"This is the place that scares me the most." --Vancouver community outreach worker Judy Graves, quoted in a Tyee article about homelessness.
Last Thursday, we provided a link to Dan Rather’s recent documentary on the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, a troubling look at some of the issues that have become common place in a ten block stretch of that city centered on the Hastings and Columbia area.
Rather’s report provided details of the exploding rate of HIV infections in Vancouver, the growing number of people at risk in the area and some visuals that would shock most Canadians who like to think of their cities as “World Class” or First world cities.
Some of the scenes and situations presented seem hard to believe possible in Canada’s third largest urban area, but are shown as truly happening each and every day.
And if that wasn’t enough of an eye opener for British Columbians, then a recent piece in the Tyee should certainly set the province to thinking. A piece from Monte Paulson, posted to the Tyee website on Thursday presents a horrifying image of homeless people living underneath the pilings of perhaps one of the most popular tourist attractions in Vancouver, the downtown site of Science World.
Located just across from where the residences for the 2010 athletes village are being constructed, Paulson describes a massive labyrinth of squalor, where the homeless gather nightly that strikes fear into outreach workers in the city, who fear for the safety of those at the most risk in society.
Following Judy Graves around on her tour of the dark under the surface canyons of urban nests, a scene more suitable for a Stephen King novel appears. Pitch black at night, crawling with rats, its here that some of those living on the streets of Vancouver choose to spend their nights, ironically because it is where they feel the safest from the troubles above the ground.
It’s a fascinating and more than a little troubling article, about the course of development in downtown Vancouver and how it continues to push the homeless further and further beyond the margins of society. It’s probably a world that few in Vancouver know exist and should be horrified because of its existence. It’s an almost subterranean development of quasi shanties, held together with soggy blankets, newspapers and cardboard.
If ever there is an example that the provincial government needs to take some form of constructive action on the homeless crisis in urban areas, it surely must be these self made condos of sort, hidden away from the public, but closer to them than they may have ever thought.
Rather’s report provided details of the exploding rate of HIV infections in Vancouver, the growing number of people at risk in the area and some visuals that would shock most Canadians who like to think of their cities as “World Class” or First world cities.
Some of the scenes and situations presented seem hard to believe possible in Canada’s third largest urban area, but are shown as truly happening each and every day.
And if that wasn’t enough of an eye opener for British Columbians, then a recent piece in the Tyee should certainly set the province to thinking. A piece from Monte Paulson, posted to the Tyee website on Thursday presents a horrifying image of homeless people living underneath the pilings of perhaps one of the most popular tourist attractions in Vancouver, the downtown site of Science World.
Located just across from where the residences for the 2010 athletes village are being constructed, Paulson describes a massive labyrinth of squalor, where the homeless gather nightly that strikes fear into outreach workers in the city, who fear for the safety of those at the most risk in society.
Following Judy Graves around on her tour of the dark under the surface canyons of urban nests, a scene more suitable for a Stephen King novel appears. Pitch black at night, crawling with rats, its here that some of those living on the streets of Vancouver choose to spend their nights, ironically because it is where they feel the safest from the troubles above the ground.
It’s a fascinating and more than a little troubling article, about the course of development in downtown Vancouver and how it continues to push the homeless further and further beyond the margins of society. It’s probably a world that few in Vancouver know exist and should be horrified because of its existence. It’s an almost subterranean development of quasi shanties, held together with soggy blankets, newspapers and cardboard.
If ever there is an example that the provincial government needs to take some form of constructive action on the homeless crisis in urban areas, it surely must be these self made condos of sort, hidden away from the public, but closer to them than they may have ever thought.
Photo from Tyee website article.
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