VANOC Antes up for Shelter
Street youth grant is 'chump change': critic.
VANOC's David Guscott.
Organizers of the 2010 Winter Olympics will contribute $250,000 toward the expansion of a Vancouver shelter for homeless youth.
Today's announcement represents VANOC's first actual expenditure toward relieving the street homelessness that threatens to embarrass Canada throughout the 2010 Winter Games. There are already twice as many homeless people in British Columbia as there will be athletes at the 2010 games.
"We know from other Olympics that there is a concentration of shelter bed requirements," said David Guscott, VANOC's vice president for celebrations and partnerships. "And we made a commitment to do our best to make sure we can meet that demand. Now we are doing it, with our partners."
The Province of British Columbia "topped up" VANOC's contribution with an investment of $4.75 million in both capital and operational funds. Neither of VANOC's other two partners -- the City of Vancouver and the federal government -- contributed to the project, which will expand Covenant House to 54 beds.
"Two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand dollars is chump change for VANOC," said David Eby, a housing advocate and attorney who represents displaced tenants in the Downtown Eastside.
Half of what VANOC plans to spend
Vancouver's bid for the 2010 Games included detailed promises to minimize displacement of low-income residents in inner-city neighbourhoods. These 37 promises became known as the Inner-City Inclusive (ICI) Commitments.
In 2006, VANOC and the provincial government set up a committee of government, business and community-based organizations to determine how to implement those commitments. This group was called the Inner-City Inclusivity (ICI) Housing Table. Among its many recommendations were that 3,200 units of new social housing be built by 2010.
After an unsuccessful attempt to bury the ICI Housing Table report, VANOC decreed that such efforts "exceed our authority or capacity to act," and passed the buck to government. VANOC's key governmental partners, the Province of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver, promptly followed suit.
In so doing, VANOC unilaterally reduced its responsibility to a short list of ICI commitments "within our delivery scope."
These include three housing commitments:
First, the post-Games contribution of 250 units of "non-market" housing in the Olympic village at southeast False Creek, and another 1,000 beds of "affordable resident worker" housing in Whistler. Neither of those projects expected to provide housing for the poor or homeless.
Second, VANOC commits to "managing Games-time demand for low-cost housing." VANOC proposes to prevent displacement of inner-city residents by "ensuring no private suppliers of single room accommodation housing stock are on any Games-related accommodation list (for VANOC, sponsors, government partners, IOC)."
(In other words, VANOC vows not to bivouac corporate donors, government ministers or International Olympic Committee representatives in hotels like the Backpacker's Inn.)
And last on VANOC's redacted to-do list is the expenditure of $500,000 on local homeless shelters "to address increase in demand for short-term shelter during Games-time." Thus VANOC's Covenant House announcement represents fully half of all that it plans to spend on homelessness.
"There's another $250,000 that will be used for similar projects," Guscott told The Tyee. "That's it for our piece. But of course...we do these with our partners."
'A token effort'
"The fact that VANOC is putting money into homeless shelters reflects an understanding that they have an obligation to deal with these issues," said David Eby, of Pivot Legal Society. "But it's a token effort, one that I think is driven by a public relations agenda."
Eby said 32 additional beds at Covenant House would not even absorb the number of recently evicted Downtown Eastside residents, much less the influx of street youth that mega-events such as the Olympics are known to attract.
"When you look at the amounts of money VANOC spends on trivial projects --- I'm talking about parties and mascots --- it's obvious that VANOC has no intention of honouring its commitments to the inner-city."
Pivot is among the coalition of groups launching a human rights complaint with the United Nations over the impact of the 2010 Winter Olympics on affordable housing in the Downtown Eastside.
Eby is among VANOC's most persistent critics. He publishes a blog entitled The Official Vancouver 2010 Olympics Newswire, on which he described VANOC's report on its progress toward the ICI commitments as a "whitewash."
"VANOC...takes credit for every imaginable suggestion of housing possibly opening, funded or unfunded, regardless of when it was announced," Eby wrote. "Yet...VANOC disowns any responsibility for anything negative happening on the housing front, including the issue of low-rent housing closing during the reporting period."
And Eby scoffed at VANOC's promise to bar Games-related visitors from Downtown Eastside residential hotels. "Does anyone really believe that VANOC is out there, working hard, preventing a gang of globetrotting billionaires from taking over the Backpacker's?" he asked. "It's ludicrous."
Covenant House to double
Eby praised VANOC's decision to focus its "meagre" efforts on homeless youth, many of whom have already been failed by B.C.'s youth care system.
Fully 40 per cent of B.C.'s homeless street youth had spent time in government care, according to Against the Odds: A Profile of Marginalized and Street-Involved Youth in B.C. published last year by the McCreary Centre Society. That study also found that Aboriginals represented a disproportionate 57 per cent of the street youth population, and that more than one in three street youth reported they had been sexually exploited.
Covenant House is a shelter and resource centre for homeless youth aged 16 through 22. The Pender Street centre provided shelter, food, clothing and counselling to 1,400 youth last year -- but turned away another 400. The $5 million expansion announced Monday will enable Covenant House to more than double its capacity, from 22 to 54 beds. ($850,000 of that funding came from B.C.'s Housing Endowment Fund.)
"We're impressed with Covenant House's commitment and passion to bettering the lives of youth," VANOC's Guscott said at Monday's announcement. "This will enable more at-risk youth to access shelter support before, during and after the Games."
Related Tyee stories:
- Olympic Partners Said to 'Fudge' Housing Claims
Critics, and a Tyee review, cast doubt on figure of 1,109 'new units.' - Vancouver Drops Olympics Housing Pledge
Promise was 'non-binding' NPA votes. - More Homeless than Athletes in 2010
Can Vancouver's Olympic pride be saved?
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Jeffrey J.
3 years ago
Critical News should be widely known
A long time ago in a place not that far away, news reports like this were found in the Vancouver Sun. It wasn't considered disloyal or partisan or subversive. It was news of how government entities fail their mandate. It inspired people to become reporters and contribute to society. And it was a sign of an educated, articulate populace who in turn could contribute to ensuring corrective behaviour was applied.
Not too long ago, these stories couldn't be found in the Sun nor any where else. Now, thanks to the Tyee, interested, informed citizens can remain informed.
Great coverage which shows further failures of VANOC in its interest in the public good. Lets hope they reconsider their abdication of responsibility.
realisticman
3 years ago
What about the Canuck's?
And all the other sports nuts? Shouldn't they be the ones paying for all the housing problems? Why single out VANOC?
In Monte's last story he said about his homeless study, "All but one claimed to be drug addicts,". Did the International Olympic Committee make 'em take drugs? This is just extortion because, VANOC is seen as a soft touch. Checking out other Tyee stories and we see that the vast majority of homeless street people in Vancouver are from somewhere else, not Vancouver. When they arrive in Vancouver it then becomes Vancouver's problem.
The message: Come to Vancouver, commit crime, buy dope, get high, loose your shirt, no problem we'll house you.
Meanwhile, those that are mentally unsound and those truly deserving assistance because of bad luck or circumstance, have to get in line with the junkies for their sliver of the pie.
G West
3 years ago
They're all Canadians R/man
Once you're a citizen we don't discriminate - but we sure as hell do make special rules and allowances for the rich...You didn't happen to see the Passionate Eye a few weeks ago - a locally produced and filmed documentary called: Devil Plays Hardball?
Too bad you missed it.
Your compassion for starving Africans is touching - your lack of compassion for your fellow citizens who happen to be addicted to something other than the passion for making money at others' expense is kind of sad.
realisticman
3 years ago
Watched a bit
Another disparing yawn.
Fish out if water, a BC problem. Shouldn't just be a Vancouver problem. Classic sad road trip.
20 years shooting smack, hey Mike? Nothing whatsoever to do VANOC!
Another fish truly out of water! An olympic challenge, for sure.
Again, nothing whatsoever to do with VANOC but this woman deserves and needs help and services.
Primarily a federal problem settling on Vancouver due to it's easy climate, its easy drug and crime habits and its friendly justice system.
The criminal tourist-junkies should NOT have so much of a claim to our services.
G West
3 years ago
Of course it has to do with Vanoc
Vanoc is simply the PR branch of another aspect of Gordon Campbell's hegemony...the people are homeless and hopeless because the criminal system created and exploited by Campbell and his puppet masters creates human flotsam and jetsam. This is a gang who, when one of their own is caught in the toils of the law cheating the system for profit (and there are dozens of examples) simply laughs it off R/man. Not very realistic, I’d say.
The situation is getting worse with each passing month as the god forsaken Olympics come nearer.
The fact of the matter is that helping these people is hard, slogging, un-rewarding work - as the 'mentors' in the film found out after 10 months of trying.
At least they were out there doing something, trying to learn about the problem and not making stupid throwaway comments like your latest one:
'Criminal tourist junkies' for example.
I happen to know one of the mentors very well and believe me there was general consternation not just at the difficulties these people face - but at the appalling attitudes illustrated and hoops created by this pathetic excuse for a government about actually getting through to the system and getting these people a place to stay.
You really should watch the show again - more carefully - instead of pulling a few quotes from the CBC website.
This is not a problem for the federal government - it is a problem for every humane and intelligent person in this country.
I am just so sick of this kind of thing:
Primarily a federal problem settling on Vancouver due to it's easy climate, its easy drug and crime habits and its friendly justice system.
Especially when uttered by seemingly intelligent and ostensibly decent people who claim to be cultured and civilized.
It's appalling.
realisticman
3 years ago
General Consternation
causing Marshall Frustration will lead to Corporal Punishment.
Thanks for the compliment, but after years of listening you must hear the futility in even your friend's voices no matter how compassionate. I do.
Give help to the deserving, not to the serial pathological losers.
You may yet live to see forced-work-camps.
Monte Paulsen
3 years ago
VANOC did not cause homelessness
VANOC is in no way responsible for causing the growing homeless problem across British Columbia. My sense is that we might have a more focused discussion if we begin with that stipulation.
However, VANOC stands to lose more than almost any other entity as a result of the global public relations nightmare that BC's growing homelessness crisis will trigger.
Just as pro-Tibet activists from around the world have seized on this summer's Beijing Olympics as an opportunity to make their case, so poverty and housing activists from far away are already gearing up to make homelessness the hallmark of the 2010 Winter Games.
For example, activists in the Downtown Eastside are already in contact with like-minded agitators in the socially minded Northern European states where winter sports are popular. With more than 10,000 homeless people in the province, these forces will not find it difficult to embarrass an event attracting 5,000 athletes from around the globe.
There are plenty of reasons to address homelessness: compassion, public health, tax savings (it's cheaper to house them than to pay the VPD to keep moving them along). What makes VANOC unique, in my opinion, is that it is perhaps the only organization with a clear business reason to address homelessness.
Personally, I think VANOC appears to be doing a great job organizing the sporting events. VANOC has proven itself a master at spurring governments to action. If this same sort of sustained effort was focused on homelessness, I believe that we'd all find ourselves quite proud of VANOC -- and Canada -- in 2010.
G West
3 years ago
I disagree
You can't sever Vanoc from the rest of the body - which is the Campbell government and its business agenda. The whole situation - just as it was in 1986 is of a piece - if you can get John Furlong and Jack Poole to adopt homelessness as their next big project it still won't make a damn bit of difference unless the government is changed. Even Campbell’s resignation wouldn’t likely make any difference – the corruption and the exceptionalism run too deep.
Social activists should do everything they can to embarrass these characters and the rot has likely gone too far to turn this circus into anything anyone should be proud of.
The only Olympic legacy that might actually mean something would have been a huge increase in the minimum wage and a real effort to create some affordable rental housing. This isn't just a problem for the homeless the R/Man dismisses as worthless - it's a problem for the tens of thousands of others who are one or two pay cheques off the street themselves. Furthermore, homelessness isn’t just a problem in the Lower Mainland as the recent counts clearly showed.
You are right about the costs of doing nothing – or doing only symbolic things Monte, but in Campbell's eyes that doesn't matter and I think you can be quite sure any effort Vanoc expends to address homelessness will end up in the same can with Ken Dobell's so-called homelessness initiative. The Olympics is just another selfish big business….
We're going to hear a lot about these problems in Vancouver until the election this fall...after that, it'll be back to the 'best place in the world' tripe again...24/7
G West
3 years ago
My definition of pathological loser
Is a little different from yours R/man.
That really IS offensive - perhaps I was wrong about the civility and the culture.
Bobby Peru
3 years ago
Poverty Pimping at its best
Come on, VANOC isn't responsible for the homeless problem; they're just an easy and visible target for poverty pimps like David Eby to nail in a drive by.
Eby reveals himself when he whines, "Does anyone really believe that VANOC is out there, working hard, preventing a gang of globetrotting billionaires from taking over the Backpacker's?" he asked. "It's ludicrous."
Typical rabble rousing, BC socialist drivel blaming some billionaire boogey men. As if the rich are to blame for the ills of the homeless. As if simply throwing money at the problem will make it go away.
The simple problem is that it's too expensive to house and treat the homeless in Vancouver. They obviously need to be treated in rehab. The most economical solution is to use cheap land in Northern BC to build a forced rehab camp. The money saved on land can be used to fund more counsellors. The homeless do not need incarceration; they need rehab and medical treatment. And we should find the cheapest way to administer it to them.
Funny thing about Canadians- they hate the rich. Then when they become one of the rich they hate the poor. Ha, ha!
Yes, I, too wonder how Vancouver regularly becomes rated one of the best and most liveable cities in the world when there are so many homeless about downtown and being pushed into neighbourhoods like Kitsilano. Vancouver is starting to show all of the downside of living in a city (crime, homelessness, bad traffic) with none of the upside (art, culture, fun).
G West
3 years ago
Who said they were Bobby?
This is what I actually wrote:
Vanoc is simply the PR branch of another aspect of Gordon Campbell's hegemony...the people are homeless and hopeless because the criminal system created and exploited by Campbell and his puppet masters creates human flotsam and jetsam.
There is a difference.
I don't think there's any evidence that Canadians 'hate' the rich ---- but there sure are lots of signs that the rich hate the poor and the homeless and the poor certainly have plenty of reason to be resentful about the kind of things people call them.
For example, calling, as the R/man does, his fellow human beings 'pathological losers'.
There's a problem all right Bobby and a good part of it does rest with the rich and those who aspire to be so at the expense of their fellow men and women.
Stump
3 years ago
cheapest???
I think we're doing that now. Maybe we could try the most effective way to administer it for a change. Such as we do with other illnesses.
Stump
3 years ago
art culture fun
Have it spades in my neighbourhood... as well as addicts, prostitutes, binners and the homeless. Maybe you're looking in the wrong places Mr. Peru.
realisticman
3 years ago
Pimp Speak
Yesterday one was on the CBC bemoaning the possibility that, as she said, some of the homeless and addicted might be moved out of their filthy squalid rooms in the East Side for - maybe - "student housing". Since Woodwards redux will incorporate a SFU component.
Imagine that! Student housing instead of junkie crash pads.
Bobby Peru is right. House these in need of re-hab up north where it make financial sense - and also moves them away from the parasitical dealers that live off of them.
Stump
3 years ago
Send 'em North
I thought this [EDITED...]notion was dispelled last time [EDITED...] suggested it.
1) You can buy drugs anywhere.
2) You have to find staff willing to live and work up North to staff these non-existent re-hab facilities.
Complain and do nothing and your a lefty whiner. Do something and you're a poverty pimp. The intellectual bankrupcty demonstrated by this contradiction is almost (almost) humourous.
G West
3 years ago
No kidding Stump
In fact, the only people whining are folks like your current interlocutors...neither of whom actually care to address the central point of Paulsen's thesis: That it actually is cheaper to provide decent public housing, proper health care and nutrition and security for those currently homeless than to continue the current insanity.
Not to mention more moral, humane and simply the right thing to do.
That's the trouble with right-wing whiners - they don't actually read very well and they tend to keep behaving in the same way that got them into trouble in the first place. So convinced are they of their own blamelessness and propriety that they never notice the contradictions in their own beliefs and behavior.
Sadly, given the current distribution of incomes, the only way this is going to change is if the growing financial crisis is so thorough and deep that it flushes such criminal attitudes out of the system permanently.
We're certainly not going to get anything but fireworks and loud music from Vanoc, rhetoric from city hall and spin from Victoria.
Bobby Peru
3 years ago
Where are your solutions?
I don't read any solutions here, just recriminations and screeds against 'the rich', whoever they are. Do you expect, let's say, Jim Pattison to give away all his money to shelter the homeless? Or should he continue investing and creating jobs?
So tell me Gwest, what exactly are the signs that the Canadian rich hate the homeless? Show me the way. Do you mean they hate the poor because they refuse to give up all their money to house the homeless? Does becoming rich necessarily mean you exploit the poor? Show me how this is done? Don't the rich invest and create jobs? Is it all a zero sum gain to you? Can't you accept that alot of the homeless are their because of their own doing?
Of course, that is NOT my judgement statement. My solution is to house and treat them in places where land is cheaper than Vancouver. It's that simple. What's your solution? To overturn society and capitalism? Don't you think that's asking a bit too much for such a simple problem?
Stump- clearly you haven't lived in New York or London if you think you're neighbourhood is exciting.
Realisticman- thanks for someone who makes sense. While drug dealers can travel up north too, it'd be alot more trouble. We need a remote facility to remove the homeless and addicts from the downtown environment that enables their habits. Now if giving them free needles and free heroin is the solution, let's do so in northern BC where the addicts can die in peace.
Stump- that's right. The lefties here are whining and aren't offering solutions that can be implemented in the real world. Instead they want to change the world to implement the solution. Given the amount we'll save in land costs, I'm sure the govt can pay enough to entice people to work up north. Consider the facility to be a super duty dry out and rehab centre. Throw in clean air and fruitful labour and you have a shot at cleaning up the junkies.
I'd like to see someone on this board come up with a solution that doesn't include perpetuating the sick neighbourhood called downtown east side. It's time we moved the homeless out of that ghetto and rebuilt on top of it.
Stump
3 years ago
yes, no, probably not.
If history is any indicator, it's not necessary, but it's sure popular (as a means to wealth).
Yeah, Ima jes a small-town hick who doan know nuttin. Not.
No, it isn't. You can be in Prince
George in less than a day. Put a captive and desperate market up there and you've pretty much guaranteed the dealers will be there in a hearbeat, with the goods appropriately marked up for their troubles.
Based upon your comments, I'm not confident the real world impinges on your reality very often. You think the world can't be changed and accuse others of doing nothing. Too funny. The world is changing all the time. Usually because people force the issue.
History. check it out.
realisticman
3 years ago
Go North young man, and woman
Every time a reformed addict is asked what's needed to help others like them, they say that getting away from the negative influences is paramount. Relapse is virtually a given for the reformed addict once they return to their old haunts; at best it's a very difficult and unnerving experience that can cause trepidation, shivers and shakes.
In their zeal to 'smash the system', in our case, to fulminate against the politicians and policies they dislike (Sullivan & NPA, Campbell & Liberals, Harper & Conservatives, Bush & Republicans, Developers & Gentrification or Renovations of derelict buildings), the left use junkies and the homeless as the vanguards for their causes.
They (the left) insist on the wretched status quo with massive volumes of social services and financing with the excuse that community is at stake; while they stubbornly maintain a big blind spot to the overwhelming evidence that removal from destructive influences is an essential component to helping junkies and others with destructive habits restore their lives.
Pawns for the Cause.
Stump
3 years ago
lies, lies, lies
That's a huge lie, total bullshit, and a slap in the face to the folks actually trying to help.
[EDITED. MODERATOR.]
G West
3 years ago
The rich could care less
It's clear that folks who aspire to be rich hate spending anything on anyone other than themselves.
There are lots of solutions - but none are free and you're the one casting all the aspersions at the poor, the unemployed and the homeless. Surely you and the R/man don't deny that.
As for the testimony of the few who manage to beat the demon of drugs...please, don't be silly, that's like asking a lottery winner how he picked his numbers.
As for the status quo, I prefer the status quo ante before the nightmare vision of Sullivan and Campbell and the rest of the right wing jerks who've ruined what was once a decent and fairly egalitarian society here in Canada.
You and what you believe in have a huge load of guilt to assuage and your gang is responsible for far more destructive consequences and ruined lives than all the poor pathetic addicts in the world.
The cause is humanity - there's no doubt about who the enemy is or who, in the end, has to shoulder all of the blame.
I just read a report on hedge-fund managers earnings in the US last year - Now that IS IMMORAL AND IRRESPONSIBLE.
You and failed right-wing Greenspan market BS are the pawns - and you don't even know it.
Talk about blind spots!
Monte Paulsen
3 years ago
Can we be fair about who is brining solutions and who is not?
I'm grateful for each of these passionate contributions. I'm particularly interested in finding solutions.
Can we be fair about who is bringing forward solutions and who is not? With all due respect to G West, I think it fair to note that Housing Minister Rich Coleman and Premier Gordon Campbell have done more to begin to address the needs of the homeless than any BC politicians in memory.
True, the BC Liberal's welfare policies and their youth-in-care policies and their withdrawal of housing funds in 2002 helped accelerate this homelessness mess. (They certainly bear more direct responsibility than VANOC.) But they seem to have at least partially received the message, and the BC Liberals are the ONLY government spending significant cash to address the problem.
As noted above, I don't think it fair to blame this problem on VANOC. Likewise, I don't think it fair to subject VANOC to guilt by association. And if I did view VANOC as a mere PR arm of Premier Campbell, I would credit that entity with spending $300 million a year toward solutions.
Solutions? At the end of the say, all solutions come down to one of two categories. Either we lower the cost of housing or we raise income. Given the late date, the only action that could significantly reduce homelessness by 2010 would be a major increase in the welfare housing allowance in the 2009 budget. If Campbell were to raise the allowance by $200 a month --- while Coleman continued to fund the outreach programs --- it's imaginable that the real number of street homeless in BC might go down slightly. Likewise, raising the cutoff income for rental housing assistance would help working class families.
Not? While Coleman and Campbell continue doling out money -- something I expect to accelerate as we approach May 2009 -- the Tory government in Ottawa continues to do nothing. Canada remains the only G8 nation without a housing policy, and it shows. This failure is likely to cause embarrassment to Canada in February of 2010.
Likewise, the City of Vancouver has done too little to coordinate responses to homelessness, in my opinion. Though there are many smart and passionate city employees who tackle these problems daily, neither the mayor nor the city manager do not appear to have delivered effective leadership on this problem. (Though it's not for a lack of spending on consultants.)
The Campbell government has its weaknesses, to be sure. I just don't happen to agree that failing to respond to homelessness is one of them.
Maurice Cardinal
3 years ago
Olympics causes homelessness
Monte, like most people in Olympics regions, you are confused, or you are affiliated with an Olympics related organization, which could be VANOC, an official sponsor like HBC, or a local mainstream news media company like The Vancouver Sun.
BTW, I'm assuming you aren't the same Monte that wrote this article.
The city of Vancouver, in partnership with the province of British Columbia made an announcement [mid 2007] that they will protect from the destructive Olympic process the buildings that house marginalized people in our city.
It is common knowledge that low rent hotels are being converted at an alarming rate to upscale housing and backpacker hotels and leaving people homeless. Where have you been?
I suggest you read "The Best Olympics Ever?" by Dr. Helen Lenskyj.
If you do even moderate research you will discover that the homeless issue in all Olympic regions escalates rapidly when wealthy developers move in and work closely with local mainstream news media to ramp up "Olympic frenzy." It's done in an effort to artificially increase property values, which unfortunately also results in skyrocketing taxes and rents.
The outcome is that the entire Olympic region becomes gentrified, which is a fancy way to say, we are increasing the rents, kicking marginalized people out, and preparing to show the world how wonderful it is in Vancouver. It happens like this in every single Olympic region, and very rarely do civic leaders intervene to protect the community.
It is foolish to believe what you read in local mainstream news Monte.
How do I know all this?
I have exhaustively researched this problem in Olympics regions since 2003, and as a result, in my book, Leverage Olympic Momentum, published in 2006, I went on record to state that the homeless problem would escalate in Vancouver just like it does in all other Olympics regions. It's a given and accepted by all but the most naive.
It is no longer acceptable to look the other way.
The Olympics causes homelessness.
Beijing 2008 displaced 1.5 million while the IOC looked the other way, and they are doing the same thing in Vancouver, but on a smaller scale, and much more subtly.
It's a fact.
realisticman
3 years ago
Monte
Thanks for clarifying that. Sometimes these discussions descend into name calling and veer way off the topic into ideological and silly finger pointing.
Maurice Cardinal
3 years ago
Solution? Quit looking the other way!
A solution based on ethics.
Ask Olympics sponsors like RBC, HBC and Rona to kick in a little more to support an ethical Olympics, and to quit looking the other way.
Olympics sponsors make a fortune off the back of Host communities through association with the Olympics brand.
If anyone here has read "Inside the Olympics" by Dick Pound (an IOC executive), you'll know that it has become incredibly hard for the IOC to find suitable Olympics Host cities, and it's mainly because cities that have a well balanced civic plan do not want to place their regions in jeopardy.
A city doesn't win the right to Host the Olympics as much as it is put upon them because they are either desperate and willing to take the risk (have-not province), or its citizens are less worldly and easily manipulated by egotistical politicians.
Coca Cola is already taking a big hit respective of the Beijing torch relay, and it won't be long before other Host communities start demanding more from sponsors that fill their purses at the expense of taxpayers.
Challenge the sponsors. They'll come around quickly. Money talks.
Olympics athletes also have to quit looking the other way.
How valuable do you think a gold medal endorsement will be when a podium finish is aligned with the debasing of human rights?
All it will take is for one or two elite Olympic athletes to step up and start the ball rolling. They all have websites, which means you can get to them and they can get to the world. Politely ask them what they think.
You might hesitate to put pressure on a Canadian athlete, but think carefully, because the first athlete to step up on this level will be an instant international hero when they champion human rights over greed. If you can't bear to put a Canadian athlete on the spot, let loose your competitive streak and regard it as an opportunity to put a bit of pressure on a foreign competitor. Don't feel bad though, because athletes lie and cheat with the best of them. It's called doping.
Keep in mind too that Paralympic athletes have the least to lose and the most to gain by taking the ethical high road.
You might be doing them a favor. It's not as if they receive large endorsements and it's no secret that they are the most negatively impacted by human rights abuse across all races and nationalities. They feel the pain and are more likely to speak out in support of an ethical Olympics over someone who has a $10 million endoresment to lose.
When human rights proponents get tired of banging their heads against the wall they would be well advised to turn their energy on that long list of sponsors and athletes, and lobby them to act ethically.
Facebook is a good place to start.
Shareholders of Olympics sponsors will bail in large numbers if they think dividends are going south. And when that happens, the IOC will pay attention and be more willing to negotiate.
Follow the ethical money.
Kam Lee
3 years ago
gordo's follies
Rememer one thing, gordo is a convicted drug abuser, period. He comes at it from a different direction. Ignore the poor, over tax the middle class and steal for the rich. Enough said.
Bobby Peru
3 years ago
Ah, there's the rub
Okay, now we really get down to what the constituencies want- the real deal.
What we have here are rebels looking for that elusive Marxist dream: 'social justice'. They can't define it or even point to the real enemy- except the current BC Premier because he's an easy target. Of course, find a new bad guy when he leaves the stage.
From reading Gwest, social justice is rectifying the obscenity of a hedge fund manager who took home USD3.7 bio last year. Okay, let's run with this. Suppose we could form a legally empowered committee called, 'The Social Justice Committee'. It roams the land like Robin Hood equalizing incomes stripping money from people and companies they feel earn 'obscene profits' in the name of the people. Just who would decide what? You can see how foolish and socially destructive this becomes.
Because like nature, life among humans is fundamentally unfair. Some people are dealt great hands and others bad ones. And some people are more talented than others and stay off drugs. Gwest is practicing that great Canadian past time: 'The Culture of Envy'.
And Gwest casts around long tired, stereotypes like no one who is conservative or successful cares for the underprivileged. As if the left are the only people who care. Should I list the names of many capitalists who are very active in philanthropy? Let's start with Jim Pattison. I haven't heard any of you take him on and vilify him as the worst of 'the rich'. He should be in your books as he is probably the richest guy in BC. But, then he doesn't do much for charity, right?
Save the guilt trip, Gwest, most of BC's rich aren't crooks and sleep very well at night and care about their communities. Stop the rabble rousing showmanship and start working the real problem of homelessness in Vancouver.
A superfacility in Northern BC is a practical solution. The homeless who have mental problems and deserve institutionalized care would finally receive it. The homeless who are drug addicts would be forced to rehab in an environment where there are fewer dealers sitting outside your front door. Sure, you can fly to Prince Rupert, but it's easy to check for drugs when you land at the airport. I'm not saying no drugs will be available, but it'll certainly be more difficult than standing at Hastings and Main.
Like Monte said, the real solution is lowering cost or raising incomes. Doing both would be ideal. Realistically, the homeless in Vancouver will only increase over time as homeless find it easier to live here. So we need large and cheap facilities. Trying to maintain Downtown Eastside as a community and adding a hundred or so beds now and then is unfeasible and insignificant. In fact, Downtown Eastside is not a real community- it's just a marketplace for druggies, dealers and homeless. It's time to give them the treatment they deserve and redevelop the land. Solving the homeless problem within the living context of Downtown Eastside is a futile exercise.
Stump
3 years ago
too funny
They can't even keep drugs out of maximum security jails Bobby. Do you really think it would be any different in your Northern super-facility?
Please, please, please give the issue a bit more thought than simply spewing trigger words like Marxism and social justice.
Stump
3 years ago
BTW
The Downtown Eastside is a community. One with issues to be sure, but assuming no one lives there but "dealers, druggies, and the homeless' suggests to me you're not completely informed about the neighbourhood.
Kam Lee
3 years ago
rebels? Marist?
"What we have here are rebels looking for that elusive Marxist dream: 'social justice'. They can't define it or even point to the real enemy- except the current BC Premier because he's an easy target. Of course, find a new bad guy when he leaves the stage."
Yes, he is guilty, I’m glad you agree, and he is easy to point out. His track record is dismal. He is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s wrong with the ultra-righties. He does not care at all for the 20,000 souls who live down there. Virk, Basi, Virk will pull this pus filled scoundrel to the surface. By the way, I am a small business owner, sit on two boards, and donate much of my time to charities. Far from a rebel or Marxist.
lynn
3 years ago
Monte
BTW, that's a good question by Maurice Cardinal. Just for clarity's sake: Is the commentor going by the moniker "Monte" the same Monte that wrote this article?
G West
3 years ago
With all due respect to you Monte
I don't think so.
The problem has only grown since 2001 - can we agree on that?
Secondly, for every additional SRO facility space provided - another existing one has disappeared - net effect zero. Tyee itself has published at least a dozen stories illustrating exactly this point in the last two years.
Coleman and Campbell do little besides talk and this government has had numerous opportunities to address the minimum wage and welfare housing rates. In the years they've been in power how much have both amounts increased?
In short, a lot of talk, a few fleabag hotels changed hands and bugger all has changed except that the problem has grown with each passing year since 2001.
I didn't agree with the statement you quoted when I first heard it - furthermore, much of the funding that the Liberals have provided is for 'shelters' and temporary relief beds - not housing.
I'll stand by my statement and since I never blamed Vanoc for the problem in the first place I'll ignore that part of your response.
This situation is stacking up to be exactly the same kind of boondoggle as Expo was for the DTES all the while providing exactly the kind of real estate development opportunities for Gordon's close personal friends.
Nothing's changed.
G West
3 years ago
Bobby Peru
Still on about that socialist utopia stuff, eh?
If you don't think anyone who makes 3.7 billion in a hundred lifetimes - let alone a single year - isn't an obscenity then I don't even want to talk to you.
You live in some kind of a strange Bizarro world where black is white, up is down and good is bad.
You're wasting my time - why don't you go live in the United States where one out of every hundred adult males is incarcerated.
Perhaps you'd be happier there.
Stump
3 years ago
who we are
No kidding! I have full-time job, a part-time business, a child to help raise, and a couple of on-going volunteer responsibilities.
Don't have the time to engage in the young man's (or woman's) conceit of thinking I have all the answers like some Che shirt wearing commie-wannabe.
That's OK. I see it on this site too often to not recognize the pattern. Someone shoots Bobby's, or R'man, or Capitalism's pet theories full of holes and it's straight to the attacks on character and dismissive brush-offs... all the while ignoring the fact we've been doing things their way for a while and it's simply not working.
gordon
3 years ago
Not having read the story...
But simply commenting on the headline...
Monte please don't be so kind to Vanoc, their contribution was hardly chump change, in the spirit of the DTES its more like they cashed in a couple pop cans.
gordon
3 years ago
Another thing
Ok I'm sure it was a couple years ago we heard all levels of government say that their Olympic funding would not continue over the amounts already committed. Yet almost every month I'm hearing of new money in the millions for all these pet projects like a robson square cover and live event stages etc. Will these blood suckers ever stop?
Bobby Peru
3 years ago
Still Waiting
I'm still waiting to hear about a proper program and policy from you guys- one that goes beyond simply saying each of the homeless needs housing. Alot of them are addicts and need rehab, not education about leading a better lifestyle. They need to be removed from the downtown environment.
What's obscene about making alot of money? Would Gwest think the same way if it was him who made that money? Then how much money is NOT obscene? Where is the obscenity money line drawn?
And can someone tell me what is wrong with taking our public money and building cheaper and more plentiful housing for the homeless in Northern BC? Is that inhumane?
Stump
3 years ago
Wow
Think it through Bobby P. Maybe if you start asking yourself "and then what" you'll see the gaping flaws in your 'solution'.
G West
3 years ago
How much is too much?
You decide.
After looking at this list of Global GDP - expressed in US dollars - you should be able to figure out why $3.7 billion (and a lot less) for one person is obscene.
www.xist.org/earth/ec_gdp3.aspx
You'll note that such an amount is greater than the total GDP for a significant number of countries.
So, let's not worry too much about the likes of John Paulson, James Simons and George Soros. It's pretty clear they have too damn much and they aren't being taxed nearly enough - as Warren Buffet never tires of pointing out....
www.cnbc.com/id/19483842/
Everyone "needs" a certain amount of money to live a decent life; after that, not so much. When we've ensured all our citizens ( and not just in Canada – there is NO excuse for our failure to live up to the promise we made years ago to spend 0.7% of GDP annually on foreign aid) have reached that level of decency and especially for our children, our old, our sick our homeless and our damaged then you can talk to me about how 'rich' anyone ought to be.
OKAY!
realisticman
3 years ago
Bobby
I doubt that you'll see a cogent response. Although many posters around here decry the 'big smoke' and urban density, when it comes to a question of what to do about junkies, crack heads, drunks and the virtually feral homeless, the cry is always that they should live slap bang downtown.
Reading other stories about these sad characters one can see the classic pattern where people drift into the city centre, or migrate out to 'the coast' and things don't turn out quite as rosy as hoped. Too often there follows a descent into masochistic behavior including drugs and/or alcohol, prostitution and petty crime. It's a story much like a cheap novel.
As a reaction to capitalism and/or envy, some people think that the State should provide a cosy 24 hour all encompassing social system with housing, child care, free drugs, psychiatric counseling and pocket money for any and all comers.
It's ironic that so many that toil legally in our city centres aspire to live in bucolic environs yet the unsuccessful in society are told that they must live on skid road.
G West
3 years ago
So much easier to just call the people and the problems
It's so much easier to just call the people and the problems one doesn't really 'want' to have to deal with a few names and such things as this:..."the unsuccessful in society are told that they must live on skid road." - when in fact it's the corruption and evil of the so-called market economy that has been throwing up skid roads wherever and whenever the criminal operations of the so-called capitalistic system have held sway.
The sad characters, in my opinion, are the ones who believe such utter clap-trap.
Raised to its logical conclusion the market economy creates ghettoes like China where no one can think for themselves any more.
The line between the masochist and the sadist is very fine and the market system rewards sadists who can dismiss people and their fate as a 'classic' problem.
Just why is it that many real countries don't actually end up this way R/man?
Why is it that America and Britain and Canada too, are prepared to throw out people in favour of a bankrupt ideology? No wonder we’re so anxious to do business with the equally bankrupt dictators in China.
Bread and circuses, and lame excuses.
Maurice Cardinal
3 years ago
Well put G, you too Stump
.
Maurice Cardinal
3 years ago
Gordon
They will never stop until you are sucked dry and lifeless.
G West
3 years ago
This....certainly makes 250G look like chump change
Wanted: A few kind sponsors to kick in $8 million or so for an Olympic party.
That's how much the City of Vancouver will be looking for after the federal government yesterday reaffirmed its $10-million injection to help fund two so-called 'live sites' that will play host to nightly parties during the 2010 Olympics.
Combined with a $5-million commitment from the city, that leaves other sponsors to cover the $8-million remainder on an estimated $23-million bill.
"We're working with sponsors to come up with the additional funding," Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan said yesterday, after re-announcing the federal government's pledge.
"There are a lot of corporations and agencies who want to participate," he added, declining to name specific groups.
The two 'live sites,' planned for David Lam park in Yaletown and an old bus depot at Georgia and Beatty, will feature stages and large screens and be connected by a pedestrian walkway.
"I see the streets being flooded with people night after night during the Olympics," said city councillor Suzanne Anton.
But Olympic critic Chris Shaw called the plan another example of "an endless money pit" for taxpayers' dollars.
"You have to wonder what other things these monies could be used for," said Shaw, spokesperson for the group 2010 Watch. "What would $10 million do for the Downtown Eastside? What would $10 million do for medical research? I would suggest quite a lot."
CONSULTING FEES
- The city has shelled out $306,892 in consulting fees to Vancouver-based Fireworks Marketing Group to plan and design the 'live sites.'
- The city is expected to award another hefty contract this year to implement the plan.
[source - 24 Hours, A party worth $23 million
By IRWIN LOY, April 17, 2008]
So, party on dudes and dudettes.
And don't let those raggedy guys cadging empties on the periphery upset you - they're part of the local colour!
Monte Paulsen
3 years ago
Yes, I am the same Monte
For the record, yes, I am the same Monte who wrote the article. To clear up any future confusion, I've changed my account to show my full legal name.
I challenge the rest of you to do the same. My view is that full disclosure usually improves the level of debate. And my guess is that if we were all posting under our legal names, this debate would be more respectful and more productive.
I'll even go so far as to offer a bribe: I'll buy a cup of coffee for any frequent Tyee poster who open new accounts under his or her legal name, and at the same time ceases to post under the code name. I'll give you a half-hour of my time during which you may chip away at whatever "confusion" you feel afflicts me.
So now, my dear fellows, you are in the same position as VANOC: It is in your self-interest to do the right thing.
In the mean time, would it be possible for us to debate solutions without the need to label one another "confused" or "affiliated" or Marxists or capitalists? (Beer-soaked nineteen and twenty-year-old university students excepted, of course.)
I believe we could end homelessness within a decade if we made it a community priority. I believe that in order to do so, we would need to work together with a wide array of interests, including VANOC and the legally seated provincial government currently led by Premier Campbell.
Do I believe that working with such actors mean that we have to agree with or praise everything they do? Clearly I do not. I think my work at The Tyee and elsewhere speaks for itself.
Do I believe that everyone deserves a measure of respect? Yes. And my definition of everyone includes cabinet ministers, homeless addicts, and Tyee commenters.
G West
3 years ago
Thanks for that Monte
I, for one, appreciate the clarification. The apparent disconnect between your current comment (above - yesterday) and some of your previous submissions was, in my view at least, disconcerting. I’d have hated to think someone else was posting for you.
On a tangential note, he minute David starts paying me for my writing I'll stop using a handle - it makes a difference, believe me. I assume he's still paying you.
As far as the reasons for choosing to post anonymously go, I don't think anyone has the right to question others' reasons so I'll leave that one lie without quoting any Shakespeare. Suffice to say that there are plenty of important reasons why one might not wish to use one's own name that have nothing to do with being irresponsible.
BTW I'd still like to know how you arrived at this statement, given many of the other pieces you've written over the past couple of years.
"I think it fair to note that Housing Minister Rich Coleman and Premier Gordon Campbell have done more to begin to address the needs of the homeless than any BC politicians in memory."
It certainly doesn't ring true to me - in fact, quite the contrary - as I wrote above. Either that or you have a very short memory.
The purchase and refurbishment of a few SRO hotels to the contrary, the stock of suitable and affordable permanent accommodation, relative to a clearly escalating need [confirmed by a count you participated in] has not kept pace with demand.
The minimum wage has not gone up and the welfare shelter allowance has only increased by a tiny amount - relative to other costs - since 2001. Not to mention the kinds of budgetary outlays earmarked for the kinds of things Vanoc and the provincial government seem to think are priorities. A careful analysis of the way even modest budget outlays are retreaded in diverse and interesting ways over a two or three year period without ever actually allocating any NEW funds is also notable - especially in areas of individual need, social justice and public housing.
One thing you can say about this government is that it does believe in recycling.
On what basis are we to evaluate your vote of confidence for the Premier and his minister of housing?
Respect is earned - on the basis of performance. I haven't seen much on any file - including children in care, the elderly and the homeless on Campbell's watch. In fact, as the recent Paperny documentary on homelessness in the DTES showed, four private individuals, operating more or less on their own, succeeded in actually helping more people in need than the whole expensive and creaking machinery of the state.
http://www.cbc.ca/passionateeyesunday/devilplayshardball/
Please, enlighten me.
realisticman
3 years ago
Back to the Case Studies
As you bring it up again, GWest, it's worth noting that before you said:
Vanoc is simply the PR branch of another aspect of Gordon Campbell's hegemony...the people are homeless and hopeless because the criminal system created and exploited by Campbell and his puppet masters creates human flotsam and jetsam.
A charming turn of phrase. Remember that in the documentary Michael is described as a heroin user for twenty years. Campbell's fault? VANOC's charge? Maybe the Queen of Sheba too? Erika in the doc. has been on the street for eight years. Who was in power the? It was before Campbell became Premier and three years before the creation of VANOC. Strange ranting comments like these and unrelated diversions such as bringing up George Soros, destroy debate. Perhaps that's the objective?
We could debate Soros; if you'd like.
Monte Paulsen
3 years ago
How I arrived at that statement
G West asked, "On what basis are we to evaluate your vote of confidence for the Premier and his minister of housing?"
Fair question. Briefly...
First, my statement concerned Minister Coleman and Premier Campbell, by which I mean this government during the past two years (since Coleman assumed the housing portfolio). As The Tyee has noted, the Campbell record on housing was dismal during his first term.
NEW CONSTRUCTION --- I base the above comment primarily on the new social housing starts that are in the works. If Coleman finds the money to build twelve new social housing buildings in Vancouver (as he has vowed to do in The Tyee) plus more in Surrey, Victoria and elsewhere, my view will be that he will have done a good job.
As I have noted, these "pre-development" projects are not yet funded. If they don't get built, then my view will be different. In the mean time, it seems in our best interest as a community to encourage all of our governments (and business, and NGOs, and VANOC) to support what Coleman says he will do.
SROS --- I advocated buying hotels in my "Seven Solutions" piece, which was published months before Coleman's surprise SRO purchases were announced. I still think it's good policy. Is government follows through on the construction of new social housing, the "wet housing" provided by these SROs could provide a key "housing first" entry point into a larger social housing continuum.
G West is correct that Coleman is not buying SROs as fast as the market is destroying them. I doubt anyone could. Solving the low-income housing crisis is going to require more than buying SROs.
Are the SROs, by themselves, the answer? No. Are the conversions and rennovations being handled as well as they could be? The evidence says no.
But these real problems do not change the fact that Coleman is buying more rooms than anyone imagined this government ever would.
INCOME --- G West is correct about minimum wage and welfare shelter allowance, in my view. As I have suggested elsewhere, there may soon come a day when Campbell goes looking for a quick pre-Olympic fix. He's proven himself an adaptable politician. If or when that day comes, my guess is that he'll raise welfare shelter allowance.
G West
3 years ago
Fair response Monte
The pudding, as they say, is in the eating and so far the meal has been very meagre.
I still think your statement, which almost exactly echoes one made a while back by the representative of a local NGO whose name escapes me, is so far from reflecting reality as to parallel Churchill's famous dictum about it being the end of the beginning.
Therefore, since nothing has really changed, the SRO deficit has swelled and homelessness has actually increased and spread, across the province since 2001, I'll continue to argue that this housing minister and, above all, this premier, have no congratulations coming.
On the other hand, Realisticman to the contrary, I do appreciate the fact you're actually willing to discuss this.
I thought the Paperny film was interesting because it showed, time and again, how even the best efforts of four committed and involved 'mentors' could not find - even on a temporary basis - some kind of actual assistance from the government: The rooms, the money and the staff simply were not there - not there after repeated visits and hours spent standing in interminable line-ups.
If Minister Coleman wants to assist the homeless he needs to get more staff busy in the areas where the homeless live - providing hot food, timely medical and psychiatric help, clean clothing and shoes.
He needs to get people into housing and out of the bureaucratic nightmare that getting assistance has become and he can't rely on a piecemeal approach administered through a lot of well meaning but under-trained and poorly funded NGOs. The film illustrated that fact in stark terms.
Furthermore, even if none of the addicted homeless kick their habit (which seems to be what the R/man requires) they can still be brought back to some semblance of health and normalcy and, as you’ve pointed out time and time again, for those who judge all by the almighty dollar, it will be cheaper in the end.
Your piece about the death toll of homeless in the last two years is a good indication of how bad things have gotten under Campbell – and it’s interesting how few comments it has attracted – while at the same time a story about how willing we are to fund solutions to these problems attracts volumes of heat and light.
G West
3 years ago
Now, you, realisticman
I was responding to someone who posted the suggestion that I'd implied Vanoc was responsible for homelessness; in fact I never said it was.
On the other hand, Vanoc is a PR branch of the current government...without the finances and cooperation of the provincial and federal government there would be no Vanoc - there would be no wasteful spending on a two week orgy of self-congratulation to distract public attention from the real problems of governing, leading and responding to the actual needs of the population. Needs like housing, adequate health care, job safety, jobs, children in the care of the state, agriculture, poverty, the minimum wage, welfare, education...I could go on.
This government can't even control the greed of the titular board of BC Ferries or ensure the proper and ethical operation of ICBC let alone find a solution to homelessness. I understand that the RCMP is now investigating that too (ICBC)…perhaps we’ll soon have another raid of corporate HQ….
But, as the other story I posted above shows, they and their municipal confreres can use taxpayers’ dollars to throw a hell of a party.
Nice!
However, as is usually the case you ignore everything else I wrote in that comment and accuse me of ranting.
Not much of a surprise from you. I still don't think you watched the film because it seems to have escaped you that the functions of the government which should have been addressing the needs of the people showcased in the program were found to be utterly incapable of actually addressing the needs of the four people in the show.
It took months to finally get the heroin addict you're so dismissive of into some kind of decent housing and the role of the government in doing that was marginal at best. In fact, now that he has a place to live his health HAS improved, his business (remember the market) is thriving, and he's still a heroin addict.
Mirabile dictu.
Above all he is, what he always was, a lot like you and me, a flawed human being toward whom your dismissive prejudice says more about you than it does about him.
I'm always willing to debate you but you need to actually spend some time reading the comments - the remarks about billionaires and responsibility were directed at another poster - Bobby Peru - check it out.
Far from stifling debate, I'm forced to conduct it on several levels and with several interlocutors at the same time.
So please, try to keep up. I'm a busy man.
I could care less how long Vanoc has been in existence - if you think for a moment Gordon Campbell is going to give any credit to his predecessors for the Olympic cock up that's coming then I have a bridge or two to sell you. This is Gordon and Jack Poole's baby and everyone - save you apparently - knows it.
lynn
3 years ago
Home Sweet Warehouse
After reading so many of your articles, I am surprised you wrote that, Monte, but you are certainly entitled to your opinion.
I think you miss the point about what a government successfully beginning to address the needs of the homeless really means.
First step for a government to end homelessness: It must not cut social infrastructure. Homelessness has increased on our streets because of the ruthless and widespread assault by the BCLiberals on our social system, the deep cuts that their policy of privatization feeds... and thrives on. To feed itself, privatization starves others, especially the vulnerable.
Campbell is just being forced to warehouse the result of his devastating social policies. To hide the evidence. "Tidying up" the streets for his sacred Olympics.
Using an American example, does building more and more prisons mean the US government is more effectively addressing crime? Or does it mean that the policies of their government have actually created more and more desperate people, people who have fallen through the cracks, their lives unravelling with nowhere to turn for assistance, with mental and drug problems that are not addressed - a system that makes criminals out of people who needn't have been criminals at all.
I think that is what we are seeing here in BC when it comes to homelessness - regressive social policies that have necessitated the need for, (and created the worst kind of rising market for), the horrendous "warehousing" of human beings.
The guys and gals in government who cavalierly and cruelly ripped apart our social infra-structure deserve no praise -none at all- as without a secure social infra-structure, social housing simply becomes warehousing.
The creation of real homes...and the real hope for a better life become possible when progressive changes in social policy are the accompaniment to real social housing.
Anything else is just a shell game.
Maurice Cardinal
3 years ago
Look the other way
VANOC answers to the IOC and it is by careful design they are partnered with municipal, provincial, and federal governments.
The IOC has been through this many times.
Since early 2004 I’ve lobbied local media to investigate a number of issues that impact our region respective of 2010, including and especially regarding homelessness. I attended IOCC meetings and cautioned them years ago that homelessness would soon become the number one issue.
John Furlong, Sam Sullivan, Peter Ladner and Gordon Campbell know my views. I warned them all long ago that if you ignore a problem, it won't get fixed. They chose to ignore it until the human excrement hit the DTES wall.
Now. NOW?! they decide to do something about it? Too late.
VANOC is not responsible for "originally" causing homelessness, but they certainly raised it to its new height.
We kept careful notes for almost 5 years of not only their actions, but also of local mainstream media reports. They all had an opportunity to figure out how to manage an ethical Games. Instead, they looked the other way.
VANOC had plenty of opportunity to sit down with local news media and ask them not to blow the real estate market out of proportion.
Instead, IOC hired the Vancouver Sun as a paid Olympics booster, and naively underestimated conversations that "we the people" managed online independent of their closed communication triangle. Lack of transparency is a hallmark of Olympics organizations, and VANOC is no exception.
Local news media had plenty of opportunity to warn local residents that if they fell for the Olympics hype fest they would pay for it.
Monte, between 2003 and 2006 did you ever see on the VANOC website or in local newspapers or television, cautionary articles regarding obscenely skyrocketing property values? Of course not. But you did see hundreds of full colour double spread condo ads leveraging Olympics frenzy for all it was worth. The oligopoly bled the region dry.
This almost exact scenario played out in Sydney Australia respective of their 2000 Games and was repeated here on almost the exact same schedule. Read my book and blog. I documented it in real time.
Kirk LaPointe, editor of The Sun recently complained in response to a comment I made on his blog that blogs are "disruptive." Well he ain't seen nothing yet.
VANOC is without question responsible for creating the homeless nightmare we have in Vancouver, so they, and their partners, including, and especially media and Olympics sponsors should pay to fix it.
Considering all the good stuff I've read from you Monte, I'm surprised you're trying to convince us to look the other way.
Maurice Cardinal
3 years ago
Timing is everything
As soon as the Games are over we go back to the old ways - guaranteed.
It's inevitable when struggling under oppressive Olympic debt and taxes.
Strike while the iron is hot.
Luke Skywalker
3 years ago
Oh Geeee West...
I think it's time to blame this whole Olympic mess where it all started... N'est pas?
Glen Clark and the NDP!
God forbid BC ever forgive them for applying to host (or should I say foist) this whole Olympic fiasco upon the BC taxpayer!
Bobby Peru
3 years ago
Now that's entertainment!
Luke Skywalker- you're light sabre is far too sharp for the poverty pimps on this site who would rather use the homeless situation as a political football than work at practical solutions. It's so easy to forget that Glen Clark started this social injustice called the Olympic bid.
So far, other than expressing white hot hatred for Premier Campbell, rich people and VANOC, I haven't read of any attempts at a homeless solution. Well, aside from overturning capitalism or trying to shame the middle class.
G West
3 years ago
Reduced to name calling Bobby!
Funny how that always happens.
realisticman
3 years ago
Rain City
Since you say you've conveniently forgotten, GWest, I can remind you.
Now:
http://www.raincityhousing.org/
By the way, who was that poster you say;
I scrolled up and couldn't find them.
Interesting to note that across the pond another socialist politician, Red Ken, wanted and succeeded in winning another Olympics, London 2012. Perhaps he took his cue from Glen Clark.
realisticman
3 years ago
London will be a doozy
That's only $18.8275 BILLION Canadian.
G West
3 years ago
I didn't conveniently forget
I simply forgot - as I recall I dealt with his claim at the time in much the same way I did with Monte's above here.
I notice you conveniently ignored his response to that as well.
Please note Monte Paulsen's post some two days ago - it's headlined:
VANOC did not cause homelessness
That was the post I was responding to.
[INFLAMMATORY COMMENT DIRECTED AT ANOTHER COMMENTER REMOVED. -MODERATOR.]- the headlines are bolded!
realisticman
3 years ago
Inimitable
Yes, you dealt with him in your inimitable and decisive manner, utterly dismissing his comment and consequently belittling his 27 years experience. [INFLAMMATORY COMMENT DIRECTED AT ANOTHER COMMENTER REMOVED. -MODERATOR.]
As for the post you think you were responding to, well - that only works if one reads the thread from the bottom up.
Luke Skywalker
3 years ago
I Just Don't Understand...
realisticman:
And in response G West writes:
Yet in another thread G West writes:
As for in-migration, it is a problem and I wish there were some way to keep them out of BRitish Columbia - retirees from Alberta do tend to create problems for the communities they move to.
That's certainly not consistent and I don't think most of the populace would agree with ya.
BTW, excellent thread!
brian gough
3 years ago
little thought from little minds
people have to distinquish the diffrent types of homelessness---you can`t put drug feinds in homes! I grew up in lower mainland and there was always some drug addicts,but it was kept in check by policing and jail--at one time 20years ago -if you carried heroin or other drugs the charge was serious! several possesion charges and you went to jail! and not to watch tv--work camps--if you were addicted they would de-tox you --then make you work-but along came a liberal change --hug a thug theory--let them be,hug them,hold them,finance them--it did not work!--then along came larry campbell who made things worse--injection site-now vancouver police can`t charge the addicts or the dealers!--revolving justice door--and at the same time along came campbell--who closed over 500 hundred corrections beds--so what do we have--vancouver police can`t charge anyone,and even if they could theres no where to send them--so what has it turned into---A FREAKING GONG SHOW--how can anyone function in a jim morrison go ask alice-one flew over the cookoos nest vancouver eastside-- I am surprised no one is running a tour bus through the eastside-----THE TOUR OF HORROR AND ABUSE AND COMEDY(lunch at the old spaggetti factory is included)
realisticman
3 years ago
Brian
You are so right! I've resisted posting the idea of bus tours around a fenced off freak show DTES because of the risk of being accused of morbid cynicism. You've categorised it perfectly; it's a sad and stupid joke.
Stump
3 years ago
Bob, Bob, Bob
You've failed to come up with a realistic solution either Bob.
Trotting out alliterative name-calling and believing that health care is best delivered via the gulag approach is hardly the kind of approach that entitles you to pass judgement on others.
brian gough
3 years ago
tough love
realisticman--I wasn`t really joking, and the nutty mayor (sullivan ) is carring on the tradition of failure! I don`t care if they put a thousand more cops on the street to stop gang violence,it won`t work.---its supply and demand--with thousands of junkies pillaging the city 24-7 --there`s millions to make,reduce the demand and you will reduce the supply! economics 101---now again we are #1 in north america for bank robberies!--and whats the plan? red change purses that say "bank robbers get caught" what was the last scheme? cardboard signs that say "there`s nothing to steal in my car" I think someone stole all those signs--- when are they gonna go back to the tried and true method of TOUGH LOVE
Bobby Peru
3 years ago
Dealing with Addicts
Now I'm not going to ask how many of you have dealt with substance abuse addicts. I presume many of you have some passing or direct or professional experience.
The problem in Vancouver is not homelessness, but drug addiction that debilitates people to the point where they are incapable of caring for themselves or being employed. Drug addicts need tough love and treatment, not compassion and programmes that enable more abuse. People on this site are talking about the homeless as if they are simply people who don't have a home. It's a drug addiction problem that needs to be solved in a disciplined fashion.
Or if these addicts are wasted beyond the point of saving, they need to be hospitalized permanently.