More "poverty porn"...

...for consumption by the middle-class.

Allow me a brief rant:

I had to laugh at this..."It can be quite a dangerous area," he says. "On the street, you have to appear tough. If you don't, someone's going to steal from you or beat you up."
This guy obviously doesn't spend much time in the DTES.

It's mostly (poor) people getting on with their lives. Yes, those oh so scary looking drug addicts are people too.

Granville Street on the weekend is "scarier" and much more dangerous...drug fueled (in this case alcohol) frat boy types picking fights with whoever happens to be the vicinity is a regular occurrence. I have seen more than a few three on one beatings down there. Even the police have acknowledged that weekend violence is a problem.

But since it's mostly white and mostly middle-class people involved the media mostly ignores it. And alcohol is our society's accepted drug...so cue more stereotypical horror stories about street level junkies and cocaine users. Prohibition of cocaine and heroin cause most of the problems the average junk or coke user has to deal with, especially if they're poor and have to buy their drugs on the street.

Hard-right capitalism and prohibition are responsible for the poverty and desperation in the DTES. The silver-lining, surely, is plenty of fuel fuel for drug and poverty porn peddlers.

@ wcullen

Nice post. Very well said.

Will the REAL DTES stand up, please...

Very interesting and insightful comments above here. They are the real read.

I drove a transit bus through this area very often over many years, and its their view of the DTES that is the one I remember.

Mr. Gasztonyi needs to sharpen his intellectual/political lens. He's a good technician, now he needs to improve his "understanding" of what is really going on here.

Thanks folks above.

DTES

Huh . . .

http://members.shaw.ca/rogerkemble/5.dtes/dtes/dtes.html
. . . spent a Monday morning just a few weeks ago wandering around clicking and musing . . . absolutely no threats I could sense, feel or see . . .

PS . . . I'm sure if you

PS . . .

I'm sure if you go looking for trouble you can find it in the Vancouver club . . .

i agree with wcullen

I too work in the dtes, and am off work nightly at midnight on the busiest block. I have never felt personally in danger. I have felt threatened through interpersonal work with residents, but this comes with the territory and is to be expected (and even this is rare). As a visitor walking the streets, I feel safe. And if I "look tough" it is certainly news to me. My biggest annoyance is being constantly asked whether my bike is for sale. THat the neighbourhood is dangerous for its residents,especially women, should not be understated. A couple of weeks ago a young woman, who I happened to meet throught work some time ago, was thrown to her death out of a 5th story window of an SRO. Just last night, on my ride home, at Gore and Pender, I witnessed a woman being viciously punched in the head and an attempt to drag her into the alley. The man was stopped by a closer passerby's threat to call the cops. I have witnessed many assaults and seen the fear that drug debts can cause.

That said, the neighbourhood is unmatched in community, and for all the addiction and desparation, there is a connection among residents that is sorely lacking elsewhere. Its a big reason I enjoy my work, and I feel I get more back through this than I "give." For me, certainly not a scary place. Disturbing at times, but inspiring and beautiful as often as not.

DTES

I just wanted to clarify the issue of so called "toughness" in the DTES. I didn't mean that you have to be tough to walk through these streets as sort of a mechanism to prevent harm. I was just commenting on a sociological aspect of interaction within the world of drug addiction and illness. In a sense aggresiveness on the part of addicts can lessen the potential for harm from other addicts and dealers. This was confirmed to me by countless discussions and interviews over a six year period. And yes of course the DTES is generally a very safe place to walk through and I walk through there regularly, photographing where I can--and meeting with the many friends I have there. But it can be also a dangerous place with many unreported incidents. Ashley was believed to have been thrown out of the fifth floor of the Regent Hotel, naked into the alley around the 12th of September. I was there at the Regent the next day and one of my friends who lived there was unable to re-enter his room because of the police investigation. The murder completely shocked everyone--and yes the DTES can at times be a frightening place. I know several people who live on the fifth floor--where are the coucillors to help them through this trauma?
Headlines about this in the press were absent for at least two weeks--our society was more concerned with the gases eminating from the former BC Hydro Electra Building.
To quote from my preface to A Room in the City, "Each of these relationships is held together by fear, violence and deception, deals gone bad and debts unpaid. I learned that on the street, aggression is copied or mimicked from one person to another. This chain of connections somehow lessens the amount of hurt each person endures...Each day as the rest of us in the city live our own lives at home, at work and in public, many of the people of the DTES that I came to know in these photographs continue their struggle with illness, finding ways to love in a world filled with despair. As I entered each of these rooms and sat down beside another human being and began speaking as one person to another relationships and perceptions began to change. The anxiety of the world disappeared, and the need to deceive went away...On the walls of these dimly lit spaces I discovered pictures of families: children and lost husbands and wives..As my heart filled with memory and as the words we spoke became softer, I knew I had become more than a guest, I had become a listener and a friend."
Yes I think I do understand the DTES--I've eaten pigs feet and Kraft dinner served up by Dave Hill, at the Balmoral Hotel on the Fourth floor--a luxurious meal really. Perhaps someone should get off the transit bus and join us next time.?

Perhaps...

..and perhaps again there is more in your defensiveness Gasztonyi than in your words.

The two posters who actually work in the DTES that responded here--myself and Ramone--you seem to have conveniently ignored and focused on the transit story: convenient..and telling.

I was quite clear that I appreciate your work, but if you think you speak 'for' people down here because you visit and take pictures and get invited in by DTES folks then Ramone's 'poverty porn' may be more apt than I originally thought--just think about that for a moment...

And, no doubt you have developed relationships with people down here, I'm glad, but you have given me pause to wonder as to what intentions and ends you've developed these 'relationships'. What gain for them..?

I am also glad, as should have been clear above, that your photography brings a human perspective to DTES. But you're hardly breaking new ground here; in fat, even six years ago, you're a bit of a Johnny-come-lately. More importantly, these people's stories are--and have been--best told by themselves.

But let's be clear, Mr. Gasztonyi, coming to the DTES once a week over six years equates to about a years--sporadic--experience. The relationships you develop, no doubt meaningful to you (and perhaps meaningful to the people you've met) pale in comparison to those who work down here every day, which, in turn, pales in comparison to having to live and exist here.

In this sense you're in danger--whether you'll admit to it or not--of acting like John Stackhouse when he tried to tell Torotonians what it was like to be poor by living amongst them for a week. Insight: perhaps; in-depth insight: only for the most naive. Please, just be aware of this.

Finally, what percentage of the profit of your book goes back to these people whom you've made a profit--however meager--on? Where are you and your skills in the "Hope In The Shadows" project? If you're so dedicated to this area and these people then volunteer for this meaningful project. In a phrase, Mr. Gasztonyi: give back.

I find it odd--and, perhaps, telling-- that I couldn't, any where (please correct me if I'm wrong), find where you had contributed, gave back, to the DTES, the area you say you "understand".

Exploitation appears in many guises: from the intentional to the well meaning, Mr. Gasztonyi...Please consider this in the spirit it was meant: honest criticism. And take your own advice and think about this while you're riding the transit out of the DTES back to New West where you spend most of your life...

DTES

Mr. Cullen:

Books such as A Room in the City are not best sellers in general--they are hardly Oprah Club selections. A large number of the people in the book were given their own personal copies and a number of copies were donated to the Carnegie Library. I encourage you to pick up a copy and have a look at the whole book including all the text and diaries since 2004. As a photojournalist it is very difficult and time consuming to make a book like A Room in the City--if you consideer six years of shooting and hand developing thousands of rolls of film making contact prints, making prints in the dark room to give to people in the hotels, and countless hours of writing and editing. I pray that this book will play a part in understanding the intimate human nature of the DTES--and that through the art of the still image a greater sense of awareness and will be created. I humbly view that as my contribution and my giving back. Through sincere connections to our fellow human beings--social change is indeed possible.

I certainly applaud anyone that works in the DTES on a daily basis--as you have. There are many dedicated people working there--non more dedicated than Dr. Gabor Mate who through his books, public speaking and work as a clinical physician in the area for over ten years. He has brought an incredible sense of understanding about drug addiction to our society. Dr. Mate in his forward to A Room in the City, writes,"My friend Gabor's photographs open the window through which we may glimpse the lives of people traumatized early in life and re-traumatized ever since by a society that blames or, at best, shuns them for developing mental illness or addiction, or both, in response to that trauma." And again, "Nor can words depict the triumph these photos and these lives represent--triumph over despair, the urge to give up and disappear, the drive to succumb to blows that are, to many of us, unimaginable."

Raising awareness

Good article and good conversation. Both of you, Cullen and Gasztonyi, bring more awareness to the problems associated with poverty in this country. Too many people don't ever come into contact with the poorest in our society. That leads to ignorant attitudes and actions that make their situation even worse. The more awareness is raised about poverty, homelessness and mental illness the more the government will feel obligated to act on their behalf. The government will only come to the table if forced so carry on with all efforts to bring these problems to the publics attention.

I think both of you make valid points.