Downtown Eastside - DTES Issues

[SeymourDrake]

How long can this go on? This is obviously a temporary solution for these homeless folk. Then what?

What keeps them from leaving when they have to follow rules? Where will they go? Back on the street?

The numbers mentioned sounds like about half of the actual numbers on the street.

This to me seems more like a short term solution, than a long one.

IMO they should makes it illegal not to have a home address. Sounds harsh but it either forces them to deal with their issues or be jailed until they are identified and put in a place where they are safe and can thrive.

IMO there is no better time than right now than to deal with the homeless population.

[misher]

Originally Posted by SeymourDrake

How long can this go on? This is obviously a temporary solution for these homeless folk. Then what?

What keeps them from leaving when they have to follow rules? Where will they go? Back on the street?

The numbers mentioned sounds like about half of the actual numbers on the street.

This to me seems more like a short term solution, than a long one.

IMO they should makes it illegal not to have a home address. Sounds harsh but it either forces them to deal with their issues or be jailed until they are identified and put in a place where they are safe and can thrive.

IMO there is no better time than right now than to deal with the homeless population.

Same solution was done during the Olympics. Same thing was said as well.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by SeymourDrake

How long can this go on? This is obviously a temporary solution for these homeless folk. Then what?

What keeps them from leaving when they have to follow rules? Where will they go? Back on the street?

The numbers mentioned sounds like about half of the actual numbers on the street.

This to me seems more like a short term solution, than a long one.

IMO they should makes it illegal not to have a home address. Sounds harsh but it either forces them to deal with their issues or be jailed until they are identified and put in a place where they are safe and can thrive.

IMO there is no better time than right now than to deal with the homeless population.

Of course it's a short term solution. The idea is to get people off the street now to protect them from COVID-19. After that they're back on the street to die from something else.

An unpopular solution is to institutionalize the people who need it - and lets be honest, a lot of people in the DTES need it. Of course that's soo not PC and won't happen.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by Sheba

An unpopular solution is to institutionalize the people who need it - and lets be honest, a lot of people in the DTES need it. Of course that's soo not PC and won't happen.

I'm not trying to get into it with anyone but I think that the more detrimental non-PC thing to do is to throw them back into the streets.

Institutions are just supervised, well-equipped, social houses - not jail.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by scryer

I'm not trying to get into it with anyone but I think that the more detrimental non-PC thing to do is to throw them back into the streets.

Institutions are just supervised, well-equipped, social houses - not jail.

I know

[cairnstone]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Of course it's a short term solution. The idea is to get people off the street now to protect them from COVID-19. After that they're back on the street to die from something else.

An unpopular solution is to institutionalize the people who need it - and lets be honest, a lot of people in the DTES need it. Of course that's soo not PC and won't happen.

Nope these hotels most likely will remain homeless shelters. COV leased several older hotels right after the olympics and they are still full of homeless. Its a whole industry that keeps 1000s employed. I bet 30% will be back on the street with in weeks as some just cant follow rules.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by cairnstone

Nope these hotels most likely will remain homeless shelters. COV leased several older hotels right after the olympics and they are still full of homeless. Its a whole industry that keeps 1000s employed. I bet 30% will be back on the street with in weeks as some just cant follow rules.

It was a few years after the Olympics, and only one was leased, and not by the City. BC Housing leased the former Biltmore on Kingsway and Raincity has run it as non-market housing since March 2014.

The former Ramada on East Hastings, and the Ramada Metrotown on Kingsway were both bought by the City of Vancouver. The Kingsway property is now called Kingsway Continental, and is operated by the City since the end of 2013. It was bought to house the former tenants of the Continental Hotel that was demolished on Granville Street. The East Hastings property is now called Skeena House, it's managed by the Community Builders Group, and it opened in early 2014.

The Metson Rooms (the former Bosman) on Howe Street were leased by Portland Hotel Society from the developer owners in 2009, with Federal funds.

[Vin]

Becoming really bad to worse....

https://vancouversun.com/opinion/joh...hettoizing-it/

Twenty years ago local musician Kuba Oms was recording at the Miller Block, a now defunct Hastings Street recording studio near Save-On-Meats.

He jaywalked and was stopped by a cop, who handed him a ticket.

Three reasons why you shouldn't put off your estate planning

“I said ‘Are you kidding me?’” Oms recounts. “You know there’s a guy shooting up over there, and a crack dealer over there. And the cop said ‘That’s a health issue.’”

That story pretty much sums up the city’s attitude toward the Downtown Eastside over the past few decades.

In some ways the cop was right — it is a Vancouver health issue. But letting people openly do drugs in public and turn Hastings and the wider Downtown Eastside into a ghetto is political correctness gone mad.

Drive down Hastings Street between Abbott and Gore and you’ll see dozens, even hundreds of people hanging out on the street, in various states of sobriety. They are definitely not social distancing. It’s a miracle that COVID-19 hasn’t swept the entire area.

The height of this madness was the recent occupation of Oppenheimer Park. Vancouver has real issues of homelessness, but to some degree Oppenheimer was about a fringe group of politicos manipulating the homeless.

Many police resources were diverted to the park and there was a crime wave in nearby Chinatown — one business closed because they were being robbed a dozen times a day.

The province recently made hotel rooms available for the homeless people occupying Oppenheimer Park, so things have calmed down somewhat. But the big question is what happens in a few months? Is government going to find permanent homes for them?

Odds are if they do, it will be in highrises in the Downtown Eastside. For decades that’s where the city and province have been concentrating social housing, especially for the mentally ill and drug addicted.

Their argument is these residents feel comfortable there. But the reality is the more poverty is concentrated, the worse the area seems to become.

Maybe it’s time for the city of Vancouver to give its head a shake and realize that its much-ballyhooed Downtown Eastside Plan is actually part of the problem, not the solution.

Part of the plan decrees you can’t build condos on Hastings between Carrall Street in Gastown and Heatley Avenue in Strathcona, or in historic Japantown around Oppenheimer Park.

Development in those areas has to be rental only, with at least 60 per cent social housing. This pretty much ensures that no market housing is built in the poorest area of the city.

When the plan was unveiled in 2014, Vancouver’s former head planner Brian Jackson said the aim was to ensure that low-income people in the Downtown Eastside weren’t displaced.

“The plan is attempting to achieve balance,” he explained then.

In fact, the plan does the exact opposite. There is no balance in the Downtown Eastside: It’s been turned into a ghetto. A friend who’s worked there for two decades calls it a war zone.

The city desperately need some market housing, co-ops and development on Hastings and around Oppenheimer. The anti-poverty activists will scream blue murder that it’s gentrification, but it’s actually normalization. You don’t have to displace anybody, you just have add a different mix to make it safer.

I live in Strathcona, where about 6,500 people live in social housing and about 3,500 in market homes. It’s a close-knit neighbourhood that has the balance Brian Jackson was talking about — it’s diverse and features a variety of incomes.

Japantown and the Downtown Eastside could be a real neighbourhood again if the city retained its stock of handsome historic buildings but allowed some development of its many non-descript structures.

It could be like Strathcona, even the West End. But I fear it could get even worse, if the planners and politicians continue to concentrate all the Lower Mainland’s poverty and social ills in one small area.

jmackie@postmedia.com

John Mackie is a veteran Postmedia reporter who has written several stories about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Plan.

[misher]

Originally Posted by Vin

Becoming really bad to worse....

I think the problem is that the city of Vancouver has taken it upon itself to handle the homeless problem. But this isn't a municipal duty, its provincial. The minute the city began changing policy to accommodate it, it surrendered. Had we kept the same path, the province would have been forced to handle it. Instead, the province has gotten a free pass to ignore the problem and let the city handle it.

And yes, we created a ghetto. But honestly I rather they be concentrated in one area than spread out across the city. No one wants to wakeup to human shit outside their front door. But they should never have been in the downtown core to begin with. Our drug services should be in some small farming community far away from drug dealers, a place we ship our addicts to recover where they live an Amish-like lifestyle until they are healthy again. Instead we house them right beside the drug dealers that service them.

[GenWhy?]

"Development in those areas has to be rental only, with at least 60 per cent social housing. This pretty much ensures that no market housing is built in the poorest area of the city."

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. Also people that live in market rental housing are far from poor.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by GenWhy?

"Development in those areas has to be rental only, with at least 60 per cent social housing. This pretty much ensures that no market housing is built in the poorest area of the city."

I'm pretty sure this is incorrect. Also people that live in market rental housing are far from poor.

There may be items in the article that may not be 100% factual, but the fact remains that DTES is getting from bad to worse, and it is spreading, especially during the pandemic. The City allows this to happen. Take a drive around the neighbourhood and you know what I am talking about.

Originally Posted by misher

I think the problem is that the city of Vancouver has taken it upon itself to handle the homeless problem. But this isn't a municipal duty, its provincial. The minute the city began changing policy to accommodate it, it surrendered. Had we kept the same path, the province would have been forced to handle it. Instead, the province has gotten a free pass to ignore the problem and let the city handle it.

And yes, we created a ghetto. But honestly I rather they be concentrated in one area than spread out across the city. No one wants to wakeup to human shit outside their front door. But they should never have been in the downtown core to begin with. Our drug services should be in some small farming community far away from drug dealers, a place we ship our addicts to recover where they live an Amish-like lifestyle until they are healthy again. Instead we house them right beside the drug dealers that service them.

I find that the City has essentially given up on dealing with the problems of DTES a long time ago. No one is really doing anything to alleviate the situation. Authorities keep trying to pass the responsibilities onto someone else, which highlights how ineffectual the current government is.

As stated in my reply to Genwhy, DTES is actually spreading, and you can see lawlessness all over downtown now. Granville Street is already quite similar to DTES, and it is only going to get worse.

[scryer]

The DTES only serves as a convenient resource for municipal and provincial politicians to use as a means to virtue signal for some easy pity-votes.

It has only gotten worse in 30 years and nothing has changed for the better; not even with the appointment of a Mental Health Ambassador has things for East Hastings changed for the better. IJS.

[Metro-One]

It’s because they have completely given up on / ignored any form of enforcement. It has always amazed me that being homeless became a get out of jail free card for following / obeying any by laws or any general civil behavior / community respect.

Japan has homeless, but for the most part they still respect the communities they are in and don’t destroy them with garbage and human waste.

You can actually sleep overnight in any public place in Japan. But that’s the thing, overnight, by morning you need to pack up so others can enjoy the same space. You can’t be a complete loser and lay around doing drugs all day. Also they don’t beg, they do day work for money.

That’s always been a huge kicker for me, the argument that public spaces are for everyone so we shouldn’t get annoyed by tent cities, but ironically when that happens those spaces are no longer usable or enjoyable or even safe for anyone else of the general public.

It is really getting out of hand and after decades of the current strategy it is obvious that the soft handed don’t disturb their community approach isn’t working at all.

[Nites]

Everyone moved from oppenheimer park to the parking lot beside the helipad on waterfront road. I take that detour route everyday to work and I noticed it went from 3-4 tents on day 1 to about 14-16 tents. I bet this week with the weather close to the mid 20s it will grow to the same size of tent city opennheimer had. Whoever owns that land should have kicked out the campers on day 1 when there was only a few of them. Now they probably need a court order which could takes months on end.

Although sleep is probably next to impossible there being directly next to the train tracks, helipad, and ship port lol.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by Vin

There may be items in the article that may not be 100% factual, but the fact remains that DTES is getting from bad to worse, and it is spreading, especially during the pandemic. The City allows this to happen. Take a drive around the neighbourhood and you know what I am talking about.

I find that the City has essentially given up on dealing with the problems of DTES a long time ago. No one is really doing anything to alleviate the situation. Authorities keep trying to pass the responsibilities onto someone else, which highlights how ineffectual the current government is.

As stated in my reply to Genwhy, DTES is actually spreading, and you can see lawlessness all over downtown now. Granville Street is already quite similar to DTES, and it is only going to get worse.

I agree the City allows this to happen due to rent escalating and loss of affordable housing for those around the poverty line. In experience, building social housing in the DTES has too much red tape.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by scryer

The DTES only serves as a convenient resource for municipal and provincial politicians to use as a means to virtue signal for some easy pity-votes.

It has only gotten worse in 30 years and nothing has changed for the better; not even with the appointment of a Mental Health Ambassador has things for East Hastings changed for the better. IJS.

It's not just the DTES anymore:

Vancouver storefronts impassable due to garbage, human waste and open drug use
Author of the article:Randy Shore
Publishing date:16 hours ago

Business owners trying to reopen in the downtown core are coming into conflict with homeless people who have taken shelter in parks, plazas and storefronts during the public health emergency.

“Things have gone from good, to bad, to downright ugly,” said Stephen Regan, executive director of the West End Business Improvement Association. “It’s a perfect storm with businesses that are closed that have awnings and alcoves — those tend to be good places to hunker down for the evening or even a full day or a week.”

Public spaces such as Jim Deva Plaza are piled with garbage and strewn with used syringes and human feces as people have taken refuge in covered doorways for long periods of time while businesses have been shut down due to COVID-19....

https://vancouversun.com/news/storef...open-drug-use/

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by skymaster

Everyone moved from oppenheimer park to the parking lot beside the helipad on waterfront road. I take that detour route everyday to work and I noticed it went from 3-4 tents on day 1 to about 14-16 tents. I bet this week with the weather close to the mid 20s it will grow to the same size of tent city opennheimer had. Whoever owns that land should have kicked out the campers on day 1 when there was only a few of them. Now they probably need a court order which could takes months on end.

Although sleep is probably next to impossible there being directly next to the train tracks, helipad, and ship port lol.

The lot next to Crab Park is owned and maintained by the port. They were seeking an injunction within 24 hours of them showing up and are currently locked between DTES community groups fighting the port because...I can't remember but it's likely the same stupid pandering that said they were perfectly allowed to turn the park into a slum.

Edited: Oh right. At least one group was citing aboriginal land ownership, among other things.
Edited again: Actually that sounds kinda bland to say that and not at least cite someone saying that garbage, so:

Brett says the port dropped off a notice on the weekend, and had also attempted to place cement barriers at the lot, but abandoned that effort after a confrontation.

Brett claims the campers are on unceded Indigenous territory and have the permission of elders to establish themselves. She says they have invited port officials and politicians to sit down with them, but that hasn't happened yet.

-https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...tion-1.5575454

Elders be damned, I'm pretty sure all indigenous land claims for downtown Vancouver were settled decades ago so I doubt playing that card did her any favors.

[rofina]

The maliciousness of the status quo crowd is nothing short of deplorable.

All you people defending our approach to this situation should be ashamed of yourselves and the immeasurable damage maintaining things is causing.

[SeymourDrake]

DTES Drug and Homeless Issues

I think most of you forget that sure with some extremely hard work and professional guidance you can get a junkie clean. But what are they going to do with their permanent damage and the entire reason they do drugs to begin with?

Getting a clean source of drugs will save lives and every life matters. It's not like they are giving them a lethal dose and they aren't monitored. People are in poor health, mentally, physical & slowly waiting to die. So by helping them manage their source of drugs it's a step in the right direction.

I've said it before... Make it illegal to be homeless, Illegal to not have an address, Illegal to sleep on the streets. Make it a Multi-Step Program.

1. Identify
2. Diagnose Mental and Physical Health.
3. Get sent to treatment, then after Care.
4. Assign Doctors for After care which will cover mental & physical health.
5. Find permanent supervised housing.
6. Send each patient to the proper Housing Facility to focus on their specific needs. Follow ups by assigned medical team.

Those who have gone through the process and end up back on the street should be sent to a Mental Facility. Make the stay unlimited but make sure it isn't being abused by healthcare professionals.

I know we all have different ideas for what needs to be done. But no matter what tax bracket you're in, we all deserve to be treated like human beings and to help each other any way we can.

[a very long weekend]

^ I mean, if doing all of that stuff costs less than prison, then it's probably a good idea. Give them drugs, let them sit in some room in Kamloops or the Yukon, stoned out of their mind for the rest of their lives, if that's what the homeless industry has decided is the PC way to deal with this stuff.

But you're just one junkie chasing a tourist down the street and murdering her with a syringe away from permanently losing the public on this mollycoddling approach. The status quo won't last much longer. Every single additional new resident is a vote against it. Have to do something.