For Victoria’s downtown businesses, there are some days when the homelessness, toxic-drug and mental-health crisis is an abstract thought, and others when it wanders into a bakery wearing a bathrobe and hospital gown.
“We need to help these people properly. Not just handouts like what the government is doing because it’s not working,” she said. “That’s going to be the first step in trying to revitalize this downtown and all of the cities. I mean we’re not alone — it’s everywhere.” He said it was a signal to the new government that the city wants to work with it from Day One to address some of the issues in the downtown core.
Loss of parking and congested traffic flow due to bike lanes, construction, changing traffic patterns and increased volume has scared off a number of people, she said. “I hear it a lot from people, that they don’t want to come into town because of all the construction, the parking issues, the homelessness. There’s just so many things against us right now.”