Incivility City

I was polled Wednesday night. First time I've spoken with a polling or market research firm on a personal basis in over 20 years.

You see, I've always had a bit of an 'out' whenever these marketing or polling calls would come in through the land-line. Quite simply, I could quickly identify myself as a marketing, advertising or communications professional - over the past 20 years my terms of employment have included media buying, copy writing, direct marketing, media relations, corporate communications, creating surveys - and that was the end of it.

Since I'm no longer employed in these fields, I took the call. Thought it could be a bit of fun.

Over the next 15 to 20 minutes it became clear that the purpose of this research was to solicit opinion about the candidates and issues surrounding Vancouver's 2008 municipal election scheduled for this November 15th.

It came as no surprise that many of the questions concerned the Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) and the issues surrounding homelessness and addictions.

In the run-up toward the opening of the 2010 Winter Olympics these will be major issues in the forthcoming election.

Certainly no surprise to me that these issues were forefront in the mainstream media that very same day.

Vancouver Sun:
Vancouver residents are most critical of their neighbourhoods' social incivility, with 26 per cent complaining. The city also leads other major Canadian metro areas in reports of noisy neighbours, loud parties, prostitution, drug use and public drunkenness.

The Province:
A shocking Statistics Canada report released Tuesday showed over 25 per cent of Vancouver's residents believe their city is gripped by "social incivility."

<snip...>

The StatsCan report defined social incivility as behaviour including loud partying, drug dealing, homelessness and public drunkenness.

Physical incivility included conditions such as excessive litter, graffiti and derelict buildings.

Almost 20 per cent of Vancouverites reported physical incivility in their community.

Twenty-six per cent of Vancouverites identified at least one type of social incivility affecting their neighbourhood.

The report notes perceptions of incivility differ greatly between neighbourhoods, with residents in central urban areas two to four times more likely to complain of a problem than residents living in neighbourhoods outside of the city.

Shrieeeeeeeekkkk! Vancouver is in the grip of mass 'social disorder'. Things fall apart! OMGWTF!!1!!!!11.

Well, not entirely. Reread that last paragraph from The Province link again, and then read this paragraph from the same link.

"I think we have a city over here and one over there," he said, pointing toward the Downtown Eastside, then downtown Vancouver. "It is crazy . . . [It] is just getting worse."

Yes, what we have here is not a city-wide problem but a problem in the Downtown Eastside. The same problem that predates the 30 years I have been a resident of the Terminal City. The Downtown Eastside with its intertwined problems of poverty, homelessness, addiction, mental and physical disabilities, the last refuge of those with nowhere else to go.

Also came as no surprise that the issues of the DTES would also make headlines the day following my polling call.

Homeless advocacy groups in Vancouver launched a human-rights complaint Thursday on behalf of homeless people they say are discriminated against by the Downtown Ambassadors program.

The complaint against city commissioner Geoff Plant and the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association says the program, established in May, 2000, to patrol the downtown area and address “street disorder,” further marginalizes a population that already struggles with poverty, addiction and disabilities.

By telling people sleeping or loitering on the street to “move along” and by identifying and monitoring “undesirable” people, the complaint asserts, the security guards acting as downtown ambassadors impair the dignity of protected populations – the aboriginal people and people with disabilities that comprise a disproportionate number of the city's homeless and addicts – and deny them equal access to public space.

Because quite simply, forcing the homeless to 'move along' does absolutely nothing. Move along to where, exactly? They're homeless. There's an acute shortage of around 1,000 shelters beds in the Vancouver area, although we still have 1,000's of overheated market priced condos and townhouses sprouting up like mushrooms on steroids.

The second factor is that regardless of any addictions and mental or physical health issues these people are still human and still Canadian citizens who should be able to enjoy the same rights as any of us.

Some think not. Yes, Canada's 'faux civility mole' would be the one to weigh in on the DTES's 'incivility'. Because if nothing else, he's all about The Civility.

Apparently the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, undoubtedly freed up from the last frivolous claim on Macleans, has received a complaint that alleges security guards hired by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association unfairly harass "addicts and limit their access to public spaces":

<snip..>

Look, I have the utmost understanding and patience for the down and outers who are trying to find a way back in to society. The poor, the homeless, the mentally sick all need our help. But the "harassment" of addicts is a ridiculous claim that's almost worthy of "bizzaro-world" proportions. Let's get one thing straight about the tide of human garbage that festers in Vancouver's downtown eastside: it is not security guards who "harass" them. It is the human tragedy of drug addicts that plague this city, wandering about looking for the next fix, intimidating tourists and passersby, rifling through garbage and dumpsters, breaking into shops, pilfering from recycling boxes, and sleeping, urinating, defecating, and vomiting on the front sidewalks of businesses. This is not just "public domain", but a place where honest people are trying to make a living amid the refugee crises of every provincial drifter with a heroin and crack habit.

My, he certainly sounds as if he has 'utmost understanding and patience for the down and outers who are trying to find a way back in to society. The poor, the homeless, the mentally sick all need our help'.

Naturally, there appears to be no solutions offered nor any personal anecdotes by our intrepid 'civil, moderate conservative' outlining precisely how he does his part for those who 'need our help'. He just doesn't want to have his senses offended. I should also remind our 'civil, moderate conservative' that he neither resides in the DTES nor in the actual City of Vancouver. No, he and his kin are safely cocooned in a comfortable North Shore suburb. But, oh my, are his senses offended by having to be reminded that squalor exists anywhere near his world. He doesn't want to have to read about it, have it infect his eyeballs, feel the stench filter up through his nostrils. They 'need our help', but 'please make it all disappear'.

Clearly only the 'approved' citizens of our country should be free from harassment by uniformed personnel, hired by business groups, who have no real authority of enforcement. Rights clearly do not apply to all Canadians, only the 'good' ones. Because, after all, some of them are merely 'human garbage'.

That's very telling, the term 'human garbage', and it's one of the primary reasons that the problems of the DTES are shunted aside rather than faced and dealt with heads on. Who cares, the people there are 'garbage', the discards, the cold leftovers tossed in the bin. Not like the creme de la creme of our better, upstanding neighbourhoods. These people are worthless.

That attitude is why a serial killer was able to prey on and make disappear dozens of poverty-stricken, addicted women in the DTES for so many years. It wasn't worth the effort. They're 'human garbage'.

Let me tell you a bit about the true 'human garbage'. They are the drug dealers and the criminal gangs who control the drug trade. They are the greedy slumlords and hotel owners of the DTES. They are the pimps. They are the 'solid business men from good neighbourhoods with a wife and kids' who troll the 'kiddie stroll' in their luxury vehicles to exploit and sexually abuse children as young as age eleven. They are also the politicians and policy makers who have for decades done nothing but pay lip service to the problems of the DTES all the while proclaiming, 'I promise to press all levels of governments to help deal with these issues. And if the pressure appeals are unsuccessful, why gosh, we'll just press them again.'

That's 'human garbage'.

This is not looking upon people as 'human garbage'.

The complaint is filed on behalf of Vancouver’s street homeless population and alleges systemic discrimination by the Downtown Ambassadors program, which is run by Genesis Security and the DVBIA under the guidance of Geoff Plant.

“Our constituents have had some concerns about the program for a while,” said Pivot lawyer Laura Track, “However, the expansion of the program by Geoff Plant and the upcoming Olympics has pushed us to try to clarify the rules around private security guard conduct in relation to the homeless.”

The DVBIA manages the Genesis Security Downtown Ambassador program, and Geoff Plant, Civil City Commissioner, commissioned and secured funding for the Downtown Ambassador program. Plant is also in the process of expanding the Downtown Ambassador program to other Business Improvement Associations.

Yes, despite the admonitions of our 'faux civility mole' there are indeed questions surrounding the Downtown Ambassadors and Genesis Security and the role of the DVBIA.

Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate Gregor Robertson is an outspoken critic of the effectiveness of both the Downtown Ambassador program and Project Civil City. “We’re downloading the cost of public safety onto these business areas, onto the BIAs, because there are inadequate police resources,” he says. “I think the idea that they’re just friendly ambassadors in the neighbourhood or business district is out the window. There’s no report to date that demonstrates value for money.”

City council approved a $237,000 budget in April to fund this summer’s introduction of a 24-hour Ambassador presence in the downtown core. Since many Ambassadors position themselves by the cruise-ship stations to help tourists during the day, their duties will likely shift during the wee hours of the morning.

“Almost everyone realizes this is filling a gap that should be filled by police,” says Robertson. “It’s a band-aid. It isn’t what was intended when the Ambassador program started 10 years ago, but as public safety has eroded and more serious crime and homelessness has skyrocketed, the Ambassadors end up being a stop-gap solution.”

Our own Dr. Prole has noted some of these concerns here back in February.

To paraphrase Dr. Prole, the real issue for all these people, including the current residents of City Hall is "Can you say 'quick, hide this human garbage before 2010'"?

They don't hide it very well.

On December 14, 2006, Vancouver City Council unanimously adopted the following four goals for Project Civil City:

• Increase housing opportunities and eliminate homelessness, with at least a 50% reduction by 2010;
• Eliminate the open drug market on Vancouver's streets, with at least a 50% reduction by 2010;
• Eliminate the incidence of aggressive panhandling with at least a 50% reduction by 2010; and
• Increase the level of public satisfaction with the City's handling of public nuisance and annoyance complaints by 50% by 2010.

And after the big five multi-coloured ring circus is done and gone? Who knows? Who cares?

And what of Geoff Plant, commissioner of Project Civil City, a name I am sure is most likely unfamiliar to non-British Columbians. He's a high-powered city lawyer. Works for the best firms (Russell Dumoulin, Heenan Blaikie). Probably lives in the best neighbourhoods, too. He would also be this Geoff Plant.

Mayor Sam Sullivan introduced his new Project Civil City commissioner, Geoff Plant, to the media with a great deal of fanfare. At a May 17 news conference in the mayor's office, Sullivan proclaimed that Plant, a former B.C. attorney general, "is very renowned for his sensitivity".

<snip..>

Sullivan did not mention that Plant eliminated the British Columbia Human Rights Commission, which performed public education in addition to investigating human-rights complaints. As attorney general, Plant also oversaw sharp provincial cuts to legal aid, which led to the elimination of public funding in poverty-law cases.

In addition, Plant's ministry staff drafted some of the most draconian welfare reforms in Canada, including a two-year independence test for welfare. Failure to prove independence for two years results in a denial of benefits, regardless of need, income, or assets. In a 2006 report, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives described this policy as "unprecedented" in Canada.

Yes, the very same Geoff Plant who as BC Attorney-General ensured that the 'human garbage' 'less fortunate' have less than equal access to the legal system, cut funding to legal aid groups, and made it more difficult for the poverty stricken to get a leg up.

In addition, Plant's ministry staff drafted some of the most draconian welfare reforms in Canada, including a two-year independence test for welfare. Failure to prove independence for two years results in a denial of benefits, regardless of need, income, or assets. In a 2006 report, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives described this policy as "unprecedented" in Canada.

"A youth worker we interviewed found that the two-year independence test is the most significant barrier to youth, primarily street youth, accessing welfare," the CCPA report stated.

Yeah, sounds like just the guy to clean up Dodge.

Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies told the Straight that the Campbell government's social-welfare policies were "disastrous". Davies noted that city officials have already identified solutions to address poverty and homelessness: 3,200 more units of nonmarket housing, higher welfare rates, and long-term drug-treatment programs.

"Why are we hiring this guy to coordinate these efforts?" Davies asked. "What I think is it's really a political agenda by Sam Sullivan to demonstrate that he is really cleaning up Vancouver before the Olympics."

Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.. err... I mean Libby.

Back to our 'civil, moderate conservative' for a moment'. I must give credit where due. He did get at least a couple things correct, although incompletely and without doing any further research.

No, blame Sam Sullivan and the city of Vancouver for allowing our liberal tolerance of open drug abuse to fester in this city. Blame them for focusing their energies on watching Vancouver grow into a city of riches and unspeakable wealth, whilst ignoring the plight of Vancouver's addiction problems. Whatever excuses the NPA comes up with for doing little to nothing to remove these people from the streets, it's not nearly enough to be next to nothing in effort.

Yes, indeed, but not nearly far enough. Would it have been so difficult to research and report on 'Project Civil City' and Geoff Plant? It only takes about 10 minutes with The Goggle.

The kicker, of course, is that Smilin' Sammy isn't going to be Mayor of Vancouver when the circus rolls into town. Too bad, so sad. The guy in the chair has only been about one thing - his own glory, self-absorbed (like much of the city itself) and self-aggrandizing. He's also a cutthroat vicious weasel. Now he's out on his ass.

But, the problems in the DTES still remain.

The issue is likely to be key in this November's Vancouver civic election.

Non-Partisan Association mayoral candidate Peter Ladner said his ruling party is working on its Project Civil City.

"That's something that Gregor Robertson wants to get rid of," Ladner said of his rival Vision Vancouver candidate.

Ladner said NPA polling shows that worries over drugs and homelessness are at the front of Vancouverites' minds.

"There are a lot of concerns but we have a whole raft of initiatives under way," he said.

Robertson said the StatsCan reports shows the Project Civil City is failing.

"We need to look at the root causes of incivility and take a direct approach," he said.

"Project Civil City is indirect and a waste of taxpayers' dollars."

Let the municipal campaign begin in earnest. There are the two choices. The same-old, same-old NPA 'Project Civil City' approach begun by Sam Sullivan to be continued by Peter Ladner. Or Vision Vancouver's new outlook headed by current NDP MLA Gregor Robertson.

Here's Ladner on homelessness:

• It is intolerable that so many people are forced to sleep in our streets. No one person can end homelessness. It has to be done through a partnership of federal, provincial, regional, municipal governments and non-profit agencies.
• As mayor I would not let up on senior levels of government until we had adequate treatment for mental health and addictions, and an adequate supply of social and supportive housing. I will work with the province and the government of Canada to make that happen.

Ah, yes. The mythical 'partnerships' and 'not letting up' (I'll pressure and if they say no, I'll pressure again ad nauseum) status-quo that has failed miserably with each NPA administration.

Or will it be VV's Robertson?:

There's a growing awareness that our current approach is far less cost effective than building housing, funding mental health care and providing addiction services. The cost of homelessness to our society is not just lost human potential, cancelled conventions, or lost business, but includes police and fire department resources, court time, healthcare costs, and emergency shelter and food costs, costs which have been tabulated in a recent study to be $55,000 per homeless person, per year, which is $17,000 more per year than simply providing supportive housing.

Add to that the fact of the Pivot Legal Society's David Eby seeking nomination to city council.

I have no evidence, but the wording and phrasing of certain questions led me to believe that the poll I was responding to on Wednesday night was commissioned by the NPA. With that suspicion I believe I did make my pollster/market researcher's computer screen meltdown a couple times or three. I'm clearly not one who uses the term 'human garbage' indiscriminately.

I already know. Mind's made up. Voting Vision Vancouver. Our 'civil, moderate, conservative'? Bwahahahaha! He lives in the 'burbs. Doesn't have a vote in this one, But I would suggest next time he finds himself among the 'human garbage' in the DTES that he actually talk to people there - yeah, surprise, they do talk. They can think and articulate. They're approachable, and no they really aren't out to 'intimidate' you - and frickin' do something concrete instead of having his senses offended.