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Fez Batik to be turned into homeless shelter

A friend of mine was telling me about an analysis he heard on the radio.
Essentially, the amount of money being spent on this project is enough to buy condos for all 40 homeless people, pay their condo fees, and have enough money left over for support staff to provide counselling.

That is a much better idea than this.

Mr. Vaughan: you don't kill a club district by building homeless shelters to make the area less desirable. You kill it by lifting the antiquated bylaws stipulating that clubs in T.O. can only be located in the area. Then the problems of the area, which are partially due to the overconcentration of drinking establishments, will decrease.

And the area is not so bad. Remember, in the 1980s, this area was an industrial wasteland. Entertainment was almost wholly responsible for the areas regeneration.
 
I'm just doing the math a bit more...

for the projected 2.5 million in operating costs (that is projected, when was the last time the city was underbudget?),

it's the equivelent of 60k per bed per year.

That equals to $5,000.00 a month for ONE bed! I don't know about you guys but, you can easily rent a LUXURY one bedroom ($2,000.00??) and still live very comfortably on a 3000 monthluy spending spree....

how does ANYONE justify this? blows my mind.
 
Jonny5 said:
WHAT? A faulty foundation, collapsing roof and a damaged draining system aren't apparent? Isn't that what you hire a building inspector for? Hell, the city doesn't even need to hire them, it employs them!

I wouldn't be surprised to find out the city purchased a building that was ON FIRE and then six months later say it wasn't apparent at the time.
Click to expand...

This city has gone nuts with its spending.:mad:

Shelter cost balloons to $10M
City bought old nightclub for $4.6M and has been paying through the nose ever since

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2009/12/02/12003611-sun.html
 
carrefour said:
And the area is not so bad. Remember, in the 1980s, this area was an industrial wasteland. Entertainment was almost wholly responsible for the areas regeneration.
Click to expand...

Actually, in the 80s the area was already in the process of arts-oriented renewal--indeed, some might say that from *that* standpoint (living on most noticably at 401 Richmond), the "entertainment" that's supposedly responsible for the regeneration is part of the downfall instead...
 
carrefour said:
A friend of mine was telling me about an analysis he heard on the radio.
Essentially, the amount of money being spent on this project is enough to buy condos for all 40 homeless people, pay their condo fees, and have enough money left over for support staff to provide counselling.

That is a much better idea than this.

Mr. Vaughan: you don't kill a club district by building homeless shelters to make the area less desirable. You kill it by lifting the antiquated bylaws stipulating that clubs in T.O. can only be located in the area. Then the problems of the area, which are partially due to the overconcentration of drinking establishments, will decrease.

And the area is not so bad. Remember, in the 1980s, this area was an industrial wasteland. Entertainment was almost wholly responsible for the areas regeneration.
Click to expand...

It may support 40 homeless people for a week. We need supportive housing, not just condos. It costs over 900 dollars per day to keep someone in hospital..that's just the cost of a bed, an RN, meals and meds for the day. There are HUNDREDS of people awaiting to be housed, whom are just sitting in CAMH because they law stipulates that you can't discharge a patient without an address. If the shelters are full, which they usually are. Do you think that 900$ a day per person times over 100 patients is any better?
 
Perhaps the city should set standards for shelters in terms of design and specifications, then put out tenders for private firms to construct these facilities. It takes out a lot of the risk of this sort of thing happening, and is transparent to the end user of the shelter, since it would still be operated the way they are today. The city could even tender bids for a certain number of beds in a given area of the city, and let the bidders come up with the most cost-effective locations subject to the tender criteria.
 
Now I know this from one of the previous tenants of the building that, purportedly, the building was valued (very generously) at $2 Million. It was in such rough shape that even a prime downtown location like this, it was undervalued. How the city screwed up and paid over 200% of what the true price of the building no one knows. It just shows that our city council is more in love with an ideal than reality.
 
afransen said:
Perhaps the city should set standards for shelters in terms of design and specifications, then put out tenders for private firms to construct these facilities. It takes out a lot of the risk of this sort of thing happening, and is transparent to the end user of the shelter, since it would still be operated the way they are today. The city could even tender bids for a certain number of beds in a given area of the city, and let the bidders come up with the most cost-effective locations subject to the tender criteria.
Click to expand...

that would take away from too many city unionized jobs.... lots of political clout there...

lol.. I'm so cynical!
 
wanderer66 said:
Now I know this from one of the previous tenants of the building that, purportedly, the building was valued (very generously) at $2 Million. It was in such rough shape that even a prime downtown location like this, it was undervalued. How the city screwed up and paid over 200% of what the true price of the building no one knows. It just shows that our city council is more in love with an ideal than reality.
Click to expand...

What happened is that Adam Vaughan desperately wanted to buy the property so that he could install the homeless shelter in the middle of the club district in order to accelerate the closure of the clubs. Obviously if it was just about housing the homeless they could have found a comparable building on a less prominent site in the neighbourhood for a fraction of the price.
 
"What happened is that Adam Vaughan desperately wanted to buy the property"... shows that those who run this city have no idea of what the term "fiscal responsibility" is.
 
The club district has it's issues, but I think the choice of building a shelter in the middle of it was an irresponsible one.

Queen Street west has it's fair share of YWCA centres, drug addiction centres, and youth hostels that it didn't need this.

How much more of a concentration of drug addicts, mentally ill and homeless do we need near Queen and Spadina?
 
"Actually, in the 80s the area was already in the process of arts-oriented renewal--indeed, some might say that from *that* standpoint (living on most noticably at 401 Richmond), the "entertainment" that's supposedly responsible for the regeneration is part of the downfall instead..."

By this logic why stop there? You could also say that the arts-oriented renewal was part of the downfall as well.
 
25 August 2010: blurry night shot:

Just imagine if RF becomes mayor he'll sell this to a private developer and we'll end up with a 199 storey tower! :p

dsc02672l.jpg
 
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