Thanks Sarah

Thanks Ann.

A lot of us are wondering about this too:

Change isn't a foregone conclusion - trying ought to be - too many of us just look the other way and whistle on by....

Thank you, Ann Livingston. And just wondering ...

Maybe this is a place where it's OK to ask a question that's been bothering me throughout the Pickton trial which, I understand, cost about $100,000,000.

The work of Ann Livingston tells us so clearly where help is needed.

The question: Wouldn't it be better to spend the next $100 million -- the cost for the 2nd trial -- directly on the desperate people still battling for their lives in the DTE ... and maybe also to allow the families to share in the decision?

I've been afraid to voice that question for fear that somebody would say that I have no concern for those who are troubled and sinking.

It just seems appalling that so much money can pour into grand courtrooms day after day after day ... money that could provide decent homes, food, treatment for these troubled souls.

Doggoned if I can see how another year of Court helps the families of the victims (living or already lost) ... when giving them the opportunity to re-shape the dreadful circumstances which cost them their loved ones would, I think, do it better.

Couldn't it be used to give abused persons a 2nd chance at life?

Oz of prevention?

Right on Mary ... an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but not in Vancouver because there's too much money to be made off of sorrow.

Good article.

Sad story.

Write a book Ann, or better still start a video news blog and sprinkle it liberally with references to the 2010 Olympics.

Set up a cheap video camera in your office area and every day interview one victim of Vancouver's city streets.

Ask each victim the following questions:

1.) What is your favorite 2010 Olympic sport?

2.) When you were a kid, did you ever dream of being an Olympic champion?

3.) How did that work out for you?

That's all you have to ask.

The victims will do the rest.

Ann Livingston

ANN, b*tch, YOU ARE A BLOODY SAINT!!!!!!!!!
all of your b*tchin, yelling, slammin your fists on table, it adds up and it HAS created movement.
IMAGINE if there was no Ann Livingston ??
Really think about that for a second. Would you have done her work? Could you?
IF one of you rich readers( ya, I know you are lurking seeing what the TYEE has to say about you) About you send Ann to a sunny beach for two weeks?
Hey, I am poorer than poor but, will donate 20.00 for the cause.. pony up peeps

An Addict Speaks

As an addict myself (alcohol) I would like to add something to the above quote.

Some lived. In fact, I would wager that many did.

And, as an addict, I also realise that no amount of "harm reduction" or "safe____sites" would have stopped me form killing myself from alcohol abuse.

One day, I had to make that decision. It had nothing to do with making my job part time, or government funding or outreach groups.

I had to realise that it was me that was hurting myself, my friends and my family and it was only me that could stop it.

I didn't find sitting around with a bunch of fellow addicts much help. I found that all they talked about was how much fun they had had when they were drunk and how shitty they felt when they woke up.

So, as an addict who has been clean for more than a decade, I find that I hear the same from other people who have been clean for a long time.

I have no doubt that Ann Livingston is a very committed and compassionate person.

However, it is always an individual decision; do I keep using or do I die? That is not a decison government could make for me.

Interesting cop-out, W-man. But stupid.

.
I for one didn't designate the exact facility I'd like to see created with that $100,000,000. otherwise to be spent on another courtroom trial.

That is what you're saying, isn't it? that we should forget about the desperate souls in Vancouver's downtown east side? and hire lawyers to argue with each other instead?

Decent places to live, would be better.

Good food.

If you were on the street during your addiction, are you saying that basic health measures would have prolonged the addiction for anyone that far into danger?

Or that a good night's sleep, a hot meal and freedom from fear would do them harm?

Or what are you suggesting?

Yes

As a matter of fact, yes.

That is if the tenants don't kick in the walls to sell the copper to by more crack.

People who are so obviously helpless and cannot control their addictions are victims of a mental health issue. They should be certified under section 15 the mental health act and taken to a facility to treat their addiction or keep them away from the DTES. This is why Riverview is being rebuilt. Closing it was a monumental error.

This way the message that is on the street that Vancouver is a great place to score and get freebies would not be so loud and clear.

Any Mary, go to the DTES and take a few of the residents home with you. You can care for them yourself and make them better. Why wait for government to do it?

And Mary

Are you suggesting that addicts helping themselves is somehow a wrong approach?

Are you suggesting that AA and NA are unsuccessful programmes? If you ever read any of their literature you would find that they completely reject the idea that state intervention can have any positive affect other than enablement.

In fact, part of AA and NA's programme is that the addict has to hit rock bottom for their programme to work.

But you don't see members posting here because it really is anonymous.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been thrown at the DTES to little or no effect other than attracting more addicts because if you need to score, all you need is to get there and $20. You'll instantly have lots of friends, too, who will show you were to score, where to eat, where to sleep, where to shower, where to get free food and where to steal to support your habit. Yeah, they'll want a rock or two but when you are hard up, they will share, too.

It has all been so successful, hasn't it?

Rock Bottom

The problem with "rock bottom" is that it has meant death for a terrible number of people.

I don't want to get into discussing the merits of an "AA" approach but it clearly doesn't work for lots of people.

We are so stuck in arguments that belong to another time. Arguments about "moral weakness", "deserving and undeserving poor" etc etc are all very tired.

All Canadians need decent medicare, proper housing and enough food. Some people need more than that. Addicts are dealing with a "fatal" situation. They are often sick with other illnesses. Somehow it has become acceptable for them to sleep rough, to starve and to ooze from exposed wounds. When did it become o-kay to watch people die?

Most people can make change with enough support. Some people can't. They also need support.

I don't know working man

And this certainly isn't the place to discuss personal issues. I'd only say I doubt you were homeless and on the street - with no job and no money...AA is really not much more than tha Oxford Movement re-charged with fundamentalist christianity and its success rate has never been empirically tested.

I'll just present some thoughts from a book about the movement and its founders:

AA steadfastly resists having its effectiveness measured by outsiders. However, even "friendly" studies and AA’s own figures show unimpressive results. For example:

* Although at least half and perhaps as many as nine out of ten alcoholics in the US have been to an AA meeting once in their lives, only about 5 to 8 percent of alcoholics return often enough for AA to count them as members.

* Taking at face value AA’s own claim that 45 % of its members in 1996 had at least five years sobriety, this means that only about 2 to 4 per cent of alcoholics in the US achieved five years’ sobriety in AA.

* Of every 100 persons who begin AA in any given year, only 5 are still in AA and still sober a year later – according to AA’s own 1989 surveys.

* The only two studies attempting to measure the impact of AA participation against control groups (one in San Diego in 1960, another in Kentucky in the mid-70s) both concluded that AA participation was less effective than either nothing or participation in secular treatment.

* A sympathetic long-term comparative study of AA-based treatment, by Harvard professor George Vaillant, found that the rate of relapse for those who had participated in the AA-based treatment was no different than for the untreated control group.

On the basis of this and a good deal of other data there is no good evidence that participation in AA has any measurable effect in improving rates of recovery from alcoholism.

{emphasis mine)

Ref: Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure,
by Charles Bufe

For what it's worth - good luck with your own demons - you're likely going to need it!

Working Man: I agree that it

Working Man: I agree that it takes much personal effort and will power to fight an addiction, and ultimately the addicted person has to make that choice him or herself, and others can only provide support in their efforts.

However, this does not address the problem of WHY people get addicted to drugs or/and alcohol to begin with. Getting addicted to drugs has more to do with social conditions than personal choice. To state otherwise would imply that the high rate of alcohol and drug abuse prevalent in aboriginal communities, including Vancouver's downtown eastside, is a result of faulty moral judgement amongst the aboriginal population, as opposed to the long lasting negative effects of colonialism. From there it's a very slippery slope to fascist thinking.

It makes much more sense to take a pro-active approach to addiction and address the circumstances under which people are more likely to become addicted to drugs or alcohol, and prevent it in the first place. To do this would require reducing poverty and decreasing the gap between the rich and the poor. This will never ever happen under the current political regime municipally, provincially and federally, and, so, the situation remains very hopeless for people working to improve living conditions for residents of the downtown eastside.

I have been working in the downtown eastside for 10 years and nod my head in agreement to many of the words of Ann Livingstone. The situation has only gotten worse and there is no light on the horizon. I think many people working or volunteering in the downtown eastside for humanitarian reasons would agree that it often feels like one is in a boat constantly paling out water to keep the boat from sinking. You do it for all the right reasons and then you look over and someone is drilling holes in the bottom of the boat faster than you can dump out the water. The ones drilling the holes are dressed in business suits and are in political power at all three levels of government. Is it any wonder why workers burn out down here? At some point you realize that, regardless of the good you are doing, you are just providing a bandage solution to a problem.

Real and lasting change will

Real and lasting change will only occur when we reduce poverty and inequality in our society, and on that front it is, unfortunately, quite hopeless and futile to still be putting bandages on the sore.
I don't blame people for jumping ship from the downtown eastside. Maybe when the ship is fully submerged will citizens wake up and elect some people who actually give a damn about public service, as opposed to serving the interests of the rich. If this is the only way, then I say let the ship sink, along with the reputation of B.C., with its over-budget olympics that only benefits people who own restaurants and hotels in Vancouver and Whistler, an over-budget convention centre that only benefits the same, an over-budget and poorly designed light rail transit line, where probably the 2nd wealthiest province in Canada has double the national average child poverty rate, where working people have to visit food banks because all their money is going to pay rent.

Then I read the 'motto' written on B.C license plates - "B.C.: The Best Place On Earth" - written by the B.C Liberals and realize that there must be something wrong with my outlook. Maybe I just need an attitude adjustment to re-orient my thinking. Perhaps I just have to read the Vancouver Sun more often and about all the wonderful things that are happening in B.C., at least according to their editorial board and columnists like Gordon Campbell's brother - Michael.

Or maybe I'll just puke in Gordon Campbell's face the next time i see him; or move out of the province and watch from a distance as Vancouver turns into a giant Whistler, devoid of cultural life, affordable housing, working-class families, the elderly, the poor, independent businesses, musicians, artists, and a vocal and active resistance to the gentrification now happening throughout the city's eastside.

"B.C.: The Best Place On Earth"
Yay.

Pimp?

The vicious label "poverty pimp" has been used against the wrong people in the DTES for years. Ironically Ann Livingston was one of the people who introduced the idea to Vancouver. It is actually a phrase that comes from the more right wing politically nebulous community economic self help groups from the larger American Cities.

I have watched for years as people have had this label dumped on them. Many of those people have not deserved it. They have come from poverty or challenging backgrounds, they have earned shit for wages while doing the work, they have become burnt out and sick and have shortened their life by years. It is highly divisive and distracts people from trying to make helpful change.

In reality the phrase "poverty pimp" belongs to those who create the poverty and distress people are living with, those who insist that people can pull themselves together without dedicated social change, and those who turn a blind eye when landlords raise rents to impossible levels. A "poverty pimp" is someone who makes hundreds of thousands of dollars setting up programs for the poor. A "poverty pimp" pays training wages and gets full benefit from welfare workers.

A pimp gets lots of financial benefit from other people's efforts. How does this apply to Ann and all the other people who have been unjustly labeled?

Isn't it time we actually honored the efforts of people trying to make a difference instead of jackbooting them down when they start to crumble?

Ann has always been difficult but her pit bull tenacity managed to pull people together to speak up and suggest a few things that are useful.

Things are so bad now that every effort is needed.

Working Man

Thank you for the insight. You've wrapped it up well. This is a good précis of what has been going on. We can't throw enough money at this problem to solve it. The idea that more and more money devoted to people that have gone crazy will 'help' them and more support services will help them get out is crazy too. It's too attractive for them. It's too easy to steal, score and get wasted!

A $100 million saved on a another trial would evaporate in moments and nothing would change. Throw $5 billion at infrastructure and phony industries in the boonies might help some of the next generation but what about those that come from across Canada to score and get blasted?

Too many crazies cannot be normally housed and they take away from the marginal people the services that exist. Massive incarceration is unfortunately going to come. One day it's going to have to be tough love if any hope is to be found.

tough love

Is exactly the right prescription - you're simply administering it to the wrong patient.

Show a little tough love and enforce some fairness and equity in the tax system; the real estate ponzi schemes; the investment boondoggles and the easy credit rip-offs and the distinctions between people and classes will start to disappear.

There people are our brothers and sisters - not somebody you treat with a switch out behind the barn - why do you think women from the DTES kept disappearing while the NPA mayor of Vancouver shruggged his shoulders and refused to offer a reward or organize a real campaign to do something about the 'tough love' that was killing them.

You people have a lot of nerve!

Much of the hopelessness you're describing is a result of the essential unfairness and larceny indemic to the system that created the dropouts you care so little for.

Let's have some tough love for CEOs and politicians: let Brian share a cell with Conrad for 6 years and the next corporate thief might think twice about stealing and lying about it.

The crime and drug use you're crying crocodile tears about are as nothing compared with the larceny and slime in the executive suite.

Credit where credit's due....a few more people like Ann Livingston and a few less greedy 'wealth pimps' would do the trick a lot faster than anything you tough lovers might propose.