Vancouver's 'dirty little secret'

[tamarin]

I've never been west of Ontario. I will some day. Maybe. Never felt the draw. But I have heard of its sin capitals. Vancouver and Winnipeg have been in the news since - as some hippie chick once chirped -"forever!" I love small town Ontario. There are problems there but nothing blatant and numbing as found out west.

 

[Curiosity]

Kreskin

Did Michael J. Fox grow up in Burnaby? I wonder why I thought it was NW....His dad was an RCMP I think in one of the outlying areas...

Marine Drive is the main drag out to the University of B.C. Endowment lands....and 41st Avenue is the street where all the stores are....we used to soap the windows on Halowe-en...lord knows what they do now to that little place...and Arbutus is where the tracks are for that little feeder rail they are always fighting about....the land along E & W Boulevard (parallel to Arbutus) is a prime transportation corridor and the people in the residential neighborhoods are playing NIMBY (or were)...maybe they've lost by now...

There is a website on the internet Vancouver Chronology .... can't remember the exact address, but every once in a while I visit it.... and the webcams showing the beaches, etc. My family keep me
updated on most of the stuff, but they have scattered to smaller areas too not all of them like the big city...

 

[Kreskin]

New West high school is literally located one block from Burnaby.

Would your old neighbourhood be officially in South Vancouver? When we did that walk we ended up all over the place. 60k in Vancouver meant seeing a lot of neighbourhoods. We were in that area, crossing back over Granville into Shaughnessy and Kits. Marine Way has become a very busy area. Following it into the Burnaby area there's a ton of commercial development going on.

 

[Curiosity]

Kreskin

We were SW - at least that is how the streets were designated. South to Kits and west to UBC. I think East started at Granville. Yup Marine going to Burnaby used to terrify me when I was a new driver. I would avoid that route at any cost of time..

Kerrisdale has some beautiful old craftsman style homes which many of the people have chosen to preserve and improve upon even though when the relocation of many Hong Kong people happened, they would tear down homes and build brand new ones - which were lovely - but a lot of history was lost.

My mother stopped answering the door because someone was always asking if she 'wanted to sell'....

It has settled down now. Did I read somewhere you are a planner? As in land planning?

 

[Kreskin]

Kreskin

We were SW - at least that is how the streets were designated. South to Kits and west to UBC. I think East started at Granville. Yup Marine going to Burnaby used to terrify me when I was a new driver. I would avoid that route at any cost of time..

Kerrisdale has some beautiful old craftsman style homes which many of the people have chosen to preserve and improve upon even though when the relocation of many Hong Kong people happened, they would tear down homes and build brand new ones - which were lovely - but a lot of history was lost.

My mother stopped answering the door because someone was always asking if she 'wanted to sell'....

It has settled down now. Did I read somewhere you are a planner? As in land planning?

Marine way is still a little nerve racking. It's a semi-highway in the middle of a lot of stuff.

I'm a personal financial planner. I work for a great organization and I enjoy working closely with people. Within the organization I'm quite independent. The work is fun, flexible and quite satisfying overall.

 

[talloola]

Morning Kreskin

I grew up in a large neighborhood called Kerrisdale - Marine and 37th Ave. It's main cross streets are 41st and Arbutus..... It was near a golf course which had been built on Indian Land overlooking the Fraser River. I also lived downtown in a West End apartment when I left home. Loved it there
but it was also very noisy - they were constantly building new high rises and tearing down some of
the beautiful old houses... I think it's called 'progress and growth'.... but when I was young I didn't think about those things - only all the great food and coffee and beaches .... hehe...

I have been in that area many times, all during the years my daughter attended UBC, and
also the many times we went to Spanish Banks, or took the beautiful drive all around
Point Grey and on through to Marpole.
A lady named Clem Tache, made my wedding dress many years ago, her little shop was
on 4th avenue in that general area. That's really going back in time.

 

[L Gilbert]

.......... and avoid. (replying to whoever said so much to see and do at the coast).

 

[dirtylinder]

prostitutes and druggies

I know the cops screwed up on this one, however, I have to say, if one of my sisters who are all law abiding, contributories to society, and hard working ladies went missing, I'd hope their disappearance would take precedence over a missing hooker who has chose a life that takes from society and doesn't add to it. I know a life is a life, but, some people are more valuable to society than others. Just my opinion.....the cops have lots to do with all of the home invasions where the elderly are beaten, the purse nabbings, the beatings at skytrain stations, and the stolen vehicles, it must be hard to find the time to protect the ladies of the evening.

 

[bluecollarguy]

I know the cops screwed up on this one, however, I have to say, if one of my sisters who are all law abiding, contributories to society, and hard working ladies went missing, I'd hope their disappearance would take precedence over a missing hooker who has chose a life that takes from society and doesn't add to it. I know a life is a life, but, some people are more valuable to society than others. Just my opinion.....the cops have lots to do with all of the home invasions where the elderly are beaten, the purse nabbings, the beatings at skytrain stations, and the stolen vehicles, it must be hard to find the time to protect the ladies of the evening.

It is attitudes and ideas like this that helped drive some of these people to were they are.:angryfire:
Not all the people down there are there by choice. Many institutions have been closed and the residents removed with no way to help themselves and very little support system.
And as for the drugs. All it can take is one bad choice in life and things change forever.
These people may or may not have chosen this live but they still deserve our help and protection if they want or need it.
Just my $.02

 

[Dreadful Nonsense]

Man toronto has not one but a few seedy neighboroohds...But Toronto has a way of really covering this stuff up....It always paints a pic of itself as the centre of the known universe and the cleanest and safeset blah blah....It's not. Every day almost there are knifings and shootings...

I've wandered round east hastings and to be honest i wasn't scared...It sort of a small area as well compared to the rest of Vancouver...and the rest is sheer beauty and joy...even east hastings has character though...as far as seedy goes it's a nice seedy....

Dirty little secret is more like something one would say of Totronto....they are masters of the cover up....

 

[talloola]

By Heather Alexander
BBC News, Vancouver, Canada
Thousands of people visit Vancouver each year. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains, it is described in brochures as one of the world's most spectacular cities.
But mention a trip to the downtown Eastside and you get: "Don't go there."


"Make sure you stay away from alleyways." The area is known as the city's "dirty little secret" - a "hidden ghetto" where drug deals take place openly on the streets.
And dozens of women who worked the streets there were murdered.
Marnie Frey went missing in 1997.
A friend of hers came to the first day of the trial of Robert Pickton, who is accused of murdering 26 women - all prostitutes and drug addicts - who disappeared over a period of more than a decade.
Marnie Frey's friend said Marnie went out one day and never came back.
Police failings
She was one of over 60 women who went missing from the area in the 1980s and 1990s - and it wasn't something that was going unnoticed by the people of Vancouver.
"There have been so many rumours about missing women for so long... it was constantly in the paper," a local called Joanne told me.



In the case of the missing women, we don't have a suspect - in fact we don't have a crime
Police statement in 1999
She was first in line in the court queue that first day, with a friend. Both doubted the police had done their utmost to solve the disappearances when they began.
"The police weren't taking it seriously. I guess in retrospect they were making excuses," the women said.
When officers did start investigating - over a decade after the first women disappeared - they admitted they were baffled.
In 1999, one constable told local channel Citynews: "In the case of the missing women, we don't have a suspect. In fact we don't have a crime."
Two years later they said: "We don't have any leads like crime scenes to help us uncover more facts."
Mental hospitals
The women were nearly all drug-addicted prostitutes.
Many think that is the real reason nothing was done.
Mental health worker Patricia Hanley says she saw many of her clients disappear.
"You'd meet with one and she'd be worried about a missing friend, then she'd go missing herself."
She says the deterioration of Vancouver's downtown Eastside is directly related to the gradual closure of one of the area's mental hospitals.
Riverview used to house more than 4,000 patients. Now the number is in the hundreds.
Ms Hanley says residents ended up living on the streets, getting money for crack through the sex trade.
'People cared'
In his opening statement, prosecutor Derrill Prevett told the jury not to be swayed by the victims' involvement with drugs and prostitution.
"Regardless of their lifestyle... each of the women had people and places that were important to them and people who cared about them."


This is the first of two trials Robert "Willie" Pickton faces over the missing women - he faces six murder charges this time. There is no dispute from defence that their remains did end up at the Pickton farm.
A jawbone is all that is left of Marnie Frey.
But they do say Robert Pickton did not put the bodies there - pointing to the large number of people who had access to the property.
It is likely to be at least a year before the jury decides its verdict.
Patricia Hanley hopes the trial will mean more is done to clean up the Eastside long before that.

Pickton doesn't live in Vancouver, he came there to do his dirty deeds, he could have done that
anywhere.

 

[karrie]

Pickton doesn't live in Vancouver, he came there to do his dirty deeds, he could have done that
anywhere.

Does that distinction really matter?

 

[Unforgiven]

It is attitudes and ideas like this that helped drive some of these people to were they are.:angryfire:
Not all the people down there are there by choice. Many institutions have been closed and the residents removed with no way to help themselves and very little support system.
And as for the drugs. All it can take is one bad choice in life and things change forever.
These people may or may not have chosen this live but they still deserve our help and protection if they want or need it.
Just my $.02

I wonder about people who feel the need to get a kick in on those who are down on their luck. People have problems and while I don't have any qualms about laying the boots to someone who through their own actions has and continues to cause problems that directly affect others around them, those who simply are crushing and consuming themselves trapped within addiction or mental illness need help and someone to care about them actively trying to bring them round to a stable lifestyle via methods of harm reduction. Not punishment.

 

[MikeyDB]

I don't care what city it is or what province it's in....

Canadians are responsible for tolerating the situation that gives life to these horrendous conditions for the less fortunate and the substance abuser.

With our Prime Minister making deals with Columbia and Afghanistan, with this "reformed" position on "terrorism", how does he and how do Canadians synthesize the situation wherein we have a serious drug problem...across Canada not just in BC.....our RCMP seems unable to cope with very much of anything....including their own pension fund.....and a terrorist like Picton can cost Canadian taxpayers millions......

Oh I forgot....

Canadians just keep quiet and don't make a fuss.....

It's the Canadian way to let criminals run free and governments ignore if not abet the drug industry...

Sure now and then we'll bust someone for a joint or two, or raise a helluva rukus when some nutbar uses a gun in his/her criminal act....but hey if it's OK with Canada's government to do business with cocaine and heroin central....I supppose these are just insignificant blips on the radar....

We all must surely understand that while there's money to be made....the adopted American virtue that our current Prime Minister embraces....hey the results and the impact of lawlessness organized crime and failed policing....well.....what could be more Canadian?

 

[jjaycee98]

Not to be picky folks but it's the DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE.

Also, while a simple, stupid idea like "bulldozing the area" might appeal to those who have never known the joy of sleeping on a sidewalk, could anyone here please tell me where the poor folk who live in these low-income hotel/apartments will live after you raze their neighbourhood?

Advocates for the poor and homeless, like The Downtown Eastdide Residents' Association, fight every day to save the very hotels and neighbourhoods you would so callously destroy.

Maybe they know something you don't.

Pangloss

Something in the NEWS about revamping those worth doing and replacing a number in some locations to provide residences for people involved in the Olympics. Also was stated that some of these will be "low cost housing" after the Olympics.

Huge hue and cry about no place for the folks down there to go. So the next to the worst neighbourhood will probably receive flow.

In Calgary a huge area has been gutted to provide a "revitalized" neighbourhood adjacent to the Stampede grounds. The City bought out about 8 sq blocks of old houses and most have been torn down, with only a couple with Historic value being saved. Also a few old Mercantile and Manufacturing buildings have been saved to convert to trendy restaurants and shops.

I'm sure it was hard on many people to be uprooted. The whole thing is "Justified" by other neighbourhoods absorbing them and supposedly their lot is marginally better.

 

[MikeyDB]

Not in my Backyard.....

Territoriality call of the red-crested Canadian.....

 

[Minority Observer84]

Not to be picky folks but it's the DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE.

Also, while a simple, stupid idea like "bulldozing the area" might appeal to those who have never known the joy of sleeping on a sidewalk, could anyone here please tell me where the poor folk who live in these low-income hotel/apartments will live after you raze their neighbourhood?

They should crawl into a hole and die because they do not fit mainstream society of course .

 

[talloola]

Does that distinction really matter?

The point was made that the Vancouver east end was the cause of pickton doing what he did,
and pickton was the cause of doing what he did.

The Vancouver east end has problems and should be improved, but what he did is 100% his fault,
not the fault of any 'area', and the two points should be kept separate, as it seems to soften what
he did, and partially blame the area for letting it happen. No so.

 

[talloola]

I've never been west of Ontario. I will some day. Maybe. Never felt the draw. But I have heard of its sin capitals. Vancouver and Winnipeg have been in the news since - as some hippie chick once chirped -"forever!" I love small town Ontario. There are problems there but nothing blatant and numbing as found out west.

Fix your weather, and watch the change.

 

[karrie]

The point was made that the Vancouver east end was the cause of pickton doing what he did,
and pickton was the cause of doing what he did.

The Vancouver east end has problems and should be improved, but what he did is 100% his fault,
not the fault of any 'area', and the two points should be kept separate, as it seems to soften what
he did, and partially blame the area for letting it happen. No so.

Of course it partially blames the area for letting it happen. Of course it does. Pickton could never have walked into, let's say Bezanson Alberta, and preyed on women for the better part of ten years, before someone saw what was happening, saw him, saw the women in question, and put it all together. Of course the city is partly to blame for turning a blind eye and not watching its citizens as closely as any other town would. It's not unique to Van, but it IS unique to large cities. He couldn't have pulled off such a long killing spree without the indifference of a populace.