Toon Dreessen

What an absolutely excellent thread. Every single post contains a new information and helps. Illustrate the challenges. Ottawa has faced for decades. Ask yourself what we can change to make #OurBestOttawa

Professionals offer their advice and recommendations in the public interest, and it gets rejected by untrained, unaccountable, and unregulated, who like the skills, training and expertise to make decisions. This is why a city architect is needed (not me, FTR, I’d be terrible)

Astonishing. Good advice that’s given in the public interest by professionals is rejected. Happen then, happens today. And look where we are. The roots of inequalities started long ago. And it’s still in place.

Aerial photo of Ottawa's downtown in 1976, showing lots of surface parking lots and office buildings from above.

The report suggested Ottawa limit parking downtown and encourage pedestrian movement. This didn’t pan out. Ten years after the bylaw was adopted, the core was littered with surface parking—producing the “dead areas” Bacon warned about.

I have to wonder if this is the first of now many instances of professional advice being rejected. Still happens to this day.

I keep thinking about this thread. I’ve always had a place in my heart for @lucyvanolden.bsky.social (my first interview as OAA Prez that then went national and reconnected me w/some very special I’d lost touch with); Lucy is so right on here. So perfect. So perfectly right on. All of this.

As a serious leader at FCM, an influential organization where leadership needs key thoughtful persons who understand the issues; Tim clearly doesn’t. We need real leaders, real voices and real compassion, empathy and understanding of issues.

Every single thing about this thoughtful thread from @lucyvanolden.bsky.social is bang on. Thank you.

Tim’s opinion piece angered me in so many ways, so baseless and wrong, his “head in the sand” approach doesn’t deserve another moments thought. What concerns me more is Tim is positioned 1/

I live in Somerset Ward and I see the crisis growing in our neighbourhood. The status quo just isn't cutting it. 21/FIN

This. The cohort of 16-9 votes at council win, and claim victory and try to convince us that they’re doing the right thing and yet year after year, we see the same issues: chronic underfunding of social infrastructure while $ bleeds out to unsustainable suburban/rural wards.

Likewise, my MPP Catherine McKenney has shown what real leadership looks like: thinking broadly, strategically, and compassionately—not through the narrow, myopic spectacles Tierney seems to have had glued to his face for years. 16/

Tierney’s baseless attacks erase the tireless work of my city councillor Ariel Troster and the councillor in the ward next door, Jeff Leiper. They’ve both been dogged in pushing for evidence-based solutions, better housing policy, and a humane, effective response to the crises 14

According to the official ANCHOR Year One Update:
ANCHOR responded to 4,464 calls in its first year.

-Over 92% of people in crisis contacted ANCHOR directly, not police.
-92.47% of dispatched ANCHOR calls did not require police involvement. 11/

police shouldn’t be tied up responding to mental health crises. But don’t take my word for it, look at the stats: 10/21

But ANCHOR is working. We’ve seen it. They regularly deliver calm, trauma-informed support which then frees up police time. If Tierney genuinely wants officers available for criminal investigations, he should understand the simplest operational truth: 9/21

collapsing, and the toxic drug supply keeps killing people. Rising need reflects the scale of the emergency, not the failure of the response. By Tierney’s logic, policing itself “doesn’t work” every time crime rises. 8/

Then there’s his most simplistic piece of logic: the idea that because the city is facing more challenges, that somehow means programs like ANCHOR “don’t work.” No, Tim. The problems are getting worse because the housing crisis is worsening, mental health supports are 7/

homelessness, addiction, or mental illness. 6/21

These aren’t side issues, they are the root causes of the disorder and suffering we’re all witnessing. After all these years on Council, Tierney should understand that his ward is not the same as the inner-urban core, and that policing does not and cannot solve 5/

What’s most striking in his piece is what he doesn’t mention even once:
-our city’s housing emergency,
-the growing mental health crisis, and
-the poison drug epidemic devastating families and neighbourhoods. 4/21

And it certainly isn’t a politician with the guts needed to find real solutions. 3/21

Especially when it involves increasing police spending. For fifteen years he has consistently voted the way whichever mayor of the moment has told him to. That is not leadership. That is not independent judgment. 2/

Councillor Tim Tierney is wrong about ‘Chronic No-Voters’ in his Ottawa Citizen Op/Ed on Saturday.
His opinion would be easier to take seriously if the comments weren’t coming from someone with a 15-year track record of being a reliable yes-man for every budget. 1/21

Everyone here that lives in/ around #ottawa should take the minute or so to read this thoughtful retort to 'Tim'.

As a "reliable yes-man for every budget", Tim owns the impacts of these noted issues, yet, is good to point the finger at others.

#ottpoli is alive and well.

Tim Tierney, pay attention to ANCHOR Article content Re: Is your councillor a chronic no-voter on city budgets? Article content Article content Councillor Tim Tierney is not offering solutions; he’s pandering to his constituents in an election year. Article content If he wanted to address the issues facing Somerset and Kitchissippi and other downtown wards, he would pay attention to the staff report on the ANCHOR program. Article content Article content In its first year of operation, ANCHOR received 4,464 calls, with almost 400 of those transferred from 911 operators. Over half those calls were solved over the phone by the community navigators. And 42 percent were attended to by the ANCHOR teams. Only 5.62% were redirected to OPS because of possible harm to persons. Read that again, Tim: 5.62% Article content ANCHOR is a very cost-effective way for the city to address the many calls for mental health and substance abuse issues. What would it have cost us to send police to attend to 1,800 calls for mental health and substance issues? How would police have resolved these cases? By hauling away people to Innes Road for having mental health issues? Cops are not social workers. We can’t arrest our way out of this crisis. Beacon Hill is not Chinatown. As someone who lives in Chinatown/Little Italy, I see the impact of this crisis every day. The ANCHOR program is one part of the solution. But we all know that what is really needed is more mental health and substance abuse help and, most importantly, more housing with high acuity supports. Councillors Troster and Leiper are pushing for the right solutions.

Tim Tierney, pay attention to ANCHOR Article content Re: Is your councillor a chronic no-voter on city budgets? Article content Article content Councillor Tim Tierney is not offering solutions; he’s pandering to his constituents in an election year. Article content If he wanted to address the issues facing Somerset and Kitchissippi and other downtown wards, he would pay attention to the staff report on the ANCHOR program. Article content Article content In its first year of operation, ANCHOR received 4,464 calls, with almost 400 of those transferred from 911 operators. Over half those calls were solved over the phone by the community navigators. And 42 percent were attended to by the ANCHOR teams. Only 5.62% were redirected to OPS because of possible harm to persons. Read that again, Tim: 5.62% Article content ANCHOR is a very cost-effective way for the city to address the many calls for mental health and substance abuse issues. What would it have cost us to send police to attend to 1,800 calls for mental health and substance issues? How would police have resolved these cases? By hauling away people to Innes Road for having mental health issues? Cops are not social workers. We can’t arrest our way out of this crisis. Beacon Hill is not Chinatown. Article content As someone who lives in Chinatown/Little Italy, I see the impact of this crisis every day. The ANCHOR program is one part of the solution. But we all know that what is really needed is more mental health and substance abuse help and, most importantly, more housing with high acuity supports. Councillors Troster and Leiper are pushing for the right solutions.

Grateful to Catherine Boucher (@bearswim.bsky.social) and the Dalhousie Community Association for standing up for evidence-based policy when it comes to addiction, homelessness and crime rates — in Chinatown and across Ottawa.

Say it louder for the people in the back: “Cops are not social workers. We can’t arrest our way out of this crisis.”

ANALYSIS: How the NCC is reimagining Ottawa — and fighting mediocrity | TVO Today Big. Bold. Ambitious. Ottawa?

ANALYSIS: How the NCC is reimagining Ottawa — and fighting mediocrity by Andrew Cohen

https://www.tvo.org/article/analysis-how-the-ncc-is-reimagining-ottawa-and-fighting-mediocrity

I had no idea (but am not surprised). I guess there’s hope. Wish I had a fraction of the talent of Gehry.

Epiphanies from Frank Gehry The starchitect on his first project in the Arab world -- and why it's hard these days to find a benevolent dictator with taste.

Frank Gehry was political and he endlessly identified himself as such. His political speech: “I think the best thing is to have a benevolent dictator — who has taste!”

100% this. Endless police $ isn’t the answer. Finland solved their homelessness problems by funding people not police. We can do the same if we want to. It starts by voting no on budgets that go against your beliefs and morals. Fund #PlacesForPeople