Discussions

If people didn’t give them money they would move on.

Interesting that councilor Desjarlais waited this long to offer an opinion. When you look at how downtown Brandon has deteriorated under his watch for the last 8 years, it makes you just shake your head that he is speaking up now when he is facing an election.

This is just the first time you have seen it at the council level. You don't know if he has been in contact with BPS voicing his concerns. Bringing it up at a council level is important, but it does little to get real action from those who enforce by-laws.  
 
And the Chief Balcaen made a great point, you can make a by-law dealing with them, but penalizing them with fines doesn't work, and what they are doing isn't worth detaining them...so it's basically catch and release, and see you again tomorrow.

The ACTIONS of politicians should be considered over the course of their time in office, not what they decided should be a priority 8 years after they have already been in office. To me, this is election pandering, and it is of the worst kind. I don't like that. What good is bringing this up when you have already had a significant amount of time to address these concerns, and especially when you have occupied a seat in the downtown core, where this should be a high priority. An election is not the time to begin to bring up issues related to your constituents, and particularly after you have been in office for 8 long years and when solutions these issues have long been ignored.

obviously the coral center doesn't care about their image bu I see that Walmart discourages them

I'm shocked at the lack of compassion I've been reading in these replies. The insinuation that somehow "fining" people who already don't have a home will fix the problem just goes to show how little people understand about homelessness.  
 
Not that I can say that I'm an expert either, however a much better solution than continuing to stigmatize homelessness is to offer people appropriate financial aid as well as addictions and mental health services. Unless we address these core issues the problem will never improve. All of us here are closer to homelessness than we are to being millionaires.

are sure they are corral center property????

For the most part, the panhandlers are on City property (the street or median and this i:ncludes up 18th by the Mall and Canadian Tire). That said, the odd time they are now at the doors of Safeway asking for money (not just standing with signs). When informed, the managers at Safeway make them leave their lots.