Cracks in the Foundation

You may have noticed the recent headlines section on the right-hand sidebar. I've been trying to keep it updated. You may have also noticed the headline, "Homelessness in Vancouver could triple by 2010". As 2010 venue costs soar at Olympic rates, so too does the cost of homelessness. The cost to Vancouver's taxpayers rose 49 percent from $25,120,000 to $51,460,00, yet the building social housing would save taxpayers between $10,328,000 and $15,492,000 per year. As a new report by Pivot Legal Foundation points out, the overall human and social benefits of housing our homeless neighbors would be incalculable. Surely that's enough to convince the detractors of so-called Welfare State economics such as the Fraser Institute, who would rather see the homeless put to work in labour camps a la Scrooge. Because obviously it is a choice to be homeless. And mentally ill, and Native, and addicted to drugs.

Those people also obviously never listened to the popular nightime proverb, "Don't let the bedbugs bite". You see despite the recent decision of the Harper Government to postpone pulling the plug on Insite, and despite the sexy photo-op of Sullivan kicking off the Woodwards brick sale, we've actually had a net loss of 492 housing units, when a city report called for 800 units per year. This is partly due to the bedbug infestation and the city's incompetence or unwillingness to deal with it. They have the power to clean up the Single Residential Occupancy (SRO) suites and bill the landlord, but they haven't. Of course, bedbugs aren't the only thing that bites. Slumlords raising rents in crime-ridden, crumbling tenements while welfare rates have stayed the same for 12 years stings too.

Of course its easy for me to put a magnifying glass on the complexities of the Downtown Eastside from the safety of my laptop, but I have lived there. I have been on welfare and I know how complicated the situation is. I was lucky enough however to have a support network to bail me out when Welfare wanted me to pay $1700 for one month of my recovery program because they said addiction was not a barrier to employment. I watched as desperate addicts were forced to wait 3 weeks before being accepted, and 3 weeks in the life of a heroin user is a lifetime. It seems the levels of beaurocracy are always trying to pass the buck. When Larry Campbell was elected on a 4 pillar platform spurred on by the Woodsquat, he ran into a Provincial brick wall. Now, Harper looks good by vascillating on the issue while Gordon Campbell could have told him to shove a needle in his dick, as so eloquently put by The Only.

Sam Sullivan asked us, "When the world arrives in Vancouver in 2010, what kind of city will they find?"
I'm afraid of the answer.