Agreement struck, but benefits for Eastside minimal

It has been six years since the city of Vancouver, the province of British Columbia and the federal government announced a plan to improve the conditions of those living on the streets of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, but despite ambitious proposals concerning housing, health and safety, some organizations say little is being done for members of Canada's poorest community.
"All they're doing is Band-Aid effects down here," said Bernie Williams, a frontline worker for the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre. Williams, who asked she be referred to by her Haida name, Skundal, said that while various organizations have been established to help the community she wonders what positive outcome they have had on Vancouver's drug-addicted and homeless.
Those struggling with drug addiction, mental illness and poverty have been promised help in the Vancouver Agreement, a plan established in 2000 to address issues pertaining to housing, health, crime reduction and economic development. The Downtown Eastside Economic Revitalization Plan is a branch of the Vancouver Agreement. The Economic Revitalization Plan was established to tackle economic issues, reduce crime and provide drug treatment and low-income housing to those who need it most.

"At best there are 100 units that are available in two years from now, but aside from that it's hard for me to see what they've done," said Dave Eby, a lawyer at Vancouver's Pivot Legal Society, of the Vancouver Agreement. The community-focused organization helps people in need of legal and social advocacy. Eby, who is actively involved in housing issues, said the less than adequate number of suites allocated to low-income tenants once the old Vancouver Woodwards building is finished renovation is a "pretty marginal accomplishment for three levels of government."

Kim Kerr, executive director of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA), echoed Eby's skepticism in regard to future promises of affordable housing.

"Frankly until the buildings go up with any low-income housing, I'll believe it when I see it," he said. According to Kerr, there are approximately 300,000 homeless people nationwide, with 3,000 of them living on the streets of Vancouver. Although not considered homeless, approximately 31,000 people are currently at risk of homelessness in the Greater Vancouver Regional District. To be considered at risk of homelessness means that an individual must allocate in excess of 30 per cent of their monthly income to rent.

According to the 2005 Greater Vancouver District Region Homelessness Count, homelessness has nearly doubled over the last few years, from roughly 1,121 living on the streets of Vancouver in 2002 to 2,174 in 2005. Not only was there a growth of 235 per cent or 800 people homeless from 2002-2005, but findings also show that in March of 2005 there were more people living on the streets than in shelters.

The report further shows there were proportionately higher numbers of Aboriginal women represented in the homeless population (32 per cent) than that of the non-Aboriginal homeless population (27 per cent).

Skundal agrees there is a need for additional housing in the Downtown Eastside and said that affordable housing is a necessary step toward revitalization of the community.

"Do you know how many buildings are vacant that we could be utilizing for our woman down here, but because the 2010 [Olympics] is coming, where are they going to move our women? Where are they going to move all the people down here?"

With Vancouver playing host to the Winter Olympics and Paralympics in just four short years, the decision to clean up the Downtown Eastside comes at a time that has some representatives ofcommunity organizations speculating about the real motive behind the Vancouver Agreement." What are we trying to hide from tourists?" asked Kerr. " The Vancouver Agreement is a plan to gentrify the Downtown Eastside. The Vancouver Agreement caters to the needs of the Olympics and the needs of the business society," he said.

But Isobel Donovan, executive director of the Vancouver Agreement Coordination Unit, asserts that the revitalization of the lower eastside has nothing to do with the 2010 Olympics and everything to do with helping members of the community help themselves. Admitting that the Olympics may have been a catalyst to last year's five-year renewal of the agreement, Donovan said primary goals of the plan are to increase the safety, health and economy of the Downtown Eastside.

According to Donovan, one success born out of the Vancouver Agreement has come in the form of the Welfare Outreach Program. The program ensures that individuals get the assistance needed in properly filling out Social Assistance forms.

Donovan said it is important to keep the dialogue open between the government, organizations, residents of the Downtown Eastside and various private sector businesses, which will eventually play a role in the execution of economic development plans.

"We try and make sure that we get to the people that live and work there," she said. Meetings between members of the Vancouver Agreement Unit and community members and organizations are ongoing, she said. In acknowledging the importance of community input Donovan also said "the Downtown Eastside is probably the most consulted community in the city," and that the key principle behind the Downtown Eastside Revitalization Project lies in the mandate of "revitalization without displacement."

The Vancouver Police Department (VPD) is also involved in the Vancouver Agreement. Retired Constable Dave Dixon, who is now the Downtown Eastside sex trade coordinator for the VPD, said the amalgamation of sources helping the community is better than "throwing money out the window." Dixon, along with fellow officer, John McKay, received an award in 2003 for their role in organizing Use of Force Training, a self-defense program aimed to protect sex-trade workers on Vancouver's streets. Dixon said the self-defense course is compiled of 10 per cent physical self-defense and 90 per cent communication tools to handle 'bad dates' and other threatening circumstances.

Dixon said a better understanding of the issues of the Downtown Eastside is important in establishing the needs of the community. "It goes both ways," he said. " There are people that don't understand what we do and there are police that don't understand the prostitutes."
However, when it comes to the importance of specific issues in the city, Dixon asserts that Vancouver's drug problem trumps that of housing needs. "We don't have a huge homeless problem in Vancouver," said Dixon. "If someone has a homeless problem it's because they usually sell their rent cheque for drugs." Lower Eastside organizations, the VPD and representatives of the Vancouver Agreement all agreed that more safe injection sites and drug treatment facilities are needed in the community.

While housing and drug treatment are pivotal concerns needing immediate address, other issues concerning racism, injustice and marginalization need attention as well.

According to Skundal, racial stereotyping has played a key role in regard to the relationships between Aboriginal people in the Downtown Eastside and city authorities. After finding her sister and mother dead in two well-known eastside hotels, Skundal knows first-hand the pain and frustration in dealing with issues concerning law enforcement, accountability and justice for those living in the neighborhood.

Investigators ruled Skundal's sister's death accidental, claiming she had choked on a pork-chop bone. Later Skundal would find out that her sister not only had extensive bruising around her neck but the bed in her hotel room had been covered in blood. Contrary to evidence that may have suggested otherwise, no further investigation arose from the woman's untimely death and Skundal said her sister was " written off as a drunken, prostitute, drug-addicted Indian."

Gladys Radek is another First Nations women devoting her time to improving the conditions for women on the streets of Vancouver. Radek, whose brother was killed in the lower eastside, said women are not the only human targets in the impoverished community. Found robbed and beaten, Radek said her brother died just another statistic or "just another dead Indian."

The issue of accountability and the need for increased safety on the streets of Vancouver was echoed at the First Nations World Peace Forum in June at the First Nations House of Learning onthe University of British Columbia campus. There Skundal and her team of frontline workers spoke of alleged serial murderer Robert William Pickton, and the need for justice to be served in the senseless deaths of countless women.

" The genocide of our people is reflected in what is happening to the women downtown," said Carole Martin, frontline worker for the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre. " We're still under a magnifying glass," she added. In understanding that her people feel disconnected on the streets of Vancouver, Martin stressed the importance of resilience, resolve and the power of the human spirit. "We can find peace within ourselves," she said.

Breaking the family's silence publicly for the first time, Laura Tompkins, mother-in-law of alleged Pickton victim Patricia Rose Johnson, was one of the keynote speakers at the forum. Tompkins said that while legal accountability and criminal justice is slowly progressing, social justice hasn't yielded any real changes in regard to the way people from the Downtown Eastside are treated.
Tompkins stressed that any lasting positive transformations made in the lower eastside community will be because of a shift in social conscience and a growth of a deeper public awareness of the serious issues plaguing the impoverished community. " It isn't going to be changed by land development. It isn't going to be changed by prime real estate. It is only going to change if we can accept the differences of people in the Downtown Eastside," she said.