63 responses so far ↓

• 1 Frances Bula // May 13, 2011 at 7:22 am

  @George. Sorry if my comments came across harsher than I realized. Considering the things that have been said about me on this blog (comments that occasionally, yes, make me feel like shutting the blog down and moving to Africa to do missionary work), I thought it was pretty mild but you didn’t. So I apologize. You didn’t indicate in your post why it appears to you that Vancouver gets more homeless people than other places you visit. And I guess I am a little impatient with that observation about the DTES, which I’ve heard so often. Sure, Vancouver provides services. So do other places with homeless people. There’s always an argument that providing services just attracts more homeless people. But I haven’t seen a jurisdiction yet in the western industrialized world where people are willing to simply cut the homeless off and let them die in the streets.

  For a long time, it was Vancouver doing most of the heavy lifting. But Surrey has improved its services and shelters for the homeless by leaps and bounds under Dianne Watts. The suburban municipalities have all, to varying degrees, starting stepping up their services. Maple Ridge has had a shelter for a long time. I believe Langley is building one or has just finished one. North Vancouver got theirs about a decade ago. As well, some of the province’s smaller cities have also mounted big anti-homelessness efforts: Kelowna, Nanaimo, Prince George. The premier’s anti-homelessness task force got set up many years ago precisely because those smaller cities were finding themselves overwhelmed.

• 2 Max // May 13, 2011 at 8:05 am

  @Frances #46 and #50

  You are absolutely correct. Seattle is looking at refurbishing an old fire station (#39) in order to help house their homeless as well, discussing opening up a lot where they can set up roughly 1,000 tents.

  San Francisco, beautiful city that it is, has a huge homeless problem. You can’t walk half a block without stepping over someone sitting on the sidewalk panhandling. But I have yet to see anyone shooting up or smoking pot on the streets.

  Calgary, during my last trip, I was asked for a ciggy. I don’t smoke and made the sad mistake of saying ‘sorry buddy, I don’t smoke’ ‘Buddy turned out to be a woman. I could not tell at first glance because she had her coat hood pull tight over her face. She went off on me – screaming at me, pushing me. I thought great, I’m going to get into a fight with a junkie in downtown Calgary. It was lovely.

  Prince George (my home town) has/had a very bad problem. The downtown core around the courthouse and City Hall area was like out DTES. There were drunks and junkies passed out on the streets. At one point, PG also boasted the highest rate of HIV per capita, in Canada.

  Vancouver is the largest city in the province and becuase our weather is typically milder, a draw for all kinds.

  I have participated in the homeless partners Christmas program for the last 4 years and if you read the profiles of the people, most are not from Vancouver, the Lower Mainland or BC. Most are from Manitoba, Ontario and in some cases, the US.

  Vancouver is carrying the brundt of the problem because we are a city. And when you make the claim, you are going to end homelessness, well, people will come.

• 3 Max // May 13, 2011 at 8:39 am

  I think the reason why Vancouver gets so much attention on the matter of homelessness is that the advocates do keep the matter in the news and the DTES and all of its issues is like a city within the city.

  You have 10 square blocks of poverty and drug addiction right on the tip of Gastown, a high traffic tourist area and Chinatown, another high traffic tourist area.

  Vancouver seems to be a social experiment when it comes to homeless and drug issues. We’ve had films and documentaries done the area – it suffers from its own fame.

  As for all the services George, I will again state the Province needs to do a complete forensic accounting on where monies are being spent, cull duplicate services (last count there were 177 groups working in the DTES) and put in any services that are bing missed.

  And the laws need to be enforced. I don’t go this, one set of laws for law abiding citizens and another set of bendable laws for those that don’t abide the laws to begin with. Sorry, but the ‘advocates’ have that wrong and aren’t doing anyone any favors by stating ‘poor’ people should be subject to a different set of laws.

  Look at the history of the area. We went from having 2,000 addicts back in the 60’s/70′ to roughly 10,000 now.

  So you either come up with a solid plan and stick with it, or you turn a blind eye and 10 years down the road the number of addicted with be 15,000 and so on.

  Baldy Hughes Treatment Centre in Prince George would be a good model to look at – for a start.

• 4 Max // May 13, 2011 at 11:16 am

  A good news story for the DTES;

  Restaurateur keeps the neon glowing at Save-on-Meats

  Closed two years ago, iconic Hastings Street store will reopen after Mark Brand’s million-dollar renovation
  By Malcolm Parry, Vancouver Sun

  Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Restaurateur+keeps+neon+glowing+Save+Meats/4769684/story.html#ixzz1MG2YZggS

• 5 ThinkOutsideABox // May 13, 2011 at 12:29 pm

  Frances just to elaborate on my #49,

  When speaking to council on May 5 regarding the Cambie Corridor plan, Bob Rennie stated that Urban Futures’ projections for Vancouver population growth was 97,957 over the next 15 years.

• 6 Jason // May 13, 2011 at 12:52 pm

  George, I think you’re being overly sensitive, and Frances was simply making a point…a very important point:

  We constantly stereotype the homeless as homeless from other places who’ve all come here to take advantage of our Province…and it’s simply not the case. Anyone who reads the vancouverhomelesscount2010 will be struck by the demographics – the sick, the elderly, the aboriginal….all individual groups that have unique underlying social problems that need to be addressed…most of whom are NOT from other Provinces.

  And to say that the HEAT shelters are somehow encouraging homelessness to move to Vancouver seems like a real stretch to me without some sort of stats to back it up (and the homelesscount DOES NOT back that up).

  Maybe I’m now stereotyping, but if I was homeless in Toronto, I’m not reading the daily paper looking at the homeless conditions across the country so that I can decide to make the “easy” move to the area that provides me the best homeless environment.

• 7 Frances Bula // May 13, 2011 at 2:20 pm

  @TOB. That sounds to me like the population projections for Vancouver alone. When I talked about the 40,000, I was talking about the region. So maybe we actually agree, but are just talking about different statistics for different pieces of geography.

• 8 ThinkOutsideABox // May 13, 2011 at 2:43 pm

  Thanks for clarifying Frances, I wasn’t sure myself.

• 9 Frances Bula // May 13, 2011 at 2:54 pm

  @TOB. This is my current statistical bible on future population growth, from Metro Vancouver’s regional growth strategy. You can see Vancouver is project to go to about 740000 from the current 645ish. And the region from 2.4 million to about 3.4 million

  http://www.metrovancouver.org/planning/development/strategy/RGSBackgroundersNew/RGSMetro2040ResidentialGrowth.pdf

• 10 George // May 14, 2011 at 6:31 pm

  Thanks all, Bill, Frances, and yes Jason perhaps I was being over sensitive… To be honest after I pushed the submit button I regretted it.. I really didn’t want to leave 🙂

  Blogs need edit buttons!!

• 11 George // May 14, 2011 at 10:35 pm

  Jason @ 55

  “I’m not reading the daily paper looking at the homeless conditions across the country so that I can decide to make the “easy” move to the area that provides me the best homeless environment.”

  I’m not sure I agree with you Jason, if I’m homeless and addicted, if I know there is a city with mild climate, free food, warm shelters, free clothes, and the freedom to openly do my drug of choice… build it and they will come…and as we all know good news travels fast… I think the lure of the way we look at drug use attracts many.. every addict in the country has heard of Insite….

• 12 Chris Keam // May 15, 2011 at 12:19 pm

  You missed Jason’s most important point George. There’s no evidence people are coming from far away to reside in Vancouver based on our drug policies or any other variable that’s attractive to homeless people or those with addictions. Further, if you’re living hand to mouth and need to fix on a regular basis, a four day Greyhound trip from Toronto to Vancouver is going to be hard to manage both financially and physically.

• 13 George // May 16, 2011 at 11:22 am

  Chris Keam… Great point Chris, but I think my point was more of a provincial thing that morphed into a Canada wide statement…

  But to play Devil’s Advocate here… if it is mid winter Montreal, and you are on the street… how big a home break- in do you’d have to do, on some rich dude’s house to get you enough money to purchase a bus ticket and a stash to get to “Nirvana”..

  Our government gives bus tickets to reunite homeless to their families… how far fetched is it to imagine that other provincial governments would do the same to lower they welfare rolls… just something to think about.

  This does exist, I was in a meeting 2 years ago for advocates, when the topic was discussed with welfare workers…