DTES is My Backyard.
Over There., originally uploaded by MacEwen.
I took a photo of Pigeon Park yesterday. I’ve done this before and its been a bit awkward but manageable. Yesterday it wasn’t. Three dudes who were more likely on the supply end of things were pretty pissed. “You better not get my face in that photo **** ” etc. I walked away from it and one guy threw his lunch at my back. Another guy comes up to me and tells me to delete the photo (i shoot film, he didn’t get it), starts tugging at my camera…
“I live here man” he says, and gives me a cracked out shove.
I leave, it’s only a block to my house from here.
WTF?
My business and more recently my home have been within a two block radius of that spot for over a year now. I chose this neighborhood because I like it and the supposed sketchiness of it does a good job of filtering out the pretentiousness that exists in other parts of town. Gnarly events have been going on here for a long time. The only difference is that the real estate has become valuable enough to attract mainstream developers and buyers. Until then there has been a fairly distinct boundary between where you go and where don’t. People tell the tourists to “stick to Water St. and don’t go past Carrall. Don’t walk down Hastings past Cambie. Pender’s okay though, that’s Chinatown.” So fine. We go to our movies at tinseltown, shake ass at Honey, but you do not chill out on park bench at Hastings and Carrall. That boundary is being erased, and the tribes are butting heads.
The Woodwards District, Paris Block, Koret Lofts, Smart Gastown. These developments are encroaching on turf that was previously out of bounds. The mainstream is moving in. Every other day I see moms in lululemons pushing baby strollers by crackhouses on E. Cordova. The cops turn a blind eye in these areas. The place governs itself. What makes us think a Chip Wilson-Yoga-Mat-Karate-Chop is going to keep junky away from baby?
(Dave O.)
The Carrall St. Greenway and $120 000 for Pigeon Park will fix the aesthetics. But broken window theory does not do much to help you kick that heroine addiction. We are glossing over the real problems here. They need to be addressed, not just moved east.
What about the next generation of users? What are we doing to prevent people from getting in these situations in the first place? What about the people down here with mental illness? Why can’t we be providing them with proper care?
Where do we go from here? Why not answering some of these questions and taking action. If anyone has any suggestions please comment!
Awesome post, Bill. You broke the blogging block!
Bill… where I work, at the Wellesley Institute, we recently published a “Blueprint to End Homelessness in Toronto.”
Michael Shapcott is the primary author. He went through around 100 years of research and policy suggestions to see what has worked and what hasn’t worked. A large part of the problem seems to be follow through. Government start something and then it’s either reversed or a new government is put in place and priorities change.
You can see the document here: http://wellesleyinstitute.com/theblueprint/
That url may change in the coming weeks because we’re revamping our site, but you can always find it at wellesleyinstitute.com.
As for your picture issue… you should general ask before taking a picture… that happens a lot in Toronto, I see it all the time – people taking pictures of the homeless. You can probably understand why it pissed them off, because they have no idea how the pictures will be used, etc…
also… if you don’t know it already… you’d probably enjoy “Spacing Magazine” – toronto based magazine, check their blog.
http://spacing.ca/
I don’t live in the DTES. I live 6 blocks away…
There are a number of intersecting problems here. Some of which can be fixed, some of which can never be fixed, and some which are inevitably going to get worse.
Since I’m currently condo shopping, I’ve been paying attention to what’s happening with real estate development in our fair city. The gentrification that is planned for the DTES is massive, and it is real.
A lot of the current problems are because you have the slum landlords sitting on property, letting it deteriorate, knowing that in a few years they’ll eventually be able to bulldoze and cash it in for a nice return.
Gentrification might not be altogether a bad thing, but it is going to result in many thousands of substandard housing units being demolished and/or upgraded. The net result is that many people that live there now will not be able to live there 5 years from now.
The yuppies and hipsters are moving in, and the whole bad scene is going to have to shift further east, or scatter throughout the rest of the lower income areas of the city. There’s going to be more crime, for sure. There will be more homelessness.
The drug situation is particularly nasty. You’ve got 5000 addicts (and their dealers) there. Mix in a similar number of mentally ill people. There’s a significant overlap where mentally ill people are self-medicating. You’ve got people stealing and selling sex to survive. Nobody wants this situation in their backyard.
Some things that are needed are obvious: housing, detox programs, social assistance, health care, recreation programs, education programs, nutrition programs, native culture programs, spiritual programs, intelligent law enforcement, smart drug policy, structured environments for the mentally ill and disabled, etc, etc.
Unfortunately, no matter how much is done, there is always more to do. Poverty is one of those problems that can society can manage somewhat, but can never truly solve.
Also, a small percentage of the population are hell bent on destruction, and there’s just nothing that can really be done for them. The truly worst cases need to be separated from society. That’s difficult to do equitably and expensive as well.
The biggest thing that needs to happen for the people in the DTES is to provide ways for them to be reconnected back into normal communities that will accept them. That’s a particularly tough problem to solve, especially for the self-destructive cases.
It’s shocking to see how much drug dealing is going on in the open. The only cops to be seen are the ones guarding the movie sets.
I’m optimistic though. I think some progress could be made be by looking at the overall problem, and then looking at each individual case and doing the appropriate things. There is some political will there, but the public has largely already ostracized these people, so they aren’t really committed at a deep level to solving these problems.
People that have a troubled relationship with society still have a built-in human need for community, and the DTES provides some of that.
Well put Jim. Sean thanks for the links. Looks like you’re working on good things out there in T.
Re. the photo…the shot in question (not the one pictured) was a wide shot of the intersection as a whole. The people that were taking issue with it were dealers…I have no sympathy for them.
[...] billmacewen.com » DTES is My Backyard. (tags: dtes downtowneastside vancouver architecture socialspaces) Date: May 5th, 2007 · Comments RSS · Tags: Other [...]