Comments on: WTF? Have we Vancouverites lost our minds?

By: The Blackbird

The Blackbird — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 04:38:25 +0000

Thanks, Nancy. You’re right, you did clear it with me but I believe I asked you to let me know when you’d like to use a shot because I like to know where my work is being used. Also the shot must be linked to Flickr and I had a good look but didn’t see the link yesterday I checked. Looks good now, though.

By: nancyzimmerman

nancyzimmerman — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 03:18:09 +0000

@The Blackbird – you may not remember- I actually e-mailed you about this – and got your OK, ’cause I credited you in the body of the post (see point #2 above). sorry for the mix up (but I did truly clear it with you!) I’ll edit the post so your photo credit comes up under the image.

By: The Blackbird

The Blackbird — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 10:38:11 +0000

As per my Terms of Service Agreement with Flickr, you must link any shots used on this website back to the orginal source. A credit would also be nice. I'll let you get away with it this time. Here's the html:

By: nancy

nancy — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 04:30:53 +0000

@Blair I sympathize with your frustration about not being able to afford a home in the very space in which you work. Affordable housing for all should be a priority for a society. A roof over the heads of every day employees as well as the down-and-outs is a basic, and I wish we prioritized that, for everyone, in addition to the double-professional-income/int’l investment crowd.
I don’t think anyone is “helping them shoot up…” although I suppose some people perceive insite that way (my view is, it’s preventing people who shoot up anyways, from dying – something I think is worthy of my tax dollars, although not all would agree, that’s for sure).

By: Blair

Blair — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 03:26:43 +0000

It’s time to quit enabling the situation downtown.

I work there and pay huge taxes – I can’t live in the city, nor can I afford to.

Why do these people have a “right” to squat where they want, and destroy the east side.

Quit feeding the addiction and do something like finding an area outside of Vancouver where they can settle and learn to be productive.

If they all have mental issues – set up a camp to treat them.

Leaving them to sleep on the streets is inhumane in itself. Helping them shoot up and smoke crack is worse.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:29:26 +0000

@nick Thanks for coming back! Well, first, we need to distinguish between the issues of “homelessness” and “addiction”. There is a correlation, but there’s an even bigger correlation between homelessness and mental illness, and homelessness and hellish-life-events that these individuals have simply not had the resources (internal or external) to meet, the way you and I may. It’s taken them down.

I honestly can’t see how compounding the situation with sleep-deprivation and *nowhere* to settle for even a handful of hours at a time will help anyone make positive choices for themselves. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where you were grubby, exhausted and on a sugar-low, but I have — and that was not a space in which I was likely to think clearly or logically! And that was just my teensy *taste* of what I imagine it must be like.

And again, that’s even assuming it’s a case of these individuals having the capacity to make self-affirming “lifestyle choices”, which is not a given. A Vancouver city hall study estimates 70% of the homeless have a mental health issue (and as a side note, 80% are men with NO attachments to friends, family, community) If (?) that’s true, and we have $2.8 billion surplus 2007 tax dollars sitting in the BC Gov’t bank account, it seems to me we’re our priorities as a society are pretty messed up.

If you’re interested, you can read the city hall study here: http://intraspec.ca/rr1appendix.pdf

By: nick

nick — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:58:31 +0000

your question is a little general…but so was mine i suppose. it seems to me that supporting homeless people to sleep in oppenheimer park, while it can be considered compassionate, also rewards, reinforces and enables their current lifestyle. if you want help them help themselves, you need to make it more difficult for them to continue to do what they are doing now, not easier. You’re just making it easier for them to stay homeless and drug addicted.

By: Nancy

Nancy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:54:08 +0000

@nick Thoughtful question you posed. I guess I would return the question directly: how has compassion had an influence on your own life? Has it had a life-giving, constructive influence, or has compassion perpetuated and compounded troublesome things you deal with (assuming you do – I certainly do)?

By: nick

nick — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:24:53 +0000

nancy, you sound like a very compassionate person. but does being compassionate actually help solve the problem, or does it just perpetuate and compound it?

By: Homelessness in Vancouver: A very complex issue « Random Thoughts of a Student of the Environment

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 00:30:04 +0000

[...] Tags: homelessness, Vancouver trackback Last week, I had a conversation with Nancy Zimmerman on her post regarding the ticketing of homeless people who were sleeping in Oppenheimer Park (at 4:30am…, in the Downtown East Side. As I have mentioned before, the realities of the Downtown East Side [...]