Blogservations – The Impact of Gentrification in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side on our Local Hospitals
In my many observations of Vancouver, one controversial and relevant to me, is the Gentrification of Vancouver’s Downtown East Side (DTES). Wikipedia defines Gentrification as, ‘the socio-economic, commercial, and demographic change in an urban area resulting from wealthier people buying housing property in a poor community.’ Gentrification of our city’s DTES has lead to higher rates of homelessness and displaced peoples in this already marginalized demographic group of the poor, mentally ill, HIV positive and drug addicted persons.
Homeless – Photo by Ed Yourdon
Personally, working as a Registered Nurse in our city’s biggest Hospital I am confronted with this issue of displaced people from the DTES everyday I go to work. New condos and a lack of subsided housing for the poor and mentally ill have made our DTES residents flock to our local hospitals, desperately asking for the Hospital System to provide them with some sort of housing. They will often have multiple presentations at the Hospital with drug overdoes, bed bug infestations and/or suicide attempts in hopes of getting admitted to the Hospital for a safe place to sleep, medications and food for a few days.
Hospital Bed – Photo by bennylin0724
The real estate in the DTES is considered desirable as it has magnificent views of the North Shore Mountains and is close to the ocean and Vancouver’s downtown core. Housing in Vancouver is notoriously expensive and now local developers have focused their eye to the DTES community to build new Condominiums and ‘revitalize’ parks and spaces such as Oppenheimer Park and the Woodward’s Building.
Buildings Gastown and DTES – Photo by ecstaticist
With the 2010 Olympic Games less than six months away and new buildings being built in Gastown and Crosstown our DTES residents are slowly being forced to move more East. In addition, Vancouver is in the global spotlight, with the draw of the 2010 Olympic Games and our geographical location of a temperate West Coast climate, a migration of displaced homeless Canadians from other Provinces arrive in Vancouver daily, seeking respite in our streets and hospitals.
I truly believe that displacing DTES residents by Gentrifying their Community is not the answer to conquer homelessness and poverty. We need to work as a community because no matter how hard Vancouver tries to forget or throw money at the DTES, its residents will not disappear, nor, will it force these residents forever out of Vancouver, because, this is their home too.
Homeless, shivering and sleeping under a piece of plastic from the November Vancouver Rain – Photo by Quinet
September 14th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
If anyone is interested in reading the comments on my Facebook Page it got pretty heated up…
Brennan:
What do you think should be done then?
Robyn:
I agree Brennan, I didn’t have enough words to write about solutions. My post was inspired by a contest in which you are only allowed 400 words.
Well, I think that rather than pushing people out there should be more housing built in that area for the DTES community. I personally think it was outrageous that the gov’t didn’t turn the Woodward’s building into social housing. The problem is the Single Room Hotels are being bought out and knocked down so people are loosing their homes. Also, I think the Safe Injection Site is the best thing that ever happened to this city – it decreases new cases of HIV and their success rate with getting people into recovery is very good.
What do you think?
Brennan:
I just can’t see where the money is going to come from. You can’t begrudge people for buying homes in the only reasonably priced neighbourhood left in the lower mainland. As for the Safe Injection Site, I do believe it is a benefit to our society (I do have some food for thought on Safe Injection Site that I should tell you someday, but that can’t be discussed here). The Current BC government has spent millions of my tax dollars saving more than a few of the SRO’s in the DTES, and the ones that can’t be saved are not fit to be lived in. The problems became epidemic when the previous governments tried to integrate the mentally ill with out proper support structures in place. It may be too late to fix that problem. And no I am not recommending warehousing the ill in places like Riverview, there has to be a happy medium between the two.
Robyn:
I know Brennan, it’s a dire situation -especially with the ongoing threat of Riverview closing and the reality being some of those long-term chronic patients are not able to integrated into a community setting.
Some of the SRO’s are disgusting and so bed bug infested and should be knocked down. I think it would be ideal if the gov’t rebuilt them into social housing as the Vancouver city has so little low-income housing available.
September 14th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
The FB banter keeps going…
Meghan:
The same thing is evident over here in Victoria! When was the last time any rental units were built? Probably about 20 years ago. It’s all condos now. The downtown of Victoria is full of homeless and unsupported mentally ill people. They are allowed to camp overnight in public parks. Meanwhile, millions of tax dollars are being spent on new sewage treatment facilities, when science clearly shows that the system in place is adequate, and our oceans healthy. Why not spend the money helping deal with our homeless issue? An added bonus would be that our parks might be free of human feces. Blargh!
Tyler:
I remember you telling us about Beacon Hill park and how they can pitch tents there and have little tent cities. I would hate to a) see that b) see human feces in a place were, as kids, we used to play.
Brennan:
The City of Victoria current system for dealing with sewage is the piping of raw sewage into the ocean. Not much of a treatment or way to deal with it. The sewage treatment plant is necessary and while expensive it is a long term infrastructure item. A good portion of the street beggars in downtown Victoria are kids from good homes in neighboring communities that have found a way to make easy money off of the tourists.
You all talk about building this and forcing people to build that but none have offered any meaningful ways to gain the cash required to do this. Monies that will have to come out of other programs unless you are advocating a dramatic increase in taxes. Before anyone says the HST, this is not a major gain in tax money as it shifts the burden from one group onto another with only minimal increase in general revenue.
Robyn:
Uhm…,no offense Brennan, but you have not offered any solutions either… The West Coast of North America is a haven for homeless/mentally ill/drug addicted people, especially, in the winter when other parts of N.America freeze they all journey here. They end up in Vancouver/Victoria, of course, there are street youth, but Victoria has A LOT of adult homelessness as well including a serious drug issue equivalent to Vancouver’s.
The problem is…no one has come up with any solutions that will ‘fix’ the problem. As a citizen the only way it seems we can make a difference is to be educated and support politics and help lobby for our local gov’ts to spend the money more wisely on social issues of homelessness. But I do think talking about it helps and makes people more aware =)
September 14th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
FB banter continued…
Brennan:
Ok the current system is broken and more critically broke. Higher taxes unfortunately is the only way out. As I have discussed with others the current system of borrowing money, coupled with low taxes is futile and leads to meltdowns when the system invariably collapses. So fist we will be forced to pay more taxes, no one likes to hear that but it is the only way we can afford to pay for the teachers, nurses, infrastructure upgrades, roads, bridges, and everything else that our system has come to expect from the government.
Second we will need to set up a heavily regulated two-tier healthcare system. Where doctors (more specifically groups of doctors) are regulated on how much for-profit healthcare time they can spend. This will attract more doctors to BC because we do have a shortage. But by opening the for-profit side we will also be able to attract more qualified nurses from other jurisdictions (inside and outside of Canada).
This will also reduce the burden on the current system so that we can free up some more money to dedicate to helping the mentally ill and hopefully some of the drug-addicted. The problem is most addictions are not completely treatable, they can be controlled to a point but not cured. We need to build gated communities that offer round the clock assisted living to the mentally-ill. Gating the communities is not to squirrel these people away but rather to help keep the predators at bay. It worked for China against the Mongols, I think it can help with mentally-ill and the drug-addicted. As long as they want treatment. They are free to leave and as long as they remain clean welcome to return. I can’t remember which jurisdiction in Europe has built these self-sufficient communities for drug addiction treatment but that is what we need. Unfortunately these communities will need to be built outside of the major urban centers. Either in suburban areas or even in more remote areas.
We will also need to build more jails, lots. This is a necessary evil as we need to bring punishment back to the legal system of Canada. I am not talking about locking up everybody but rather locking up for longer the ones that need to be locked up. Our current penitentiaries are beyond full they are a powder keg. Plus it puts a huge load on our parole system to make space for the ones coming in by letting questionable parolees out early.
All this takes huge amounts of capital. Through higher taxes and other initiatives we will have to find a way to pay for it all. Taxing the hell out of for profit medicine will help.
N.i.m.b.y.-ism will rear its head, so will union protectionism and probably a million (4.3 million) other things will have to be dealt with since everyone has to agree the current way of doing things is definitely not working…. Read More
As to housing the homeless this is probably the most controversial one I have. We need tent cities, but supported tent cities.
By supported tent cities, I am talking about ones where there is access to clean water, medical and psychological treatment. Access to some of the things we take for granted like toilets. there has been advances in other places where they use 10×10ft single standing structures that have a rudimentary kitchen, bed and toilet but more importantly a solid roof and insulation.. I know this sound remarkable the same as the inside of jail cell but I assure you these are miniature houses.
Again convincing people to live in these camps will be hard. Since some will refer to them as interment camps. Others will bring up images of us warehousing the ill again. Also the hardest part convincing regular people that they have to pay more taxes. regular people who ignore the DTES. Regular people who feel they are entitled to their money while others starve. Regular people who think addiction is a choice. It may be choice to try it but what happens after is not!
Do you need more?
September 14th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
FB banter keeps going…
Tristan:
It appears to me that what was intended to be an insightful exchange of ideas has been hijacked and turned into the political ramblings of a frustrated individual.
The debate over gentrification is an interesting one. The situation in the DTES is unique. Most commonly gentrification results in the less enfranchised being pushed into more rural areas. However in Vancouver, there is a no trend of these people moving into the fraser valley. And the provincial government has spent a dwindling amount of funding on trying to patch the cracks in a broken system. Yes Brennan, spending millions of your tax dollars.
The point Robyn made about a number of these people coming from other parts of Canada is a good one, relevant in Vancouver and Victoria. Health and social welfare distribution is the responsibility of the provincial government. However, the majority of the funding is provided by the federal government. Keep this in mind.
In regards to these self sustaining communities in Europe. The European health care systems are distributed federally, very differently than here in Canada. A planned community such as this would be funded and operated by the federal government. And as a great of an example as some place in Europe is, I know that a similar program is operated by the Norwegian government.
So these sorts of programs do exist but under extremely different circumstances. Funding aside, one does need land with clean water, space to build on, supply lines, and be accessible to staff. The Norwegian solution was to partner the program with the military. That gives you land with the capacity and resources to build on it, which can be staffed and regulated for both safety and health.
Back to our situation on the west coast. The DND has considerable amounts of land in both the greater victoria area and the fraser valley. Now consider that the majority of health care funding comes from the federal government and a good number of these people come from all across Canada, is a similar program not possible in Canada? Or has the Federal government cut a cheque to the province and walked away from providing for its citizens?
It easy enough to bitch about the situation, make vague claims, offer minimalist solutions, and then ask wheres the money going to come from?. These sorts of statements add no value to an intelligent conversation.
Do you need more?
September 14th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Every time I do a blog post it links to my FB account and the reason why I copied and pasted these FB comments is this post sparked a lot of interesting and relevant discussion on a controversial topic. I thought the time that people spent on their comments should be saved and brought over to add to the discussion.
Thanks for the comments, and I will update any new comments on FB and feel free to add your thoughts here as well.