At long last the Pivot Legal Society has released its report on private security in Vancouver entitled Security Before Justice: A study of the impacts of private security on homelessness and under-housed Vancouver residents (.pdf). The report was authored by David Eby, Darice Bennet, John Richardson, and Kevin Tilley, who, along with everyone else involved, have to be commended for bringing this crucial issue to light.

Speaking with David on the phone this morning we somberly reminisced about the fact that it seems a lifetime ago since we first talked about this issue. At the time I was aware that Pivot was going to be writing the report and have waited with great anticipation for the results. The product of their labours is, by no means, a disappointment, striking at the heart of one of the most overlooked injustices in this city, one that should concern every resident of Vancouver if they believe in equality, the law, and the Charter.

A few very key points from the report’s Executive Summary include…

“Private security guards routinely overstep the bounds of their authority on public property. This includes guards asking or otherwise compelling people to move along when they have no legal authority to do so.

Private security guards are controlling access to space (on both public and mass private property) in ways that are not in keeping with principles of equality and fairness. This includes issuing informal bans from certain buildings, streets or neighbourhoods and the use of profiling, where people are treated differently depending upon their appearance. Profiling results in the continued harassment of homeless and visibly poor people, who are disproportionately Aboriginal and/or may suffer from a mental or physical disability including drug addiction.

Private security guards use force illegally. Both survey respondents and focus group participants claimed that guards are using force and threats of violence against homeless and other marginalized people on a routine basis.

There is little accountability when private security guards overstep their authority. People in the Downtown Eastside are not generally aware of their rights in relation to security guards, or how to complain about security guards’ actions. Only 39 of 154 survey respondents reported that they were
aware of the process for making a complaint against a security guard.”

My passion regarding this issue began a year and a half ago when I intervened in an incident involving an elderly women and two security guards that were trying to remove her from in front of a business on Water Street. One of the guards had the woman by the arm and was attempting to move her further down the sidewalk. Turning to the guard I told him that his action technically constituted assault and that he had absolutely no right to be touching the women, let alone asking her to leave the area. Both guards responded with aggressive language, telling me to go fuck myself and mind my own business. My response was to produce my phone, look at them, and ask them if they’d like me to call the police so that they could provide them the definition of assault, after which the one guard unhanded the women. She stood there for a moment unsure what to do, so I asked her to walk with me. The guards turned and went up Water Street in the other direction. While walking with her towards Carroll Street she told me that she had been harassed by guards in the past and even ushered into a back alley where they told her “people like her belonged”. There was no question that she suffered from mental illness, which only enraged me further, because in our society there is no excuse for a women in her 60’s that obviously needs long-term care to be on the streets. None.

Later that day I did a little digging and found out that the company was contracted by the Gastown Business Improvement Society.

From Pivot’s report…

“Andrew, a former Paladin Security licensed contract security guard, approached Pivot legal Society in the spring of 2007.

Andrew’s company was contracted to provide security patrols by the Gastown Business Improvement Society. He explained that he had recently quit his job because he felt that he was being asked to violate the rights of poor people.

In a sworn statement, the former security guard described being instructed to engage in “profiling” activities (monitoring the movements of people who looked homeless, poor or drug addicted). He also stated he was asked to remove profiled people from a busy tourist strip and relocate them to adjacent areas outside of the tourist zone. He recalled being asked to chase off one severely disabled panhandler because business owners considered the wheelchair-bound woman, who had lost an arm and a leg, too disruptive.

Andrew stated that his company routinely banned certain people from the Gastown Business Improvement Area, although, to his knowledge, there were no court orders in place restricting the movements of these citizens. He was asked to enforce these private bans and to use physical force in the course of his duties. Andrew also raised concerns about incident reports being altered and about information-sharing practices between his company
and the public police.”

Things down here are a world removed from Robson Street and Yaletown despite the fact that they’re only a five to ten minute car ride away. Like it or not, economic persecution is no different than any other form of persecution, and to think that it is tolerated in this city, even defended, disgusts me.

But you know, I’m a hypocrite, and I would be remiss not to claim myself one. Because no matter my views on the subject, I live in one of the ‘reclaimed’ buildings down here that represents the greed driven gentrification of the Lower Eastside. And that’s one of the main reasons that I’m moving, because I simply cannot live with that anymore.

I urge you to read the report, which is linked at the top of this entry, and to make your voice heard regarding this issue.

That’s right, British Columbia, make that five in a row. I think that makes us a dynasty. We can retire numbers in lofty ceremonies, and every British Columbian will get to have the cup at their home for a day.

You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you.

For the fifth straight year in a row, this Province has the distinction of having the highest child poverty rate in the country. Twenty-two percent of children in BC live in poverty, which is six percent higher than the national average. That’s 181,000 kids.

Oh Olympiad, your billions would have done so much good. Of course, with the recent loss of major sponsors, you stand to flush more kids down the poverty toilet. I swear by all that is good in this world that during the games it had damn well better rain golden snowflakes, because if they turn into the financial debacle that many are beginning to believe they will, someone’s going to have to answer for it.

The Pitt River Bridge was closed this morning for two and a half hours after a bomb threat was made to 911. The threat turned out to be a false and the bridge was reopened. Thus, reports that an al-Qaeda sleeper cell may be operating in the greater Pitt Meadows area are obviously false. No word yet on whether a mob has gathered at Roosters Country Cabaret with torches and a rope intent on looking for foreigners.

Some hours early, in Fernie BC, a 19-year-old kid somehow shot himself in the head with a crossbow. No details have been released other than he was flown to Calgary to have the bolt removed. Was alcohol a factor? I’m going to say yes given that the incident occurred during a party at the boy’s home. Either that or he thought he was Ted Nugent and mistook himself for a bear.

As most of you know, I’m not one for publicly patting myself on the back when it comes to those causes that I involve myself with. I have always believed that if you decide to involve yourself in the promotion of a cause that you do so because it’s the right thing to do, not because of the press that it will get you. That said; this year I was the recipient of the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Mental Health Voices Award for British Columbia, which is presented to an individual or group that has played a role in bringing attention to mental health issues. Last spring I filmed a short segment with them that they showed throughout the Province, one which I hadn’t seen until today.

My purpose for posting the following video is not to shower praise on myself, but rather because of the content that it contains regarding addressing mental illness and breaking down those barriers that many feel exist that stop them from seeking help. There is also a correction that must also be pointed out with regards to the video. I suffer from Type 2 Bipolarity, not Type 1.

But Matt, isn’t that the natural habitat of most bears in the Pacific Northwest? Yes, it is, but that doesn’t mean that bears shouldn’t be forced to evolve and, as if storybook characters, come to inhabit homes of their own where they eat porridge and sleep in proper beds. After all, we can’t have them wandering into suburban neighbourhoods that have been happily carved deeper and deeper into a vast wilderness.

Bears are largely olfactory creatures, which means that they have a fantastically heightened sense of smell. They can, for example, smell the residue on barbeques, the content of compost piles and refuse, and the slight perfumed essence of little blonde girls that are sleeping in their beds. Of course, that doesn’t give them the right to actually wander into backyards to investigate, no matter how close those backyards happen to be to their own natural habitat. After all, and as we’re all aware, the wild bear’s thirst for human blood is unequaled in the animal kingdom. Were they to organize, surely they would launch a coordinated attack on numerous Vancouver suburban areas, feasting on the flesh of infants, house pets, and demonically swimming in the blood of thousands of innocents.

“Oh sweet irony!” we will exclaim as their incalculable numbers lumber through our once quiet suburban enclaves, devastating everything in their path. Holed up in basements and tastefully appointed second floor ensuite bathrooms, residents will be forced to dawn Ted Nugent t-shirts in hopes that his image alone might act as some sort of magical deterrent against their bloodthirsty wrath.

If we were smart (unfortunately the jury’s still out on that one) we would launch a preemptive strike. Employing some of the Province’s foremost developers we could set about consuming more of the bear’s natural habitat, replacing it with still more houses and golf courses and strip malls, thus driving them further into the northern wilds. Of course, there’s always the possibility that they might still pose a threat to those neighborhoods buttressed against the tree line - but hey, that’s why God invented Napalm.

All Ridiculousness Aside

In truth, wild bears, unless they have cubs, will run from humans the majority of the time – unless, that is, they are intentionally provoked or threatened, and even then, escape due to fear is commonly their primary aim. For the most part, when in their natural habitat, and far removed from humans, bears are commonly unusually docile given their stature and power as compared to other animals of their size and position within the food chain. Of course, there are exceptions to this rule, though it is the bear, not ourselves, that we blame for it.

When I was a child, the city of Coquitlam, while technically coveting a vast area, had not yet began to earnestly develop the woods north of the Barnet Highway. Of course, Ioco and the communities along the inlet had existed for decades, but beyond that the area east of them was largely untouched.

In the 80’s things began to change, as the development potential of the Westwood Plateau was finally realized. Thus, the area between the inlet and Lafarge lake saw immediate development, a trend that would spread north into the mountains, with houses soon dominating the Eagleridge bluffs.

That trend continues unabated to this day. In fact, the majority of Coquitlam’s population is now located in what was once a sparsely populated area. They even moved City Hall from its traditional location on Brunette Avenue to Guildford Way, a road that when I was in my early 20’s was still predominantly lined by woods.

So what does this have to do with bears? Well, that’s obvious enough. With the rapid expansion of homes into the hills, the natural habitat of animals has been significantly encroached upon in a very short period of time. Again, when I was in my late teens and early 20’s, it wasn’t uncommon to hear stories of deer wandering into clear cut areas on the hill completely perplexed as to where the forest had gone. Added to that was a sudden rise in coyote sightings, with attacks on dogs and cats in the area becoming more frequent.

I remember walking to IGA in Port Moody one evening, which back then was surrounded by woods, and witnessing a coyote get hit by a car that was coming up to the lights. It was thrown onto the sidewalk by the impact and lay there immobile. Concerned about the animal’s welfare, I ran across the street and, along with the man that had been driving the car, approached it trying to gauge its injuries. The coyote didn’t move, it just lay there whimpering and making an unusual gurgling sound. Finally, reaching the animal, I realized that it was choking on its tongue, so I did one of the most reactionary things I have ever done in my life – I reached into its mouth and coaxed its tongue out of its throat. The man that had hit the coyote called me ‘crazy’, I remember that distinctly, but the animal made no threatening movements once I had removed my hand. After it started to breathe normally, and came to its senses, it simply got up and roughly lumbered away.

That singular event has stayed with me my entire life and has had a profound impact on how I view human encroachment on Greater Vancouver’s outlying forests.

Despite their behaviour in the wild, the mindset of animals is dramatically affected when their environment is encroached upon and they find themselves living in close proximity to humans. Bears, for example, especially if they are born into such an environment, will include in their foraging traits some dependence on human refuse, among other things. They also quickly lose their innate fear of humans, making them bolder and, at times, more aggressive when confronted. But what should not be overlooked, no matter the fears of those of those that live in close proximity to them, is that we have encroached on their habitat and adversely affected their behaviour by doing so – not the other way around.

If you are willing to live in a new home that borders a large expanse of wilderness you should be prepared to deal with the fact that the behavioural patterns of animals in the area will have been altered. That being the case, you have to take special care when it comes to your pets, young children, how you dispose of your garbage, and so forth. The truth is, animals cannot be blamed for the changes in their behaviour when they are exposed to the introduction of humans into what was once their natural habitat. To think otherwise is ludicrous.

There is an old maxim involving sharks that is applicable here. If you happen to go on vacation to a location where sharks are commonplace and decide to go swimming in the ocean, do you blame the shark for confusing you for something other than a human, or do you take responsibility for the fact that you knew the risks before entering the water? The truth is, the shark doesn’t know that you’re on vacation and that you would prefer not to be confused for something that it might commonly prey upon. It’s instincts dictate its actions, and that is something that we will never be able to change.

So if you do decide to go into the water, do you educate yourself before hand, or do you go in blind and arrogantly believe that you are above being attacked simply because you’re a person? The fact is, the shark doesn’t care what you think, you’re in his neck of the woods, and therefore the rules are entirely different.

That example can be applied to any creature in the wild, even those whose habitat has been encroached upon by humans. In short; just because we have opposable thumbs and possess the ability to make bad horror flicks doesn’t make our arrogance defensible.

It seems that getting to the festival this weekend in Pemberton isn’t going to be without its problems – the main one being bumper to bumper traffic only to be confronted with $90 parking fees and no shuttle buses for concert goers. Of course, I don’t plan on going within 100 miles of it, which still leaves me a decent radius within which to operate.

The CBC has some questions about the fireworks here in town posted on their website. So, being that I was a long time resident of the West End, I thought that I would tackle them.

Do you have pictures or video of your friends celebrating?

Celebrating what?

The fact that you have to produce identification to pass through police checkpoints to gain access to your own home because half of the downtown core has been shut down?

Perhaps the fact that you get to listen to drunks yelling at the top of their lungs until five in the morning as they maraud through the West End without a single care for those who actually inhabit the neighbourhood?

Or maybe it’s the pleasure of waking up to streets strewn with garbage; flowerbeds and landscaping trampled, and bewildered residents examining damage to their vehicles and property?

In truth, my favourite thing to do is to film the police helicopters that patrol the skies. I then watch the footage for hours at a time celebrating the fact that tax payers are flipping the bill for them to be up there when that money could have been used for something purposeful.

I came across this ‘morning after’ photograph on a local website called Beyond Robson.

What did you see on the street?

For the last several years – not a thing. The reason? Because I stay as far away from it as is possible. Though during the seven years that I lived three blocks from English Bay I did see my fair share of interesting things.

1) Roaming groups of testosterone and alcohol fueled morons looking to start trouble with whoever was unlucky enough to catch their eye.

2) A lot of vomit on the streets, sidewalks, and grassy areas that front the neighbourhood’s apartment buildings.

3) Billowing clouds of dope smoke rolling around as if a fog had come in off the water.

4) Smashed bottles, discarded coffee cups, pop bottles, and a variety of other enjoyable litter.

5) That special brand of imbecility that only occurs when hundreds of thousands of people gather in the same place to watch explosions that produce colourful lights.

Did you see anything unusual on the beach?

In all the years that I lived by English Bay not once did I entertain the idea of showing up eight hours prior to the event to find a piece of beach or grass to sit on. But I will say that I have seen what the beach looks like the morning after, and it’s not a pretty sight. Mind you, that may have changed. It’s been a while since I went down there the morning after the fireworks. They could be employing cleanup crews to work through the night. If they are, I hope that they’re wearing boots, because there’s nothing better than walking on sharp objects and glass pushed into the sand.

Do you have a story to tell about the fireworks?

I have a novel.

It includes tales of tires being slashed, of underground parking lots being broken into and vehicles vandalized and robbed, of fights breaking out in the middle of streets at 4am, of loud music being blasted from cars, of dumpsters being lit on fire, of bottles being thrown against apartment building walls, of yelling matches in back alleys beneath the windows of residents at 5am, of sirens blaring in the night, of masses of people walking up from the beach trampling everything in their path, of stabbings, of vomit covering the front steps of buildings, and even a few of passed out bodies laying on lawns and benches the next morning.

To be honest, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

One point I will stress, and this is something that goes entirely overlooked, is the affects that the fireworks themselves have on animals living in Stanley Park.

As some of you are aware, Stanley Park is the largest urban park in North America, larger than Central Park. That being the case, it is home to a variety of wildlife, mostly small animals. Unfortunately, their experience during the fireworks is quite different than ours, as my friend Angela points out…

“Each fireworks event wreaks havoc on the wildlife living in Stanley Park and surrounding areas - some are displaced from their nests fleeing frightening booms, some have fragile eardrums burst, and some are even found dead of apparent heart attacks due to the stress of the impacting vibrations. Wildlife Rescue records this the day after each event.”

We get it Matt, you hate the fireworks. So what do you suggest?

Ship them off to a location on the other side of the river that can accommodate the number of people that want to view them.

That won’t happen, of course, because no one over there would tolerate the overwhelming influx of people. So one has to ask – why do the residents of one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in North America have to? Don’t get me wrong, Kits gets it just as bad. In fact, most of the communities along the water have to tolerate it on one level or another. But the fact remains that given the headache the fireworks cause, even if only on four days of the year, the residents of the communities affected should have the right to at least hold a referendum with regards to their continuation. Unfortunately, business concerns have far more to do with it than the concerns of residents, which is why the fireworks will be back next summer and the same shit show that occurs every year will, once again, go off without a hitch.

Yes, yes. I’m just a downer in a sea of contentment. I think we can all agree on that.

This afternoon I was honoured to received the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Mental Health Voices Award for 2008, which is given out to those whose efforts have helped raise awareness about mental illness.

To be honest with you, I feel entirely unworthy of the award being that all I did was tell my own story. There are literally thousands of volunteers, professionals, and advocates that deserve recognition for their work on a daily basis, making receiving such an honour entirely humbling next to their tireless dedication.

Let me present you with a scenario.

Let’s say that you’ve decided to drive drunk. Let’s then say that you get pulled over by the police and one of the officers asks you to blow in their face. Let’s say that because of the obvious presence of alcohol on your breath you are suspected of drinking and driving and one hour and fifty-six minutes after you were originally pulled over, your blood alcohol content registers .14, almost double the legal limit.

How would you plead in court?

Better yet, were you driving a rusted out 1978 Honda Civic and couldn’t afford the best defense attorneys in the Province of British Columbia, how would you plead? Chances are you’d plead guilty because you wouldn’t have the sort of financial resources at your disposal to try and get you off the hook for being stupid enough to endanger the lives of others.

Men take responsibility for their actions. Little boys that can afford it hire defense teams to attempt to get them off the hook. Even little boys that go on about their harsh impoverished upbringings.

Some years ago I made a comment during an interview with Chart Magazine. I said that many of the modern rock bands at the time sounded the same. Among those mentioned was Nickelback. Because of that statement the band’s lead singer, Chad Kroeger, eventually went so far as to say in an interview with Rolling Stone…

“I don’t know how city kids deal with things, but when you talk shit about somebody from a small town, they find you in a back alley and they deal with the situation. They beat the living piss out of you and then laugh at you the next day when you’re seen around town all marked up.”

I’m not going to get into the obvious insecurities that that statement displays. Being lumped into the same category as Creed is, I suppose, grounds for violence as far as Kroeger was concerned. But the truth is, in our business, no matter how many records you sell, be it the few that I sell primarily in Canada or the millions that Nickelback sells globally, there are always going to be people out there that don’t enjoy your work. So what are you going to do? Threaten them all?

I have no idea if Chad Kroeger actually did spend time in juvenile detention, which he also mentioned during the same interview with Rolling Stone. But one thing is for certain, juvenile detention is not prison, and prison isn’t the sort of place that multimillionaire rock stars that believe themselves above the law, and responsibility, want to find themselves. Then again, in this day and age, the likelihood of him actually serving a six month sentence if found guilty is unlikely. Because unlike poor kids from small towns, wealthy rock stars commonly don’t have to face the same severity of justice.

The bottom line here is simple. Were your average reckless individual found to have a blood alcohol content almost twice the legal limit almost two hours after being stopped, they’d probably have the hammer dropped on them. But even more than that, what sort of man attempts to squirm their way out of talking responsibility for making a decision to get into an automobile and endangering the lives of others?

Everyone makes mistakes, there’s no question about that. It’s whether or not someone has the integrity to own up to them that separates the boys from the men. And that applies to those from small towns and cities alike.

Today the government of British Columbia announced that it’s spending $23.7 million dollars on purchasing six more hotels on the Downtown Lower Eastside that will be converted into affordable housing. In total, the Province has purchased 16 such hotels.

Dave Eby weighed in on the government’s purchases in a recent Vancouver Sun article.

Of course, it sounds fantastic in theory until you delve into how much property in comparison is being snatched up for private development purposes.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Navy has announced that it will be spending $19,316,550 dollars of taxpayers’ money for its security role during the 2010 Olympics. The Navy’s primary role will to be to patrol the waters near waterfront venues, with the majority of their focus being placed on the Olympic Village at False Creek, the cost of which, for a mere two weeks, is $190 million dollars – which is also a cost being incurred by taxpayers.

The entire security budget for the games is currently set at $175 million dollars, though that total is expected to increase. Last year, the RCMP released documents that indicated that the budget would not be enough to provide ample security.

An Aside

With regards to the Olympics and real estate, I thought that the following might interest some of you…

“When Jack Poole addressed a room full of real estate developers this spring it erased any doubts of what the 2010 Winter Olympics bid for Vancouver-Whistler is really all about.

At the risk of sounding naive, we had understood the bid was aimed at getting the games, raising Vancouver’s international profile and welcoming elite athletes to one of the world’s best skiing locations.

Wrong. The real purpose of the 2010 Olympics bid is to seduce the provincial and federal governments and long suffering taxpayers into footing a billion dollar bill to pave the path for future real estate sales. Whether the bid is successful or not is actually immaterial.

“If the Olympic bid wasn’t happening we would have to invent something.” Poole, chair of the 2010 Vancouver Bid Corp. and noted real estate developer, said in a most telling understatement.

It is hard to imagine any fantasy that fits better than the Olympics bid if you are into real estate development.”

I came across the following comment left in response to an article on the Tyee regarding homelessness in British Columbia, particularly Vancouver…

“An avalanche of stories on the homeless and the left is bankrupt of any practical ideas. The left calls for housing and treating them in Vancouver, perpetuating the slum we know as the DTES. We in the real world know that Vancouver real estate is far too expensive to justify the economic cost of housing them. Don’t even talk about the NIMBY’s who’ll kill any zoning proposal.

Yet the real solution is housing, rehab, treatment and for those who cannot fend for themselves permanent institutionalization.

So the best solution is to find the cheapest land- maybe out past Fort St. John, way up north, and house them up there. Any objections?

I mean, giving them free housing in Vancouver is an insult to all the working people who struggle to pay for their own places isn’t it?”

Matthewgood.org contributor, Pivot Legal Society’s David Eby, makes some excellent points in the piece, but I want to focus on the sentiment of the comment quoted above.

You might not think that sort of ignorance prevalent in the Lower Mainland, but you’d be surprised. People’s understanding of the Lower Eastside in general is, for the most part, rather ignorant. In fact, much of that ignorance is based on the perception of a problem that has, in truth, remained largely out of sight and out of mind for decades. Only now, when the value of real estate is at an all time high, is the ‘problem’ being delved into by those that hadn’t considered it prior.

For most, their exposure to the Downtown Eastside is limited to driving down East Hastings on their way into the city and little else. They get held up at the lights at Main and Hastings and from the few minutes that they observe their surroundings come to harsh conclusions about those that inhabit this neighbourhood

We do not want to hear their stories. We do not want to delve into the fact that over the last twenty years the Downtown Eastside has become the number one destination of those turned out of mental institutions. We do not want to hear horrific tales of childhood sexual abuse, rape, violence, and Aboriginal disparity. Such things humanize the problem, and that is the last thing in the world that anyone wants to do. Because it is far easier on the conscience to simply categorize everyone down here as a druggy or a drunk who are solely responsible for where they have ended up.

Not all Vancouverites suffer from this phenomenon, but many do, including many who live in other parts of the downtown core who aren’t comfortable with the fact that their urban paradise is only minutes away from the country’s poorest urban neighbourhood. Many of them are, of course, transplants that have come to Vancouver to live the urban West Coast dream and have never been exposed to a neighbourhood like the Lower Eastside or the problems that it presents. Were there a solution that could, in a matter of weeks, transform it into the new Yaletown, many of this city’s residents would be all for it. In truth, that process has already begun.

The homelessness that is prevalent in this neighbourhood has become front-page news not because it was only a matter of time, but for three very specific reasons.

The first is that Vancouver has seen an influx of wealth over the last decade, both foreign and domestic, which has driven property prices through the roof. Given that the downtown core is situated on a peninsula, and developing Stanley Park is out of the question, the Lower Eastside remains the last truly exploitable section of the downtown core.

The second is that Vancouver has seen immense growth in the tourism sector, and many view the Lower Eastside as an embarrassment. Given that every cruise ship that docks in Vancouver is anchored at Canada Place, those that venture off the ships and decide to take a hard left and venture East find themselves confronted with something that certainly does not reflect what they’ve no doubt heard about the city. It is not uncommon to come across tourists down here in the summer that are simply aghast, many of them asking locals that don’t seem too ‘dangerous’ where the park is located or how to get uptown. It is such a concern, in fact, that the Gastown Business Association employs private security personnel to patrol the streets, pushing the homeless and dispossessed out of sight, commonly harassing them even though they possess absolutely no legal authority to do so.

The third is, of course, the 2010 games. Not only have the Olympics contributed to the increase in property prices throughout Vancouver, but have forced both local and Provincial government to address the issue of what to do about the Lower Eastside when the world shows up. Despite the fact that the World Exposition in 1986 lasted for months, laying new carpet and slapping a new coat of paint on walls in hotels on the Lower Eastside was good enough. But in the case of the Olympics, Vancouver is destined to see far more people cram the downtown core, making the problem of the Lower Eastside all the more worrisome. Therefore, the real issue isn’t so much how to actually, and realistically, address the problems that need to be address, but rather how to dislodge them and have them moved elsewhere while throwing advocates a bone.

One of the goals is to obviously see the neighbourhood gentrified like Yaletown was, which has ultimately led to the gentrification of everything from Granville Street to the banks of False Creek. Sure, there are a few rough patches here and there, but nothing to compare with East Hastings. The more that this neighbourhood can be gentrified and attract a new class of resident, the easier it will be to push the dispossessed further down the Hastings corridor.

The truth is, those problems that need solving cannot be realistically overcome in two years while still placating the concerns of those that view the Lower Eastside as a blemish on an otherwise picturesque city. Sure, housing initiatives can be discussed, hotels can be transformed, but they will not meet the needs of all those that require help. Thus, where will those who aren’t lucky enough to qualify go? Because if anti-terror maneuvers are already taking place in the skies over the city, you can bet your life that the mandate of private security firms will be extended well beyond Gastown in 2010.