The Dominion - DTES

Homelessness and Police Brutality

mccabe.melissa — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:20:41 +0000

A dispatch from the In our Own Voices writing project

VANCOUVER—In the winter of 2000, I was co-managing a four bedroom house in Walley, BC. My co-manager and I became friends, but eventually he wanted to have a relationship. When I refused, he started to become verbally abusive and controlling with me. I took the abuse for a while, until I started to get incredibly stressed. I decided to leave in the spring of 2001. In a state of extreme depression, I left with a couple of bags and took the bus into Vancouver, where I ended up homeless.

During the day I panhandled for food and smokes, and at night I stayed wherever I could find a quiet and safe spot on the streets such as in a park or in a doorway. I felt alone, scared, and lost in the cracks and in the crowd. I could not sleep at night because there was no privacy, only constant harassment—whether it was the police, private security, drunk people leaving the bars, violent men, or somebody trying to rob me. A few guys tried to get me to do sex-work on the street for them, but I refused.

While I was panhandling, people would always hassle me and yell at me to move away from their store. I would often get sworn at or told to get a job. I felt judged by the people walking by and I was so ashamed of myself. I wish I could have made them understand how hard it really was. It was overwhelmingly difficult just to survive and I would never want to be homeless again. There are approximately 11,000 homeless across BC, with 3,000 people homeless across the Lower Mainland.

I had been on the street for a few months when someone told me to go to the Downtown Eastside to access support and services. I found a welfare worker who helped me get into the Bridge Shelter, where I stayed for one month, after which I got into Bridge Housing in June 2001.

I had to start all over again to establish my life. I found the Downtown Eastside Womens’ Centre. When I first walked in the doors, I did not want people to know me or know where I came from. But I met some friends who told me about the different activities available and I joined various programs and groups. Being a part of the DTES Power of Women Group showed me how to stand up for myself and others, which helped me regain my confidence and I began to feel good about myself again.

One of the issues I have continued to raise my voice against is that of police brutality in the Downtown Eastside. This is just one of the many stories that inspired me to take action.

I had been living in a supportive housing building for women for about nine years. As opposed to private single-resident-occupancy (SRO) housing, one of the benefits of supportive housing run by non-profits is that it maintains the confidentiality of the tenants who live there. Unless it is an emergency or a tenant has called 911, the police can only enter with a warrant.

One day the police arrived at my building looking for a tenant. They did not have a warrant and no one had called 911. The building staff refused the police access into the tenant’s room. I was sitting in the lobby of our building and witnessed the whole incident. At first the female officer got agitated and was demanding that they be allowed into the tenant’s room. The staff did not give in, which just made the police officers angrier, stating that they had a right to go inside. I saw one officer go towards the staff member to grab her arm. I ran out to try to inform people about what was taking place and to get some help.

When I returned, the staff was in handcuffs and had been taken outside. I heard them saying that they had arrested her and would charge her with obstruction of justice. By that time a crowd had gathered and staff from next door at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre had also arrived. Eventually, the arrested staff member was let go.

This whole incident made me very angry. There are so many stories of police arrogance and violence, and most are worse than what happened to this staff member. In this situation they were not even following their own protocol. I was scared that if this could happen to a staff member what could happen to someone like me who has less authority in this neighbourhood? It made me feel very powerless and vulnerable, especially as the incident occurred in my own building.

I have lost faith in the police. I fear that if I ever needed them to help me, they would turn on me instead. They do little to protect against actual violence, like all the murdered and missing women. Instead, they are violent towards us, frequently arresting people for minor things like jaywalking, or harassing people who are just standing on the street. It deeply frustrates and angers me that we let the police use their power and badges in such negative ways, and that society allows them to power-trip and do what they want. I imagine a Downtown Eastside where we are free from the arbitrary beatings and the brutality of the Vancouver Police Department, and so I and others fight to make this possible.

Karen Lahey is proud to be a survivor. She has been living in the Downtown Eastside for the past 11 years. Because of the DTES Power of Women Group, she can now publicly speak in front of a crowd and in front of cameras. She likes to help other women find their voice.

This story was originally published on the Vancouver Media Co-op as part of the Downtown Eastside Power of Women “In Our Own Voices” writing project. For more information and to read more stories, please visit http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/author/dtes-power-women-group

Karen Lahey

Brakes On

dawn — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 10:52:58 +0000

Speed limits in Vancouver's Downtown East Side hailed as victory by residents

VANCOUVER—People in Vancouver's Downtown East Side will step a little more lightly this fall, as the speed limit on East Hastings Street drops to 30 kilometres an hour, and more pedestrian controlled crossings are introduced into the bustling neighborhood.

Passed on July 26, the measures are part of a set of demands made by the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) to make the Downtown East Side safer for the community.

The Downtown East Side has been identified as the most dangerous place in Vancouver for pedestrians, according to University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University researchers. More than a quarter of the city's identified “hot spots” for pedestrian injuries—locations where more than five people were hit by cars over a five year time period—are in the 10 block stretch of Hastings street where the changes will be implemented.

VANDU's recommendations represent the findings of the We Are All Pedestrians report, a community-based research and advocacy project undertaken by VANDU. Focusing on data collection, education, and community outreach, the project hired people from the Downtown East Side to research both driver and pedestrian volumes and behaviors, including a pedestrian survey and observation of the effects of street and sidewalk design.

“It snowed and it rained, but we stayed out there for hours,” said researcher Lorna Bird, an organizer with VANDU and the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society. “What we saw was that the police were handing out tickets for jaywalking in the Downtown East Side, but not on Davie and Robson.” Only 15 per cent of people in the Downtown East Side own vehicles, notes Bird. “People from other places are speeding through our neighborhood as a shortcut to get home,” she said.

The pedestrian safety project has set a precedent of cooperation between City Hall and the city's most marginalized community. “It was a really successful collaboration,” said VANDU organizer Aiyanas Ormond. The initiative emerged out of a "much less collaborative" process, however, surrounding what VANDU calls a “ticketing blitz” initiated by the Vancouver Police Department in 2008.

Under the guise of improving public safety, officers handed out over 1,100 tickets in the Downtown East Side for infractions like jaywalking, public urination and unlicensed vending.

“We challenged them on a number of occasions to prove that handing out jaywalking tickets improves public safety, and unsurprisingly they couldn't produce any evidence to support that,” said Ormond. VANDU members attended police board meetings, and even stormed a council meeting to demand that the city take a more proactive approach to public safety in the Downtown East Side. “Over 50 people stood up and said 'This is a crisis in our community,'" said Ormond. "People were afraid and felt targeted, being handed these tickets that they would never be able to pay.”

With funding to hire community members as grassroots researchers, the We Are All Pedestrians research took place in 2009 and 2010. While the report was well received by council, it took some pushing on the part of VANDU to get the changes that were won on July 26.

In the spring of 2011, VANDU sent a letter to Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson asking why no action had yet been taken on the report, even though the city had sent representatives of the City of Vancouver and VANDU to the International Urban Health Conference in New York to present the research. “Eventually, [city councilor] Kerry Jang came down to our Tuesday [VANDU Action Group] meeting with some city staff, and offered to implement the 30km per hr zone,” Ormond told The Dominion.

While the pedestrian safety measures approved by council are a step in the right direction, organizers at VANDU are still pushing for action on other parts of the community's demands that came out of the ticketing blitz in 2008.

The need for more public toilets in the neighborhood has been identified as an urgent concern, as many of the tickets that were handed out in the blitz were for public urination and defecation.

Following the success of the We Are All Pedestrians project, the city asked VANDU to do research on the public toilets issue. “This was really frustrating,” says Ormond. “[VANDU's research] basically just confirmed a decade of research that's already been done saying the same thing: we need more accessible public toilets in the Downtown East Side.”

Although hours for two existing public toilets in the neighbourhood have been extended for a trial period, the research project is currently stalled as VANDU and other participants have not been able to come to consensus about how to move forward.

Even though there is much more that needs to be done, the victory for pedestrian safety in late July sets a good precedent of the Downtown East Side community gaining ground on fighting for their rights at city hall. “We don't have a sense that the campaign is complete, but we're happy with the concrete improvements so far,” said Ormond.

Erin Innes is a freelance writer and Permaculture activist working for food and environmental justice in Vancouver/Coast Salish Territory.

Main and Hastings

In Our Own Words

Tim McSorley — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:12:18 +0000

Women living in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside weigh in on the Olympics

The Downtown Eastside Power of Women Group is based at the Downtown Eastside (DTES) Women’s Centre. We are women from all walks of life who are working poor, homeless or on social assistance; and we are all living in extreme poverty.

Many us of are single mothers or have had our children apprehended due to poverty; most of us have chronic mental or physical health issues, for example HIV and Hepatitis C infections; many of us have drug or alcohol addictions; and the majority of us have experienced and survived sexual violence and mental, physical, spiritual and emotional abuse. Indigenous members among us are affected by the legacy of residential schools and a history of colonization and racism.

One of the many issues we are concerned with are the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, which we have seen increase poverty and policing in the DTES, Canada’s poorest postal code.

Below, accounts from Power of Women members Stella August and Phillipa Ryan are accompanied by an illustration by member Priscillia May. Her image depicts the broken promises of the 2010 Olympics and the impacts of gentrification and criminalization in the DTES.

***

The DTES faces more homelessness and hunger than any other neighborhood in Vancouver. Every day, I walk by more homeless people on the street who are hungry, cold and wet. The Olympics have only increased this, creating man-made poverty which is unfair and unjust.

The government is spending billions on a circus, while putting people aside. They say they are fixing the city but how is the city being fixed if so many people are actually worse off? Across the city we are seeing cuts to education, decreased funding to the arts, more people unemployed. Is this the kind of society we want? The cost of renting in Vancouver is now outrageous. It is hard enough to live on a fixed income—whether pension, or social assistance or disability. Just in the DTES, 1,000 to 1,200 units of low-income housing have been lost since the Olympic bid due to closures and conversions to tourist rentals. Meanwhile, over 1,500 new market homes, primarily condominiums, are being built here.

We are also witnessing a dramatic increase in police presence in this neighbourhood. There are often six to eight police officers on just the one intersection at Main and Hastings. One day a few of us were walking down the street and heard a woman yelling for help. As we ran, we saw her being dragged out of a police car, getting kicked to the ground, and being handcuffed. She had apparently been chased by a guy with a knife and she ran into the police car for help. The police had dragged her out of their car, berating her for entering a police car, and arrested her. They did not do anything to help her. With the Olympics, this is the kind of increased protection we can expect.

Street vendors are especially being harassed and are given tickets for by-law infractions. The City has banned dumpsters from the downtown core, eliminating the ability of binners [dumpster divers] to make a living. All this to “clean up” the neighbourhood for Olympic officials and tourists; but what is the cost to humanity? They might be able to temporarily sweep things under the rug, but what Olympic legacy will be left for our grandchildren? The City of Vancouver and the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit are also trying to change the planned route of our historic Feb 14, 2010 March for Murdered and Missing Women, something far more significant and sacred than their Games.

It is easy to turn a blind eye to the plight of the DTES and to stereotype us all as alcoholics and addicts, but we are all humans and we all have a story. I am living proof of the residential school era. I was separated from my parents, my family and my culture. I lost my language. I was beaten and abused severely in residential school. All across Canada, Indian Residential Schools are one of the starkest reminders of the legacy of genocide against Indigenous peoples.

Like many others, I am not satisfied with last year’s formal apology from the federal government. The apology was supposed to start a new relationship with Indigenous peoples, one based on respect. But the 2010 Olympic Games represents just one of the many examples of the continuation of the same kind of colonial relationship: we are not consulted, are forcibly displaced, and endure increasing poverty for their benefit. This is not the start of a new relationship. This is why to me the apology is like a slap in the face, the kind you experience in an abusive relationship where one day you are beaten, the next day you are sent flowers with a sorry note, and then you are beaten again.

This is why I and the DTES Power of Women group are united against the impacts of the Olympics and we have been doing a lot to make our voices heard and our opposition strong. There is a lot of power and unity among us; we may be poor but our spirit is not. All my relations.

—Stella August

When one hears "Olympics," one thinks of good health, strength and endurance. There seems to be few, if any, Indigenous athletes in Canada. The powers that be have been trying to break the spirits of Indigenous people with poverty so that we will sign away our lands and rights by their treaty process. Over 150 years our once abundant forestry and fishery have been taken and so we have gone from being free self-sustaining individuals living off clean, rich land to being beggars in our own country. Chemicals from monocultural farming, manufacturing, mining and the tar sands continue to pollute our once pristine air, land and water. None of the stolen lands or assets have benefited the people to whom it once belonged.

The ugliness of our lives, such as drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, chronic unemployment, watered down education and health problems from an inadequate diet are just some of the prices we have paid for the so-called democracy of Canada which continues to justify the thievery of our lands and resources. In spite of the apology for the residential school experience, the policy of racism and genocide continues. I saw my parents resist injustices just as they told us our ancestors resisted from first contact; so it isn't as if Indian Affairs doesn't know what is wrong with the system that they have imposed on us. We now know that the government has designed our lifestyle by micro-managing our lives the way they, as partners to other so-called democracies like the USA, did to the Iraqis and the Palestinians.

The only improvement to our lives that has been bandied about recently was to legalize prostitution. I suppose it is so our government acts as our pimps as the Australian government has done. The Australian government recently sent a leaflet to all prostitutes recommending they use numbing agents so they can service more clients! After dishonoring the contribution of Indigenous people in the First and Second World Wars, the military is promising to pay for post-secondary education for the descendants of those veterans so they can go kill other people's children. The military are particularly targeting tribal people with this program so none survive to lay claim to their lands and resources. It looks as if the only way Indigenous people in Canada will be taxpayers is through prostitution and the military. The so-called "Indian Problem" will never go away as it is a multi-billion dollar industry.

The Olympics should be terminated. Its standards have been achieved by cheating. Of what practical value is winning the gold? Look at the price the Peruvians have paid for their gold. Such frivolity is unacceptable when there is so much poverty in the world. Such high standards of physical excellence going hand-in-hand with bankrupt moral ethics—to what purpose? Why is there so much slavery when there are so many so-called democracies? Perhaps that is why they need to deliver it at the point of a gun. Sorry is not good enough for what has been done to our humanity. It is no longer about educating them. They have made their choices; let them pay through their karma.

—Phillipa Ryan

Stella August was born in 1945 in Ahousat, BC and is a long-time resident of the Downtown Eastside.

Phillipa Ryan was born 1943 in Kitwanga, Skeena River, BC. She has been a resident of the Downtown Eastside off and on since 1980.

Priscillia May is from Wet'suwet'en Territory. She is an activist, artist, actor and volunteer in the DTES. She has been involved with organizing the February 14, 2010 memorial March for Murdered and Missing Women. A single parent, her child is her stone, who inspires and encourages her.

For up-to-the-minute Olympics resistance coverage, check out the Vancouver Media Co-op, and the Convergence website. Follow the VMC on twitter!

Rings over East Vancouver