CBC Early Edition radio
host Stephen Quinn recently interviewed Mayor Kennedy Stewart about his first
nine months in office. During the discussion, Quinn mentioned he had
recently been to Main and Hastings in the Downtown Eastside and had never seen
the neighbourhood look worse. The mayor agreed.
When asked what he was
going to do about it, the mayor responded it’s all about senior government
investment in housing. With palpable emotion, Quinn asked what goes through the
head of the mayor of a wealthy city when he sees such a terrible street scene.
The mayor responded it’s a tough place for sure and he must do a better job of
getting senior government funding for housing.
Mayor Stewart’s comments
reminded me of a mid-1990s CBC radio interview with another mayor — Phillip
Owen. He too was asked about improving the DTES and he too blamed senior
governments for not providing enough funding for housing. I greatly
admired Mayor Owen but recall being very disappointed with his answer. I
subsequently proposed to him that the DTES tragedy was much more than a
shortage of housing. It had to do with an over concentration of people
with mental illness and drug addiction, inappropriate policing, and poor
planning.
In 2000, Mayor Owen was
instrumental in creating The Vancouver Agreement, an initiative undertaken
jointly by the three levels of government to regenerate the DTES through
collaboration between government and community and business groups. Mayor Owen
also shocked many, including his closest friends, by implementing a “Four
Pillar Approach” to fight drug addiction. The four pillars were prevention,
treatment, enforcement and harm reduction. Soon after, Vancouver opened
Insite, North America's first legal safe injection site for intravenous drug
users in 2003. Sadly, other pillars have not been as successful.
When Larry Campbell became
mayor, I had high expectations for him, given his previous roles as an RCMP and
Vancouver police officer and chief coroner. Tragically, he did little to
improve DTES living conditions. Although he did write a book. I also had
high hopes for former mayor Gregor Robertson. Although he naively campaigned on
ending homelessness, he was committed to creating a new DTES neighbourhood
plan. During the planning process, then city manager Penny Ballem was the
speaker at a Lambda Alpha International dinner I attended. She was asked how we
will know when the city’s new neighbourhood plan is working. "We will know
when the empty and boarded up storefronts are replaced by vibrant
businesses." I was impressed by her answer.
Unfortunately, the city’s
neighbourhood planning process was hijacked by a small constituency led by Jean
Swanson and the Carnegie Community Action Project. It wanted a ban on any
ownership housing in the DTES core and argued instead for predominantly social
housing. At the time, I questioned whether the DTES should
remain a low-income precinct with a high concentration of shelters, social
housing, and community services or become a more broadly mixed
community. Stephen Quinn also questioned the likely effectiveness of
the plan.
Sadly, since approval of
this plan, the DTES has become worse, not better. So, what should be
done? While there appear to be insurmountable problems, the city might learn
from its South Shore False Creek community. To overcome the myriad of
challenges, in the mid-1970s Mayor Art Phillips created the False Creek
Development Group led by Doug Sutcliffe, a highly respected, charismatic
individual. Through bi-weekly meetings over three years, he convened government
and community representatives and key stakeholders to build a remarkable and
innovative community. Perhaps it is time to create a DTES working group,
council or cabinet. With the right leader, it could manage the oftentimes
competing activities and initiatives. Hopefully it would develop a
strategy to improve the deplorable single-room-occupancy hotels so that
residents no longer prefer to sleep on the streets; create more community
spaces and facilities for those suffering from mental illness and addictions;
address illegal drug dealing and improve the appearance of storefronts,
sidewalks and open spaces.
As Karen Ward, a
Downtown Eastside resident and drug user advocate observed in another
recent interview with Quinn “abnormality has become normalized in the
DTES. To better understand this, just head over to Hastings and Main.
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