Hello from Vancouver (4) - A Walking Tour through The Downtown
East Side
The University of British Columbia has a drop-in centre downtown
in Vancouver's East side called the Learning Exchange where it
provides educational opportunities to people who live and work
in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and other inner-city
communities.
Vancouver's Downtown East Side is an inner city neighbourhood
that has been experiencing problems with drug addiction and
prostitution for many years. The area consists of several
diverse neighbourhoods, including Strathcona, Chinatown, and
Gastown, as well as the central area around Main and Hastings.
The Downtown Eastside is currently facing significant social,
economic and health-related issues. While there are undeniable
problems, the community also has significant strengths. And,
important community-building work is being undertaken and some
of this important work is done by the UBC Learning Exchange.
The Learning Exchange provides opportunities for UBC students to
develop an understanding of society through first-hand volunteer
work and promotes the formation of partnerships between people
at UBC and people in the Downtown East Side and other inner-city
communities that make the sharing of expertise and resources
possible. The program started very small and still has a very
tight budget, but today more than 800 UBC students volunteer
here in a variety of community assistance groups.
10 people from the Servas conference went downtown to
participate in a learning experience involving a self-guided
tour, and our young local expert Francy spent about 90 minutes
with us, exploring what we knew or had heard about the
neighbourhood, the various media stereotypes, what type of
people lived there and why and what was being done to help this
community.
We learned that the community is actually quite diverse, not
only does it include people dealing and using drugs as well as
sex trade workers, the area also houses new immigrants, social
service personnel, artists and students. Even seniors and
families live here and in one coop housing project, built around
a central courtyard, the single and older people live on the
outside of the complex to provide protection, while the families
with young children live on the inside so the young ones can
play safely in the courtyard .
The Downtown East Side is one of the few areas in Vancouver that
still has affordable housing prices. We found out that many of
the people in the area take on short-term or transient type of
work assignments in labour pools, and many of them work as
"binners", collecting metal cans and glass bottles from garbage
containers which then get reclaimed in local recycling
facilities. In Vancouver the sight of people going through
garbage bins is very common, even in the pristine suburban
campus of UBC, and this activity is also referred to as
"dumpster-diving". We realized that these people perform an
important societal service by diverting recyclable materials
away from the landfills back into reprocessing facilities.
The main drugs represented in this area are heroine, crack and
crystal meth, and Francy explained that many of the area's
inhabitants live very nocturnal lives and that the mornings can
be fairly quiet. After exploring the socio-economic background
of this neighbourhood we were given a safety briefing which
included practical advice such as treating people respectfully
and looking them in the eye, even if they are requesting money
from you, politely declining if someone mistakes you for a
sex-trade worker, keeping valuables out of sight and similar
issues. I decided to leave my entire purse and camera at the
drop-in centre as did several other members of our group.
We then headed off in small, inconspicuous groups of 3 or 4
people, with a small unobtrusive map. The map pointed out local
sights such as buildings, housing coops, community centres,
churches and parks. The first thing we did was we headed north
out to the bridge at the top of Main Street from where you have
a gorgeous view of downtown Vancouver, including Canada Place.
It strikes you as ironic, how so much beauty and opulence can be
located right next to an area with immense economic and social
problems.
We headed west on Alexander Street and promptly arrived on a
beautiful little square that is part of Vancouver's historic
restored Gastown area. From there we headed south along streets
like Pender and Carrall, many of which have boarded up main
floors, and former retail areas that were closed a long time
ago. Occasionally you see local homeless people and at one
building we saw two young people on a couch in front of a
building, and beside them a young woman who was stretching and
contorting her body in strange ways. We were later explained
that this woman was probably coming down from taking drugs the
night before and was experiencing excruciating pain in the
process.
We snaked our way through the neighbourhood past various parks
that according to our guide book were described as gathering
spots for drug activity during the night. Most of these areas
were fairly empty, but we did pass a number of people whose
appearances had been ravaged by years of drug use. On Pender
Street we passed by an astounding building, the Sun Tower, built
in 1912, that housed the offices of The Vancouver Sun newspaper
from 1924 to1964 and is crowned by a by a three-story beaux arts
copper roof.
Pender Street took us further east towards Vancouver's
Chinatown, which compared to the chaotic hustle and bustle of
Toronto's Chinatown, seemed very orderly and organized. Our map
told us to make a brief detour into the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen
Classical Chinese Garden, opened in 1986, the first full-size
authentic Chinese garden built outside of China. From there we
went through a mixed neighbourhood with a variety of Chinese or
Korean community centres and seniors residences. We also passed
by a community centre that offered free showers, Internet
access, mailbox and various other services to many of the
homeless people in this area. Many of the local churches provide
shelter and other services to this community in need.
One particularly haunting image for me was a very young woman,
maybe in her late teens, early twenties. She had bleached blond
hair, blue eyes and dark rims of smeared mascara under her eyes.
She was leaning into the recesses of a building and had
obviously been crying. Something was in her hand, but I was
unable to see what it was. She appeared to be in a great deal of
physical and emotional pain, and her face was still so young and
pristine. I thought how powerfully addictions affect people and
how difficult it must be to extricate oneself from this way of
life.
My two walking partners commented on another older woman, whose
face had been scarred and they commented that the blank look in
her eyes was a very haunting experience. Since I was in charge
of figuring out the map I did not see this individual, but the
ravages of drug use were plainly obvious in so many of the
residents' faces. Ironically enough, as we were looking at our
map, we were asked twice by different people if we were lost and
if they could help redirect us. We had been prepared for being
accosted and asked for money, and instead we were offered some
help by the locals - ironic indeed.
After we completed our walk we headed back to the UBC Learning
Exchange for a debriefing and we shared our experiences. We
noted that the neighbourhood was much more mixed and less
consistently run down than we had expected. A comment was also
made that relatively few people were on the streets and that we
didn't witness any drug-related or sex-trade transactions at
this time of day. Overall it had felt quite safe for us 3 women
to walk through this neighbourhood, and during morning hours
this area didn't look all that different from other urban
neighbourhoods.
Our learning experience was capped off by a visit at the
Carnegie Community Centre, built in 1908 as a Public Library.
The Carnegie Centre provides a range of social, recreational and
educational programs for the residents of Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside. It is often described as the community's living
room--a place where people can come to participate in programs
or to simply relax and socialize with others, particularly
important since many of them live in one-room dwellings where
they don't have the luxury of a living room to relax in.
The Carnegie Centre offers a variety of facilities: a Public
Library reading room, a seniors centre, weight room, a
learning/literacy centre, a kitchen that offers 3 nutritional
meals a day, an art gallery, an auditorium and gym as well as a
dark room and pottery room. Our group did indeed sample the
Carnegie's cuisine, and I had a vegetarian lunch with veggie
spring rolls, salad and rice, as well as one of the most
delicious mushroom soups I have ever eaten. Together with a
lemon pop this lunch came to $3.40.
The meal was delicious and completing this learning experience
in Vancouver's Downtown East Side truly enriched my
understanding of the city and this neighbourhood, and I gained a
real appreciation for the efforts of the many hundreds of people
who try to bring about positive change in this area. Francy
indeed summarized it succinctly: the best way to make a
difference is through individual engagement, and the small
efforts of many can bring about huge change to the community as
a whole.