We need more state run harm reduction sites to get the drug users into clean and safer environments where they may be coaxed back to reality at some point. Stop chasing pot growers and users, and focus on imported drugs instead. Tax marijuana sales (not possession), and punish growers and dealers for tax evasion (if they don’t pay up).

We need more affordable housing. It’s virtually impossible for someone on minimum wage to purchase a home, that has to change. Even with a partner, home ownership is still unlikely. We have to change attitudes about debt too, so wealthy (and poor) people don’t use credit cards as debit cards. To fix this situation the state should be providing post secondary education to all who apply and meet a minimum grade requirement. Credit for retail purchases should be more difficult to obtain, and credit for food or major purchases or businesses, such as a house or car, more available.

And as you said, we need to improve the sense of community. For instance, television isn’t doing that, and it’s probably harming society a great deal more than it helps. We have the Internet now for global information, so broadcast television should focus on local news, information, and entertainment.

In Saskatoon we don’t have a lot of homeless on the streets (less than 100 during the summer months and almost none in the winter months) which is far less than Victoria.

I agree that you need to crack down hard on the dealers. I know of one (before he was arrested) would park himself down from the N.A. meetings and pick off people as they were a block away from getting help. We have zero tolerance for dealers at the Centre and I would love to see tougher sentences for them. I don’t know what it is like in Victoria but here the gangs control the drugs and according to reports, the Hell’s Angels control it all. It’s a big problem.

I don’t see pentecostal/fundamental/mega churches helping the complexity of street people much, but I do see the traditional mainline churches (UMC, UCC, Episcopal) of the suburbs as having potential, along with the resources, to partner with professionals like the Salvation Army. Of course, you don’t need a metro government to do that, but having one helps create the awareness. Most of your top high school students (Canadians would call them “University bound”) are already metro-centric as well as community service centric, so there is a fabric to begin with.