Long Term Sacrifice for Short Term Glory

I don't know if you have gotten the impression yet, but I am not enthusiastic about Vancouver hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics.

I used to enjoy the Olympics but have become jaded and fed up with the constant stories of political bribery, doping, and the loss of the 'heart' of the whole concept of the Olympics.

The costs alone of putting on such a spectacle puts me right off. Especially when our city has so many LONG term issues to deal with. Better things to spend the money on.

So I didn't bother watching the unveiling of the new Olympic Clock yesterday. It is now three years to the opening. My mom told me that she was disgusted by the releasing of helium balloons into the sky to mark the occasion. More pollution.

I was glad to hear about the protesters 'spoiling' all the fun.

While I don't necessarily approve of the Anti Poverty Group's tactics.....their message is important. And should not be trivialized like it was by the biased reporting in the Vancouver Sun. A paper obviously anxious to be a part of the whole hoopla.

Their main message is about the lack of housing for those unfortunate enough to fall on or below the poverty line. God help you if you have any mental illness or drug addiction. Vancouver does not want you nor does it want you to be seen during the Olympics.

They have been doggedly fighting with City Hall. Begging them to address this situation. Mayor Sullivan avoids them and answering their questions as much as possible. City Hall is too busy enjoying the condoization of Vancouver. Condo's that are replacing any room houses and cheap rental places. Condo's that developers charge lots for and help ramp up assessments and property taxes that tumble into City Hall coffers.

Homeless are bad for property values.

We saw this twenty years ago. When Vancouver started prepping for Expo 86, rooming houses suddenly started chucking out their tenants and 'renovating,' hoping to cash in on the influx of tourists during the event. I could even forgive this, Expo was a 6 month event, that is a lot of new people for a long period of time. Worth the money. There was also a flurry of activity to effectively move the 'riffraff' out of sight of the visitors.

The homeless situation is a lot worse now than it was then.

What will Vancouver do when all eyes are upon it this time?

When I heard that the soon to be developed false creek lands were going to be used to house the Olympic Village, I knew there would be trouble.

I had been reading the City Hall reports and news reports about this development. The development was supposed to include a fair chunk of "affordable" housing - some sort of undefined social housing or rental property.

Each report I read saw this portion shrink.

When a deal was struck with a developer, the affordable bit all but vanished. All because of the Olympics. All because of the developer wanting to make as much money as possible and the city to spend as little as possible.

You can see that by the end of the Olympics the village property will be sold at market value.

Market value is insanely high in Vancouver.

So much for social housing.

While the legacy of having much improved sporting facilities built is a nice thing and a good thing for those involved in those sports. I would like to think that many of these renovations would have happened down the road anyway.

And again, is it worth the costs? Costs that are coming in FAR higher than ever projected. The overruns are going to be astronomical. I am not sure if an Olympic event has made a profit in the past. This one will not.

And after the two weeks of fun and excitement, it will be back to the same old same old. Three more years gone by and money spent and nothing solved.

Still no social housing programs. No help for those who need it. The fat cats fatter.
More smiling politicians soooo happy for all the marvelous photo ops. And not a scruffy homeless person in sight.

Trial by Jury or Media?

In BC we are in the midst of a gruesome murder trial.

A trial about a even more gruesome and horrific murder spree 'allegedly' committed by a Robert 'Willie' Pickton.

Pickton is on trial for 6 of 26 murders of women he apparently invited or lured to his pig farm. Most of these women had been on a missing women's list for many many years. Most of these women were either homeless, prostitutes, drug addicts or all of the above.

I personally have no interest in hearing every tidbit and detail about what is heard in court. I can only imagine and that is fine with me. All I hope is that the trail does NOT get bolixed up and some sort of justice is met.

What has gotten my interest, or curiosity or whatever you want to call it is the visions and words of the families of these women. A lot of them have traveled far and made many sacrifices to attend the trial They want answers. They want closure.

As would all families of victims of murder.

And they all seem to be loving and kind people.

So what happened? Why were these women on the street? What drove them all away to end up 'whereabouts' unknown by their own friends and family?

Where were these loving people for all these years?

I find it all very very sad.

The 'Downtown Eastside' is a hellhole like no other. Not in our so-called Western civilization.
This is where the forgotten congregate. You cannot sink any further than this.
Drugs are used openly in the streets. The alleys are used as shoot up corners and toilets. People lay drunk where they fell and others step over and around them.

It is a nightmare and this is where the majority of these women who were killed had been existing.

Why Vancouver allows this place to exist is beyond me. Though I have no answers on how to deal with it. Not now.

It has been like this for a very long time. It is Dickensian in it's despair.

You can imagine the Olympic committee are having fits about it all. Let the world see this version of our so-called world class city. Let the world see what we do with the mentally ill and the drug addicted and the generally down trodden and out of luck people.

Where are the resources? Where is the help?
Some of Pickton's victims had children!

I have no answers. Only questions. I have no clever summation for this post. Thought I can see how creatures like Pickton no doubt viewed these women as less than human and therefore his actions were 'easier' for him and his kind, because really we allowed them to exist in inhuman conditions and live inhuman lives and all the civic types worry about is how to hide them from the world.

I hope that the attention and media frenzy around the trial brings about one thing....that people start asking the right people the right questions about what is to be done about this place and the poor people eking out a living there.