Ah if only they new...

According to the Vancouver Sun, the UN has described Vancouver as a paradise with a dark side..

It describes Vancouver as a "breathtakingly gorgeous" city with a sizzling economy.
"But there is trouble in paradise. And nowhere is it more evident than in the Downtown Eastside-a two-kilometre-square stretch of decaying rooming houses, seedy strip bars and shady pawnshops," states the UN agency.
"Worst of all, it is home to a Hepatitis C (HCV) rate of just below 70 per cent and an HIV prevalence rate of an estimated 30 per cent-the same as Botswana's."

The sizzling economy bit has me a bit puzzled. Vancouver has a sizzling real estate market and hence a HUGE construction boom going on. I have little evidence of anything else.

Vancouver is a tourist city...and not the good kind. It attracts lots of overseas business and wealth. They buy up the pretty glass towers that we can't afford.

They drive the 'densification' and 'ecodensity' ideas that we are constantly hammered with.

Vancouver is the home of illegal goods. Goods coming in and out of the city. Knock-off's of Channel and so on are available everywhere. Everyone has a fake YSL bag. Well, a certain demographic of our population anyway.

Vancouver is the home of fake lottery scams that target little old ladies in the US. Vancouver is the city that couldn't keep a stock exchange due to the volume of shady activity taking place on it.

Money here is not usually made in purely legitimate ways.

There are no big industries here. Not many head offices left.
So what is generating all the income?

Who is paying for this image of paradise?

I love living here for the scenery and climate. However, the cost of living rises more every single day.

Our city and provincial governments have nothing but dollar signs in their eyes and only working towards one goal....selling the city to the world for the 2010 Olympics.

There is no concern for the regular citizens that make up this fair city.
Health care is a problem.
Housing is a problem
Business are falling apart ....the death toll on the Cambie Line increases every month. So much for small business

It has finally come out that all the promises for housing made by VANOC are highly unlikely and in my opinion was always just words on paper.

For the rest of the world Vancouver is a nice place to play. Lax laws and a laid back style help off shore investors make some easy cash....at the expense of the rest of us.

There is nothing viable in the economy of this city...nothing sustaining. Nothing long lasting.

We are being told to get out of our traditional homes. We are told that family life doesn't fit in here. WE are told that condos are the way to go.

According to Patrick Condon in the Vancouver Sun, June 26, 85% of new housing needs will be for non family housing.

I disagree with this. I say this statistic is being forced upon us by inflated real estate prices and marketers pushing their condos.

Families are being driven to the suburbs whether they want to go or not. Guilted out for a dream of a home with a yard and so forth.

I am very sad at how Vancouver has fallen. I hope to be proven wrong.

But I doubt it.

Real Estate in Vancouver

Despite the fact that we have a pittance for a down payment - we keep looking at places that strike our fancy.

We checked out a couple of open houses yesterday.

The first one was depressing as it was in the same complex and floor plan of a place we SHOULD have bought years ago when the asking price was $329K and not $525K as it was today. The place has a great floor plan and nice big yard. However, for over half a million bucks, you could have done a better paint job on your place? Not to mention that there had been no upgrades done anywhere - kitchen, bathrooms - and the place was over 30 years old.
This is something we have noticed a lot.

The second place was a townhouse that we could actually afford. It was in a great location, with parks and forest trails nearby. It was an end unit with a wrap around yard and in a nice quiet family oriented complex. But again. Not one upgrade. The kitchen was ancient. The carpets old and cheap. The doors and closet doors were made of the same crappy fake wood that is in our rental town home….really old fashioned and ugly. They had ‘finished’ the basement in their own style - faux brick wall for their “wine cellar” - and NO UNDERLAY under the really thin and again cheap carpet.

We would have to spend a fortune to gut the interior of the place to make it livable. We can’t afford that. Not unless they knocked off about $30k of the asking price…and being that they already had two offers coming in, oh well.

The panic buying that is still going on in Vancouver boggles me. People are spending millions on shabby old homes without batting an eyelid. People are rushing to buy not yet built condos.

It has been said by one of the biggest realtors in Vancouver that our fair city is now considered a ‘resort’ town. A place where people buy properties to rent or only stay in for part of the year. So the soul is being sucked right out of this place….it will get worse and worse till after the Olympics and then watch out for all the For Sale signs when the rental condo market drops.

I mean how many people can afford a rent of thousands of dollars?

How many people can pay mortgages of over $3000 a month either? Wages are not rising to match the housing prices?

Just how are people managing?

More Evidence of why Vancouver Does Not Get It

I realize these rants are boring to people who don't live in Vancouver or have ever visited, and I really should just stop reading the local paper.

But headlines like: USUAL MAYHEM - Granville Street is like a Ticking Time Bomb from the March 26th issue of the Vancouver Sun just set me off.

Now Granville Street sucked the moment they built an underground mall beneath it, promptly killing all business above. They made sure business was dead by also not allowing traffic except buses and taxi's to drive along there.

But it survived. It was a mix of newsagents, comic shops, books stores, tattoo parlours, arcades and some porn places that valiantly hung on. It was a sleazy street, but a fun one.

Slowly over the years various clubs have come and gone. Bars open and closed, but lately MORE clubs have opened and survived.

This had made this one small strip party central for young clubbers. I emphasize young, because that has been the target market and that has been the root of all the problems down there.

Young folks from the burbs hit downtown and party their little brains out. They get drunk and get in fights. Nothing new, no. But when it is focused on about 4 blocks......it does not work well.

What gets me is why the city has not paid attention to this area properly. Not thought about branding and mareketing the area properly.

I will use San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter as an example.

I LOVED this area. Have had a blast everytime we visited San Diego. Loved the variety and styles of bars, clubs, restaurants, and stores. Something for all ages and stages.

And I realize that they have their share of problems too, no city is free of crime, etc., but at least they have worked hard at turning what could be a sleazy club area into a landmark tourist destination.

What has our City Council thinking?
Everything our city does seem to be based on making money via real estate deals and condo development. No long term planning. No tourist development.

They keep marketing Gastown as a major destination and the looks of horror as the cruise ship crowd pour onto the streets filled with drunks, homeless and addicts is amazing.

Yes, it is the oldest part of Vancouver. Yes the architecture of some of the buildings is nice and yes, there are some great eats and some good stores. But not much. Gastown had its day.

And sure it could be great. If there was consensual planning between the City and developers and retailers. But there hasn't been. And their won't be for Granville Street either.

The Olympics will be a huge wakeup call for the City. If they have ignored the tales from tourists horrified by the homelessness and mess so far....THAT will be the reckoning.

In the meantime we watch our city turn into sleazy party central

Vancouver - City of Corruption

Vancouver in the papers again.....just not OUR papers.

Wow….

(I hope this link works)

Washington Post

“Vancouver prefers to revel in politically correct politics, a squeaky-clean environmental image, and a laid-back mood fostered by persistent melancholy rain. But it also is a haven for some of the most wanted fugitives in the world and for con men working scams in the shadow of the law.”

They used Lai Changxing as an example. Sitting here in his luxury condo while the ‘wheels of justice’ grind away.

Rakesh Saxena has been under house arrest in HIS luxury home for 11 years now. “But he insisted, “This isn’t a great life. With due respect, this is not the place I would choose to live. From my perspective, it’s a backwater.”

Great huh? So you can see what the people who come here to just exploit our laws and so on really think of it here! This is why we have a crummy real estate market.

This is why there are hardly any head offices here. Did we not HAVE a stock exchange at one point?

Again, Vancouver is pretty on the surface……but man oh man….there are so many people out to make a buck at any cost. This includes the business men, city hall, the provincial government…the list goes on.

No wonder joe average doesn’t stand a chance.

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.

Trees or People?

I live in Vancouver. It is a beautiful and scenic part of Canada. We have mountains and we have the sea and we have pretty mild weather too.

Until lately.

This winter we have been lashed by windstorms. Sometimes with hurricane force gusts.
There has been much damage, from downed power lines, to trees through roofs, and the worst visible damage....the damage to Stanley Park.

Stanley Park has always been marketed as the Jewel of our city. A great hunk of forest in the heart of the city. And for the tourists and those lucky enough to live close by or afford the parking, it is indeed a gorgeous place to visit.

And yes, the storm has caused some major damage and it has been very sad to see ancient trees turned to match wood in a blink of an eye. Some of these monsters were over 500 years old.

But what has set me off is that one of our local TV stations is doing a 'Save Stanley Park Fund.' They are looking for donations to give to our city and the Parks Board to 'fix' the park. And yes, I am sure a lot of things will cost a lot of money. The seawall is damaged. Roads are torn up, some of the venues are no doubt in need of repair. The lost revenue for the restaurants and concessions must be fairly high.

But isn't that what contingency funds are for? Is that not what a good chunk of our taxes goes to?
Is there not a budget for emergencies?

Right now our city is suffering its version of a 'deep freeze.' This mean emergency shelters are being opened to help the people who live on our streets and, no doubt, in Stanley Park. These people need blankets, clothing, food, shelter.

Right now organizations like The Anti Poverty Committee are fighting our City Hall and our corrupt Mayor in order to bring attention to those most unfortunate in our city. Thanks to events like the 2010 Olympics, our City is quite worried about getting rid of the 'problem' of homelessness. Thanks to events like the 2010 Olympics and the 'worry' about Olympic 'villages' and so on, social housing in Vancouver's new developments like the South, East False Creek area was cut to make it more desirable to developers.

Once again, those on the bottom of the food chain are being shafted.

And what is our local news covering? 'Save the Trees' and 'What are the right tires to use in the winter!' Not one story about the homeless and how they are dealing in this weather.

Instead we watch banks like the HSBC hand over $300,000 to the Park. And watch our local millionaire Jimmy Pattison double it.

Add this to the footage of the yuppy joggers crawling under downed trees and taped of areas because whatever happens 'don't ruin my run!' You begin to get the idea that Vancouverites might be a tad flakey and perhaps a bit out of touch with reality.

Trees fall down. It is nature. Stanley Park is not a Disney Land theme park. It was supposed to be a little bit of nature protected for the city residents to enjoy. It SHOULD remind us about nature and help us remember to RESPECT nature and all that entails...including wind storms.

I would also like to know what the Parks board budget gets spent on. I would like to know what our Mayor does with the money we so kindly donate to this 'fund.'

I imagine the homeless are so grateful we are going to such efforts to save the park.