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