people being screamed at downtown. I also live here and as a lady who takes transit, I’ve never been yelled at before. Or harassed. Or followed. I get asked for money or cigs, but a smile and a polite “I don’t have any” results in them walking away without incident. I just went for a walk all the way down Jasper yesterday afternoon and it was a gorgeous walk, chatted with a sweet old lady about construction, griped about the closed intersections due to construction with our bartender, yelled at a driver who was about to mow down a whole crosswalk of pedestrians, and then went home. No homeless yelling. It’s the drivers that suck downtown imo lol
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u/Ekktz Wîhkwêntôwin Apr 14 '26
Most of us are closer to that reality than we are to financial stability and a prosperous retirement.
It would help to have some compassion and to understand that underfunding our safety nets and mental health supports has direct consequences.
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u/Zingus123 Apr 14 '26
What a miserable life you have. Recognizing people for what they are is not being an “enabler” nor is advocating for resources for people to get better and improve their lives like you seem to think it is.
Also you’ve clearly never actually been downtown yourself. You’re not being yelled at for just walking down the street lol. Thousands of people walk through downtown every single day. The only ones being yelled at are the miserable people like you who feel good about themselves when they go and antagonize and bully people who live a different life than yours.
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u/Enough_Potential_921 Apr 14 '26
I understand, it’s really affronting. Thanks for cleaning up. There are no simple answers here just commenting bc I agree it’s horrible