Robert Friedland from Richmond writes: We've spent $1.5 billion for virtually no improvement. For that kind of money, we could have sent all of the few thousand addicts and mentally ill eastside residents to the Mayo Clinic, the Betty Ford Clinic, and the Karl Menninger Clinic for a year. They would have been off the street and in rehabilitation and care by trained and experienced professionals.
Normand LaBine from Winnipeg writes: First of all, keep the NGO's out of there, except in a human support network. The more control they have in these projects, the bigger they grow, like a fungus. Second, the folks that are there, likely have criminal charges. They'll never get a passport, doubtful that they'll ever get a decent job, etc. They lost HOPE. It's a dead-end life. No future. They know it better than we can analyze or conceive. What's needed is an opportunity to work in their own forms of enterprise or artisanry or fabrication. Vancouver's blessing and curse is its fine weather. My suggestions can be reproduced across the country's cities, helping broken folks to recover their hope, rebuild their self-assurance and re-enter the larger society as contributors. We have done this in various forms across Canada, from converting stolen, unclaimed bicycles into grocery delivery and racing bikes, to rebuilding furniture. We've got lots of experienced seniors with decades of skills, parked at home, but wanting or needing a flexible workday to keep active. And just here in one neighbourhood in Winnipeg, we have 6 provincially and municipally funded NGOs fighting for their territorial control and delivering absolutely nothing in benefits to their charges, except hiring one or two more every year to keep fighting each other off. Admittedly, Winnipeg has never recovered from either the Great Depression or the 1980's Recession, which is why we've had our population swing up to 711,000 in 1999, down to 684,000 in 2006, with the odd blip to 689,000. But we've never seen a constant growth curve. Not surprising since we've got all these NGOs with no ideas to become self-effacing. Small industry, small commerce, small fabricators or assembly centres in exchange for a decent income and housing. Asians know how to shift their production plans from candies to flags or cheap watches to candles to packaging services. Only turn the power triangle upside down. Grassroots telling the PTB.
John Hopeful from Canada writes: It seems to me that all of the good intentions that are suggested and many of them have rational proposals, are doomed to failure. If anyone has had any experience dealing with addicts they know that their viewpoint has little to do with developing their lives and everything to do with feeding their addiction. 'Enabling' does not break the cycle. When people talk about community and support networks in the Downtown Eastside they are talking about a structure that supports the destructive lifestyle and creates a quagmire that makes it almost impossible for the addicted to get out. The community, I think, is the problem. The community is an enabler. I think that the answer is to allow the existing Downtown Eastside to disappear. Develop the Downtown Eastside, provide options like the Woodwards development and provide facilities in other communities to provide housing and treatment. Then create a focal point for Homelessness' on a national level, appoint someone in the federal and provincial government to oversee and direct funds to communities across the country so that the resources are there to treat the problems but the enabling community is gone. The solution lies in rebuilding the DES and making it part of the rest of Vancouver rather than supporting the destructive community that draws in and traps the addicted.
Bill D from Victoria writes: A lot of yapping here about leadership failure. Look, every mayor Vancouver's had has tried to solve the East Van problem. Perhaps it's time for leadership and strength of a firm and different sort. First, stop pouring money into that cesspool. Give it not one more cent or any beggar or supplicant in it. Second, declare war on the gangs. Use the police lists. No search warrants necessary, surrenders conditionally accepted, but wipe them out. Third, level the area and start afresh. Institutionalize the mentally ill, drive off the addicts, and let the able and lazy fend for themselves. For generations the East Van problem has been an ulcer on the side of a great city. It has defied all the bleeding heart nostrums to fix it. Public money just evaporates there. It's long past time to burn it to the ground.
