East Hastings – An Olympic Sized Mess
Protest zones planned for Olymics
With the Olympics just around the corner, you’d think that the money spent on cleaning up East Hastings Street would start to show. Vancouver’s downtown eastside is still crawling with junkies, the mentally ill, and homeless shipped in from across the country.
What do you expect for $1.4 billion?
With the 2010 Olympics about to put Vancouver in the world’s spotlight I wonder what the organizers have planned to hide this blight?
To get to downtown I am forced to drive through the area. Generally, I treat it like a drive through the woods. The people are like deer, jumping unexpectedly in front of cars.
I am still surprised to see an open drug market a block from the police station, groups of addicts smoking crack next to cop cars, crack whores on every corner, and a garbage stench that reminds me of Tijuana.
\$1,468,154,865 has been spent since the Vancouver Agreement was signed, with roughly $717.5-million spent on health and social services, $348.6-million on housing, $154.5-million on safety and justice, $230-million on economic development, and $16.8-million on other services.
Looks like we flushed the money down the toilet… literally.
And if you understand Vancouver, it’s not a surprise.
photo credit: Ms D. Meanor
photo credit: sillygwailo
September 19th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
We visited Vancouver this summer for the first time in 16 years. After visiting the aquarium, I thought it would be nice to tour Chinatown because I remembered it as a very dynamic interesting place with lots of different stores.
Boy was I wrong! It was full of closed down buildings and druggies, and this was a Saturday morning. We got out of there as quick as we could. I’m not sure if this is the same area you are talking about, but it definitely was a disgrace. Maybe they should take Chinatown off the tourist map as an attraction before the Olympics. Is the free needle/drug shooting clinic in that area?
September 19th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Yep.. everything between Gastown and Chinatown is a no man’s zone.
The people are harmless other than harassing you for money.
Chinatown now closes at 6PM… as a shop owner what this has cost them.
September 20th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Yes the free needle Insite facility is still there. It is the now-untouchable, a major plank in the much vaunted Four Pillars approach to a healthy drug induced lifestyle. This feel good harm reduction approach has about “600″ (“Door opened! Commissionaire please add a check mark to todays attendance report…”) junkies daily. That´s all we get, we can feel good now. The complete denial of the scope of this cesspool is breathtaking and disgusting. There are over 10,000 needle bearing drug addicts in the downtown eastside and the city of Vancouver and neighbouring cities have a grand total of 34 detox beds. Staff is so profoundly helpful (or desperate) that individuals are turned away if they haven´t been straight for three days before being considered for admittance!!!
34 detox beds folks. 34 detox beds really should solve this problem, a problem we just don´t want to deal with. Oh by the way have any of you heard of VANDU? Yeah that is an influential little ditty called the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users. They make regular appearances before city council to woo uber-yogurt guru Mayor Gregor “Happy Planet” Robertson for more free dope and free needles for the newbies in town.
August 19th, 2010 at 1:04 am
I was with my friends the other day and we also decided to check out Chinatown. Man was it a bad decision, because we were right in the middle of it and east hastings and the air was actually suffocating me for a second. There was druggies everywhere on the sidewalks and they were yelling at the cars and prostitutes were visible all over the place. Basically the worst area I’ve seen in the lower mainland. But I’m glad we saw it because now we know how bad some parts of Vancouver are, and we know how stupid some people are when they spend way too much money on the useless olympics. In Richmond, I personally hate the statues they put near the lansdowne skytrain station. I heard they cost a couple hundred thousand dollars!!! Are they fkin stupid or what, thinking those “art” statues are worth more than the safety of eastside Vancouver. Seriously they will never know how bad it will continue to get if they don’t spend money on the right things
February 26th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
i think that some of the cops secretly kill them off in the night in allyways. the homeless drug addicts are growing and all they do is deteriorate our society that is vancouver and the lower mainland. we have a different culture than the rest of canada; think about it. when the police arrest these homeless drug addicts, all they do is take up jail space and tax payer’s money; and when they get back out onto the street again they are doing the same shit. its be proven that these people are mentally ill and are violent. some are not, but the fact remains that some of them rob for money and/or assualt victims. this is a modern day metropolis in the world, lets get rid of the drugs guys.
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