Downtown Eastside - DTES Issues

[logicbomb]

Keep giving them drugs and money and allow lawlessness. Meanwhile I get harassed and fined for having a beer on the beach.

[jlousa]

I'm sure that will fix the ails of the dtes... seriously disappointing to see only one side of the four pillars get any attention and they wonder why things aren't improving.

[misher]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Are we supposed to be cheering this? So now government basically becomes a dealer. What incentive is there for addicts to ever get clean?

If we get them clean we fix a problem. The horror! Governments don't fix, they patch and keep selling the treatment. Just like drug companies.

The people giving us advice and dealing with these issues whole careers revolve around these issues. Its like asking a dentist to stop cavities.

[scryer]

Originally Posted by jlousa

I'm sure that will fix the ails of the dtes... seriously disappointing to see only one side of the four pillars get any attention and they wonder why things aren't improving.

DTES only serves as a convenient virtue signalling token for politicians. Has been for at least the last century. I don't see it going away any time soon .

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by misher

If we get them clean we fix a problem. The horror! Governments don't fix, they patch and keep selling the treatment. Just like drug companies.

The people giving us advice and dealing with these issues whole careers revolve around these issues. Its like asking a dentist to stop cavities.

Dentists do stop cavities. That's why they give you a fluoride rinse (or equivalent) treatment.

We don't have the facilities or the time to 'get them clean' right now. There are other far more important priorities for the next while. (And it's been pointed out here over many years by people who understand what's involved, that there's no easy 'get them clean' program either).

[Vin]

Originally Posted by misher

If we get them clean we fix a problem. The horror! Governments don't fix, they patch and keep selling the treatment. Just like drug companies.

The people giving us advice and dealing with these issues whole careers revolve around these issues. Its like asking a dentist to stop cavities.

Exactly. Hence I'm really disappointed the mayor is going to use tax payer money to get more drugs for the addicts. He even had the gall to say that the addicts are the City's top priority. Fact is homelessness and addiction prop up an industry of people funded by tax payers and the government does not want to change the status quo of that.

It is time to clamp down hard, especially during the pandemic period, and stop pandering to those so-called NGOs.

Originally Posted by whatnext

Are we supposed to be cheering this? So now government basically becomes a dealer. What incentive is there for addicts to ever get clean?

The addicts never get clean, because we have people here who keep giving excuses for them. People think they are doing the addicts a favour, but they are actually assisting in causing their eventual premature death, albeit at a slower tortuous pace, instead of making them become better. Big pharmas and the whole industry servicing the addicts are the ones who are rejoicing after the mayor's announcent. City businesses and people living in the city are the ones that suffer.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Where in this thread have I ever promoted their lifestyle? I haven't said any such thing. I've commented that the DTES has been bad for a lot longer than you seemed to realize, and that fixing things isn't a simple matter. You on the other hand...


That's getting scarily into totalitarianism and getting rid of undesirables.

Imagine if actions were taken before and people are clean now, or taken away on isolation to get better. We wouldn't have this crisis at hand, would we?

No one is thinking ahead.

[mcminsen]

A few excerpts from a recent article in the Vancouver Sun.

John Blatherwick is basically suggesting that people could be rounded up and taken away and put in isolation camps.

Click on the link below to read the whole article.



===============

Daphne Bramham: Pandemic offers opportunity to take extraordinary measures in Canada's poorest and most desperate community
Author of the article:
Daphne Bramham


The street is crowded as welfare cheques are distributed in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside on Wednesday. NICK PROCAYLO / PNG
source: https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columni...as-poorest-and-most-desperate-community/

"In the midst of a triple crisis — COVID-19, drug-overdose deaths and homelessness — residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are highly at risk, and their inability to self-isolate puts us all at risk.

Emergency powers invoked by Canada, the province and the City of Vancouver provide politicians with the ability to act in the best interests of all people when individuals can’t or won’t do it for themselves. It provides governments with “an opportunity to do a lot of right things” for DTES residents, says John Blatherwick.

What he recommends is radical and bound to make civil libertarians a lot queasier than they already are. As quickly as possible Blatherwick would move residents out of the neighbourhood and into well-equipped shelters in parks outside the city’s core.

“If we leave them where they are, we are going to have real problems if it (COVID) gets in that population because they will not socially isolate,” he said. “They don’t social isolate. That’s the problem that’s always been down there.”
Rather than commandeering downtown hotels and nearby community centres as the city is doing, Blatherwick would set up camps in regional and provincial parks that are already closed.
A former military man, he said the camps could be quickly erected using well-equipped tents like the ones the Canadian military used in Afghanistan. Alternately, they could be built using shipping containers as B.C. Housing has already done in Vancouver.

In effect, it would be one grand experiment — a temporary chance to see whether taking people out of a dysfunctional community and offering them more and better services might give them the chance at a better life post-COVID."

[jollyburger]

Sounds more humane than their current plan.

Also, I wouldn't just write him off as a crackpot.

Blatherwick became skilled at media relations and was well known for voicing independent, authoritative opinions on controversial health issues. Premier Bill Vander Zalm publicly threatened to fire him – twice – over his advocacy for condoms and sex education in schools. Insite, the first legal supervised safe injection site in North America, opened during his tenure.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by mcminsen

A few excerpts from a recent article in the Vancouver Sun.

John Blatherwick is basically suggesting that people could be rounded up and taken away and put in isolation camps.

Click on the link below to read the whole article.



===============

Daphne Bramham: Pandemic offers opportunity to take extraordinary measures in Canada's poorest and most desperate community
Author of the article:
Daphne Bramham


The street is crowded as welfare cheques are distributed in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside on Wednesday. NICK PROCAYLO / PNG
source: https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columni...as-poorest-and-most-desperate-community/

"In the midst of a triple crisis — COVID-19, drug-overdose deaths and homelessness — residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are highly at risk, and their inability to self-isolate puts us all at risk.

Emergency powers invoked by Canada, the province and the City of Vancouver provide politicians with the ability to act in the best interests of all people when individuals can’t or won’t do it for themselves. It provides governments with “an opportunity to do a lot of right things” for DTES residents, says John Blatherwick.

What he recommends is radical and bound to make civil libertarians a lot queasier than they already are. As quickly as possible Blatherwick would move residents out of the neighbourhood and into well-equipped shelters in parks outside the city’s core.

“If we leave them where they are, we are going to have real problems if it (COVID) gets in that population because they will not socially isolate,” he said. “They don’t social isolate. That’s the problem that’s always been down there.”
Rather than commandeering downtown hotels and nearby community centres as the city is doing, Blatherwick would set up camps in regional and provincial parks that are already closed.
A former military man, he said the camps could be quickly erected using well-equipped tents like the ones the Canadian military used in Afghanistan. Alternately, they could be built using shipping containers as B.C. Housing has already done in Vancouver.

In effect, it would be one grand experiment — a temporary chance to see whether taking people out of a dysfunctional community and offering them more and better services might give them the chance at a better life post-COVID."

Yeah, why not? That's an excellent idea. However, I think this should be done on a case-by-case basis. Only those that are so badly damaged by drugs or severely mentally compromised should be taken away to be helped in the camps. On the other hand, the criminal elements should be jailed (longer if need be). Those who can still opt to give up addictions, are generally healthy or able to get back to the work force should not be taken to such camps. It's not like those camps are the same as prisons: they are just places to put them away from harm's way.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Vending-machine opioids a cheap way to save lives, says Vancouver doctor

Camille Bains, The Canadian Press
Published Wednesday, September 11, 2019 12:53PM PDT
Last Updated Wednesday, September 11, 2019 5:40PM PDT

VANCOUVER - A doctor with an expertise in public health says he will soon be dispensing opioids through a vending machine in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside in order to prevent overdoses from fentanyl-laced street drugs.

Dr. Mark Tyndall said the machine that's been created in Toronto would scan a patient's hand for identification before dispensing a pre-programmed number of hydromorphone pills that are a substitute for heroin.

The eight-milligram pills cost about 35 cents each and focus groups with drug users have suggested most people would need about 10 to 16 pills a day, said Tyndall, who is also a professor of medicine at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia.

...

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/vending-machine-op...ve-lives-says-vancouver-doctor-1.4588822

I think this doctor is just tired of having to treat overdose patients at the ER all the time. Imagine how easy ER and medic's lives would be if there are no overdoses. This is not a soluation: it's just a call for some professionals to take the easy way out. Addicts will still die, if not from overdoses, but from other health issues

[mcminsen]

Originally Posted by Vin

Yeah, why not? That's an excellent idea. However, I think this should be done on a case-by-case basis. Only those that are so badly damaged by drugs or severely mentally compromised should be taken away to be helped in the camps. On the other hand, the criminal elements should be jailed (longer if need be). Those who can still opt to give up addictions, are generally healthy or able to get back to the work force should not be taken to such camps.

Reported.

Why would you alter my quote like that? I did not say that. Why would you want to make people think I did?

[mcminsen]

Here's what I said:

===========

"A few excerpts from a recent article in the Vancouver Sun.

John Blatherwick is basically suggesting that people could be rounded up and taken away and put in isolation camps.

Click on the link below to read the whole article."

===========

Here's the way Vin changed my quoted post:

===========

"A few excerpts from a recent article in the Vancouver Sun.

John Blatherwick is basically suggesting that people could be rounded up and taken away and put in isolation camps. It's not like those camps are the same as prisons: they are just places to put them away from harm's way.

Click on the link below to read the whole article."

===========

^^^ The bolded part is what was inserted to change my post.

[rofina]

Do it.

Try anything.

Anyone supporting the current arrangements is complicit in untold harm and has lost sight about what the mission actually is.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by mcminsen

Reported.

Why would you alter my quote like that? I did not say that. Why would you want to make people think I did?

Thousand apologies, mcminsen. That was definitely my own comment: must have accidentally inserted into your quote due to my haste. It's fixed now.

[whatnext]

This is just sad and sickening:

Newborn baby found dead in DTES portable washroom

[Vin]

https://globalnews.ca/news/6845264/dtes-concerns-asymptomatic-covid-19-cases/

Many asymptomatic cases among homeless population in Boston. Is it the same at the DTES too? Seems that younger people, even those who are addicts or with underlying illnesses, are spared the plague so far.

[whatnext]

Well, it appears a global pandemic has finally forced some action. I had heard the Buchan Hotel in the West End might be one of the locations used for this.

Tent communities in Vancouver, Victoria to be cleared out with provincial emergency order
BY LIZA YUZDA
Posted Apr 25, 2020
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — The B.C. government is planning to move those living in Vancouver’s Oppenheimer Park and in Victoria’s Topaz Park along Victoria’s Pandora Avenue into temporary housing units.

In an update Saturday morning, the province says the emergency order is aimed at protecting people’s health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic...

https://www.citynews1130.com/2020/04/25/tent-communities-vancouver-victoria-provincial-order/

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Well, it appears a global pandemic has finally forced some action. I had heard the Buchan Hotel in the West End might be one of the locations used for this.

It's been an underreported afterthought, but the provincial gov has been doing this for a few weeks now.

New spaces secured for vulnerable people to self-isolate - Apr 7th

To support British Columbians who need a place to self-isolate and to reduce the spread of COVID-19, the Province is partnering with local governments, non-profits and the hotel industry.

So far, more than 900 spaces have been secured at 23 sites including hotels, motels and community centres throughout B.C.

...

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Well, it appears a global pandemic has finally forced some action. I had heard the Buchan Hotel in the West End might be one of the locations used for this.

Seems like they were already in the Buchan Hotel at the end of March:

WEST END HOTEL TO HOUSE THE HOMELESS: The West End’s sixty-unit Buchan Hotel on Haro is the city’s first private space to be converted into hous9ng for the homeless because of COVID-19. These spaces, along with the recently seconded Coal Harbour Community Centre, are served for the homeless who need to self-isolate and others who have COVID-19 and need a play to recover after being discharged from hospital. While the province has chosen not to officially release the name of the hotel, nearby residents have been aware of this move for some days now, and have had discussions about it with workers converting the premises. Guests in the hotel will be able to leave their rooms but must stay in the building.

https://www.thewestendjournal.ca/blog/2020/3/30/west-end-coal-harbour-covid-19-update