HOMELESSNESS IN WOODSTOCK AND OXFORD COUNTY
We currently have an escalating homelessness problem in Oxford County, and especially here in Woodstock, Ontario. The escalation's been increasingly obvious in the last couple years, as tensions have been noticeably rising.
The issue seems to mostly be in our downtown core, but problems have been happening all over town (and in some ways, the county); and currently, mental health services and other homeless programs (which are having their own problems, even within the ones being run by churches), aren't helping solve the dilemma either. Having the location, for most of the services they rely on be downtown is especially not helping -- since most families don't even walk downtown anymore; they stop at the one store they're headed to, and then get back in their cars and leave. Which means all of the other surrounding businesses have most certainly lost foot traffic (at a time when covid is creating it's own problems), because there's always a congregation of people, shopping carts, and 'help me, I'm homeless' signs all over the place (and now, a much larger number of commercial units are empty, compared to just 18 months ago).
But what everyone's currently debating seems to lie in what the solution is.
Back in 2015, a group in Oxford County found the homeless population to be 101 people (although that study was extremely biased); and that number is visibly far too low to be the current number of homeless people today (in 2021, and in Woodstock alone, at least when you count those who have somewhere to stay, but hang out downtown all day or night). With mental health issues, and especially addiction -- we can see that theft, fraud, etc., is skyrocketing amongst that group: more and more people are moving from the "they have mental health and addition issues, they deserve our sympathy" side, to the "shit's flying off the handle, and something needs to be done" side.
After many of us have: had our cars, homes and businesses broken into (sometimes multiple times, by the same person, group or different people); stolen from; and more shenanigans, such as needles, meth pipes, and other paraphernalia, found in our parks; our homes, such as in apartment buildings and front lawns; and I'm sure a ton of other places -- jeez, there was a guy shooting up, in the middle of the credit union a couple months ago, in the middle of the day, without a care in the world that it was full of people.
All of our banks, and a good chunk of our downtown apartment buildings, have had to start locking our front doors at night. Businesses in town are losing a ton of money from theft (the brand-name businesses have insurance to cover those loses, but most of our small businesses have too high of a deductible to bother claiming it, and wind up having to eat the cost). Many downtown businesses, and building owners, have even had to resort to putting up metal doors across their entrances, so their entryways aren't slept in overnight (and even during the day sometimes) and / or shopping carts aren't randomly left there. etc., etc..
I'm sure, there's a ton of other things I could list, that just aren't coming to mind right now.
So again, what is the solution? Because if someone has one, shoot me an email -- I'm willing to be involved in whatever good idea people come up with. Everyone can feel it (reading comments in groups, and just in the overall way it's being talked about amongst one another) that if someone / a group of people don't think of something, it's just going to keep getting worse, and no one wants to see something worse happen.
The issue seems to mostly be in our downtown core, but problems have been happening all over town (and in some ways, the county); and currently, mental health services and other homeless programs (which are having their own problems, even within the ones being run by churches), aren't helping solve the dilemma either. Having the location, for most of the services they rely on be downtown is especially not helping -- since most families don't even walk downtown anymore; they stop at the one store they're headed to, and then get back in their cars and leave. Which means all of the other surrounding businesses have most certainly lost foot traffic (at a time when covid is creating it's own problems), because there's always a congregation of people, shopping carts, and 'help me, I'm homeless' signs all over the place (and now, a much larger number of commercial units are empty, compared to just 18 months ago).
But what everyone's currently debating seems to lie in what the solution is.
Back in 2015, a group in Oxford County found the homeless population to be 101 people (although that study was extremely biased); and that number is visibly far too low to be the current number of homeless people today (in 2021, and in Woodstock alone, at least when you count those who have somewhere to stay, but hang out downtown all day or night). With mental health issues, and especially addiction -- we can see that theft, fraud, etc., is skyrocketing amongst that group: more and more people are moving from the "they have mental health and addition issues, they deserve our sympathy" side, to the "shit's flying off the handle, and something needs to be done" side.
After many of us have: had our cars, homes and businesses broken into (sometimes multiple times, by the same person, group or different people); stolen from; and more shenanigans, such as needles, meth pipes, and other paraphernalia, found in our parks; our homes, such as in apartment buildings and front lawns; and I'm sure a ton of other places -- jeez, there was a guy shooting up, in the middle of the credit union a couple months ago, in the middle of the day, without a care in the world that it was full of people.
All of our banks, and a good chunk of our downtown apartment buildings, have had to start locking our front doors at night. Businesses in town are losing a ton of money from theft (the brand-name businesses have insurance to cover those loses, but most of our small businesses have too high of a deductible to bother claiming it, and wind up having to eat the cost). Many downtown businesses, and building owners, have even had to resort to putting up metal doors across their entrances, so their entryways aren't slept in overnight (and even during the day sometimes) and / or shopping carts aren't randomly left there. etc., etc..
I'm sure, there's a ton of other things I could list, that just aren't coming to mind right now.
So again, what is the solution? Because if someone has one, shoot me an email -- I'm willing to be involved in whatever good idea people come up with. Everyone can feel it (reading comments in groups, and just in the overall way it's being talked about amongst one another) that if someone / a group of people don't think of something, it's just going to keep getting worse, and no one wants to see something worse happen.
written on May 29th, 2021