B.C. Premier says Downtown Eastside will be better for 2010

[Sportsdude]

Reminds me of Atlanta '96, they shipped out all the homeless people for the games to outlining areas.


B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell vowed Tuesday that the world will see a different Downtown Eastside when it arrives for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

“I believe we will see significant improvements,” Mr. Campbell said of the notorious urban blight in the centre of the city, riddled with drug addicts, the homeless, the mentally ill, grim rooming houses and boarded-up storefronts.

“I think we are already seeing some improvements. I think we will see more. … [And] I think people who come from outside Vancouver will see communities striving to be even better.”

Sounds like his plan is the same as Atlanta's.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080812.wolymvanc0812/BNStory/National/home

 

[Michel]

They do the same crap everywhere about poverty : just hide it and displace it, no fix. They build the Olympic stadium in one of the poorest neighborghood in Montréal, destroying the few places to rent low incomers could afford. These people had to move far away in distant suburbs in shacks, they couldn't afford a car nor bus tickets fromthe suburbs, hence found themselves more isolated from their friends and familly. They did the same with Expo 67.

 

I wonder how they gonna hide Main and Hasting however. These people are not merely poor, they are dysfunctional wreck. They need continuous psychiatric and medical help among other things. This should have already begun if they are serious about fixing the problem.

[Sportsdude]

Well they somehow got 'rid' of the Atlanta people and if you've ever spent some time there, let me tell ya its a sad place. People living in the weeds by the highway, living in a dumpster downtown, under over passes. :(  I keep wondering what MLK would think about his neighbourhood, it's so poor.

They'll pick up all the crowd and send them somewhere, most likely Vancouver Island or places like Chiliwack and Abbotsford, far away from where the tourists will go. (that's what they did in Atlanta they went places like Macon).
 

[Van]

I am sure they will just keep shipping them to Alberta. Calgary is getting such a bad rep too for its homeless problem, (Edmonton too). But most of the homeless there are sent there from BC in the first place. 

 

 

[Lil Me]

I heard this rumour that before the Salt Lake Olympics, they gave every homeless person a one-way bus ticket to Vegas. 

[Michel]

Sounds like urban myth.

[Sportsdude]

Hmm never heard of the Salt Lake City one, but it did happen in Atlanta and they were ridiculed for it. Then we only need to remember Expo '86 in Van to remember what they did to homeless there. (heard the story on cbc radio this afternoon).  

[P.C.]

There's something odd about finding fault with building something useful on land inhabited by the homeless.  Are we to leave broken rundown sections of town as is, so the homeless can call it home ?

[Van]

New infrastructure and centres are fine with me too. As long as one community isn't sweeping their problems into another.

[Sportsdude]

That will be the end result though, they'll just move somewhere else.

 

[Russ]

Sportsdude wrote:
They'll pick up all the crowd and send them somewhere, most likely Vancouver Island or places like Chiliwack and Abbotsford, far away from where the tourists will go. (that's what they did in Atlanta they went places like Macon).

I still think they should either stop squabbling about completing all the pillars of the safe injection site so we could see if its actually going to work or not.. all the studies in teh world can be interpreted by so called experts and come up with what the paying people want to hear. Do it properly and I wish all the nay sayers would keep quiet until the results are in.

The other thing Im a supporter of is something like what you are saying.. send them away. Only send them to a 6 month confinement on a farm somewhere. If you are a drug addict and are caught 3 times.. you get 6 months isolation on a farm somewhere up norht. When you are released you will be sent somehwere away from where the drugs are and not allowed to return for a year.
Tough love.. somethings gotta be done. Only some lawyer will get involved for fame and money, making it not allowed somehow. I really wish we werent ruled by lawyers, and special interest groups like we are now.
 

[JJ]

Yes, sent this on a holiday with a one way bus ticket.  Isn't that what they are offering?

[Sportsdude]

they'll come back. Plus it is just passing a problem to somebody else to fix.
 

[JJ]

They won't even leave, so they won't have to worry about the coming back part.

[Michel]

Sportsdude wrote:
they'll come back. Plus it is just passing a problem to somebody else to fix.
 

lol like if anybody in the political class can or want to fix the problem... Dream on...