This is from the city where it’s illegal to be homeless. One man even collected over $100,000 in fines for being homeless.
Yeah, that’ll help.
Man that sounded wild to me, so I dug around a bit and it’s fucking true. Although the amount is closer to $110,000 it’s still insane.
Hey, we heard you can’t afford a house, so we’re charging you fines in the amount of what it would have cost to buy a house…we’re so cool! We solved homelessness! Because now if you want to be homeless, it actually costs more to NOT buy a house. So you may as well just buy a house!
We did it guys! We ended the concept of homelessness! High five!
we’re charging you fines in the amount of what it would have cost to buy a house
Oh how I wish I could buy a house for that kind of money. You should go look at what housing costs in Canadian cities.
Yeah, it was from awhile ago. I couldn’t remember if it was one or two hundred thousand. I’ve corrected my comment to be more accurate. Here’s an article on it.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-homeless-man-100k-fines-1.3473707
Canada does not have debtor’s jail. Nothing will really happen except that more fines will keep racking up. No collection agency is going to take on a homeless person’s debt, so eventually those debts will just disappear, assuming he makes no effort to pay them off.
In the meantime, if he tries to escape homelessness, it’s a lot harder nowadays to find an apartment with a landlord that doesn’t check your credit, and 100k+ in unpaid debts looks really bad.
It’s not “being homeless” that is illegal, though. It’s drinking in public, begging or sleeping in the metro. And it sure is tough not staying in the metro during winter. There are some organisms that can provide shelter, but not enough for everyone, and it usually cost a couple dollars, which not everyone have everyday. And it’s a real problem on both sides, as the metro was not meant to become a shelter for the homeless, and people have been complaining more and more they feel unsafe there.
Sure “being homeless” isn’t the crime itself but you’re being naive if you don’t think the laws make homelessness illegal. What are they supposed to do? Go find a piece of land no one has claim to and freeze to death?
And what are we supposed to do? Legalize all drugs and being drunk in public just to avoid having to fine them, and install beds everywhere in the Underground City (and in this post’s case, in emergency stairwells at the Complexe Desjardins) with no regard for their regular use?
Sure, let’s work on proposing more accessible legal alternatives. Just take note that these laws weren’t created to punish the homeless, but to have a clean and safe public space - which have been degrading for some time now.
As someone else said, there is La Maison du Père that provide (almost) free shelter.
Otherwise, there are provincial, municipal and private orgasms that help as they can with some services for reinsertion. Like the “L’Itinéraire” magazine.
The SPVM (police department) are also there to help during interventions with people with mental illness, in crisis, or to give references for some government’s services. During great cold they are often outside to distribute goods and coffee. They don’t just give fines.
Organisms, and probably that kind of beast that Luke Skywalker cuts open and uses for a sleeping bag to survive the cold.
I honestly don’t know if this is better or worse than the ear murdering high pitched screeching they play in the stairwells at a mall in Ottawa
So as a worker with a house, can I sue when I go insane from hearing that song over and over? Didn’t they do this in Guantánamo to torture and break people?
They only had death metal and industrial goth music back then. Nothing as terrible as Baby Shark existed at the time.
At least its music, though this does confirm that Baby Shark is something they’d have played at Gitmo if it’d been around 2 decades ago.
I have been to many places where things like these are everywhere:
Imagine this but diesel powered, a bit chonkier, and they just emit this high pitched scream (there are other versions called ‘mosquito alarms’), and has extremely bright, blue strobing lights that will induce seizures in anyone susceptible.
I always feel an urge to sabotage those things when I see them, were only they not covered in literal cameras
IR LEDs + Disposable, thick framed novelty glasses
Clothes you can toss or donate
Ingress and Egress method about 1/2 mile away from target, different locations and methods for each.
Ability to sprint for 10 minutes
Above average situational awareness
Do not bring your phone
Don’t return to the area for 3 months
Unhoused? Has homeless as a word been banned?
In the US they mean different things, as homeless includes people living in other people’s homes. That can include people whose house just burnt down and are living with friends or family because they lost their permanent residence (home). Unhoused is about where they are staying.
People on the street are homeless and unhoused.
And you really think people use and understand these terms like that?
You may be correct in the academic sense, but completely wrong in all other senses.
Not sure about Canada, but in the US:
Homeless = no permanent residence, which also includes couch surfing, parents and children who just fled an abusive family member and are temporarily ltaying with friends or relatives, and people who are living in their car. All people without a home.
Unhoused = homeless people that don’t have a roof over their heads. Might include living in a car.
They are synonyms. Please don’t make things up.
Edit: to all the knee-jerk downvoting. This is literally a quote from an article the user himself supplied as proof that there is a difference.
Unhoused is probably the most popular alternative to the word “homeless.” It’s undoubtedly the one I see most often recommended by advocates. But it doesn’t have a meaningful difference in connotation from the more common term, “homeless.”
It’s literally just a pc synonym of homeless.
They are not. I work with data collections on students and have had to explain the difference to people who don’t understand that a kid who is kicked out of their home and is staying with friends is homeless even if they are not out on the street for federal reporting.
Homelessness defined in law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/11302#
A more thorough explanation that contrasts the terms: https://invisiblepeople.tv/homeless-houseless-unhoused-or-unsheltered-which-term-is-right/
I think the idea is to put the responsibility for housing onto society/authority as opposed to the victim.
Perhaps to some people, but to me it does sound like a homeless person just happens to be without.
Whereas an unhoused person has been let down by whoever is responsible for ensuring people are housed.
