DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE

The 'Downtown Eastside' (DTES) is the oldest neighbourhood in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The neighbourhood has a rich and colourful history and a strong community fabric. There are many conflicting definitions of its perimeter but it can generally be viewed as being bordered by Cambie Street to the west, Clark Drive to the east, the waterfront to the north and Venables Street/Prior Avenue to the south, with Hastings Street running down the middle of the neighbourhood. Once the core shopping district in the city, many of the retail shops that flourished through the early 1980s are now long gone. Buildings that are not boarded up have bars on the windows. Overhead doors cover many storefronts at night to protect them from theft and vandalism. Used syringes and condoms on neighborhood sidewalks are not uncommon, however United We Can^[1] a charity organization offers local people jobs cleaning up the streets each morning. Graffiti is prevalent throughout, and most DTES alleys are regularly used as makeshift toilet facilities. The area is noted for high incidences of poverty, drug addiction, violent crime, and prostitution, as well as an ongoing tradition of community activism. In recent years there have been tensions between developers and members of the community relating to gentrification development proposals.

Contents

Social Mix

Infrastructure and Area Elements

History

Significant locations

Events held in the Downtown Eastside

References

See also

External links

Social Mix

The Downtown Eastside is home to thousands, from the homeless to the affluent. Its residents are a dynamic mix of people of many different ethnicities, ages, and incomes, including large and varied urban Aboriginal and Chinese Canadian populations. Many people of all ages, children to seniors, volunteer their time to create a healthy environment at community centres and on the street.

Some individuals have dedicated their lives to feeding and sheltering the homeless and people with mental health issues. Many churches provide meals and support services in the form of advocacy and free clothing distribution. Some offer a place to sleep temporarily. Some of these groups come to help from other areas of the city, but play an integral role in promoting acceptance and respect for local residents and transients. There is a noticeable police presence as poor transitional populations including runaways, prostitutes, petty criminals, people involved with the mental health system, and drug addicts cohabit the area due to its affordability, variety of services and tolerance.
A large number of service personnel work and/or live in the area. These include cooks and kitchen staffs, ambulance, police, and firemen, social service and employment agency representatives. Mental Health workers, doctors and alternative therapy practitioners, educational opportunities providers and priests, nuns and clergy, also make up a significant portion of the population. The Downtown Eastside is home to many artists and social activists.
People from other parts of Vancouver, other nearby communities and suburbs, and even as far away as other provinces and countries, specifically visit the area to obtain drugs and experience first-hand the stories they have heard. The media often portray this neighbourhood as a desperate and hazardous one, choosing to ignore the care and support systems and sense of cohesiveness of the residents that play a large role in establishing the recognition of the DTES as a community. The mix of different types of people from disparate places makes this a unique creative, mutually respectful and active cultural area.

Infrastructure and Area Elements

The neighbourhood is home to a strong non-profit Residents' Association, the Downtown Eastside Residents Association or DERA as it commonly known to residents, who have persistently battled what are known as slum landlords, who own a substantial number of hotels and rooming houses in the area. These are persons who profit by refusing to fix dangerous problems in the most run-down buildings and who contribute to the growing problem of area homelessness by evicting tenants illegally.

The many hotels in the area are single room occupancy, or SROs, which provide housing for people who have been forced onto Welfare through job loss, for many who have become physically disabled, as well as for some of the most difficult people to house in Vancouver; those having addictions or mental and behavioural problems. Some low-income residents and DTES advocacy groups are concerned about the area's increasing gentrification. Many SROs are being closed, and there is concern that they will be replaced with condominiums and other housing, whose prices will be out of reach for the residents of the neighbourhood.^[2]
The Ray-Cam commmunity centre provides many services and programs for children and families. English as a Second Language classes, seniors programming, singing and sports opportunities, tutoring and computer stations are available. Another, the Strathcona Community Centre, operated by the Vancouver Parks Board, offers fitness and martial arts classes, special events, a pre-school, after school care, a general recreation as well as arts and crafts programs, and free showers. The Carnegie Centre, located at Hastings and Main Streets, is a pivotal Community Centre that serves a wide range of members, non-members, and is staffed by City employees and volunteers. The centre has been serving food, providing live music several times a week, offering free art sketching opportunities and providing social friendships and liaisons since the early 1980s. Some years ago the Carnegie formed a partnership with Vancouver Community Net ^[3]in building a community website which shows some of the variety of experiences going on in the building.

Numerous services are also provided at the LifeSkills Centre, 412 E. Cordova Street. This is right across from [Oppenheimer Park] which offers activities such as crafts, sports and special community events and lunches. The IATSE, local 118 Union ^[4] puts on a massive turkey dinner and gigantic clothing give-away at the park just before Christmas each year. The Downtown Eastside Women's Centre at 302 Columbia St. at Cordova, has been a great asset to the community since its inception. The Relocation Project/Bridge Housing ^[5] aids women in need of emergency housing. The Evelyne Saller Centre, at 320 Alexander Street, known to locals as ''The 44'' (from a previous address on E. Cordova St.) provides low cost meals, a TV room, pool table, laundry facilities, showers and outtrips. A jam session occurs weekly and free guitar lessons are available.
Churches such as First United, one block east of Hastings and Main, Union Gospel Mission at 616 E. Cordova Street, and Street Church, 175 E. Hastings St., run by the Foursquare Church, have played major roles in keeping people safe, fed, and often help those in dire streets to get major goals accomplished. These can take the forms of advocacy in dealing with welfare offices, getting health issues met, dealing with drug rehabilitation, and providing entertainment through movies and outings. First United Church has given away thousands of books, articles of clothing and kitchenware, which come to them in the form of donations. The Fransciscan Sisters of the Atonement, at 385 E. Cordova St., have for years supported local residents in their needs for food and clothing.^[6]
The Downtown Eastside has been pegged with the unfortunate distinction of having the highest rate of HIV infection in the Western world.^[7]. The Health Contact Centre, at 166 E. Hastings, is a place where addicts and street people can go as a first point of support. Visitors are offered tea, nurse services, and some forms of occupational activities. Committed staff offer comfort and information. Vancouver's drug problem has grown steadily worse over the last decade with the most common drugs being heroin, crack cocaine, IV cocaine (powdered cocaine taken intravenously), and--increasingly--crystal methamphetamine.
However, the opening of North America's first safe injection site, Insite, in this neighbourhood has lowered the spread of HIV (and the number of overdose deaths) considerably, according to a recent article by the Canadian Press. The southwest corner of Main and Hastings Streets continues to be a problem as drug sellers and users frequently occupy the corner, establishing a plein air drug market in front of (and in the alleys surrounding) Carnegie Hall. Recent efforts have attempted to increase police presence at the Main and Hastings intersection, but this has been opposed by the some residents. A major police station is only half a block north.
The UBC Learning Exchange, sponsored by the University of British Columbia since the year 2000, opened up an outreach program at the north end of Main Street which is used by many local residents to improve their education and network for positive social change.

History

This area was the centre of the city at the turn of the 20th century. City hall, the courthouse and the Carnegie Library were all located here. It was also the main shopping area for the city, which centred around Woodward's department store. The surrounding stretch of Hastings Street was a major cultural and entertainment district. Prior to the Second World War, there was a large Japanese community in Japantown.
As the city centre moved to the West, and suburban shoppers took advantage of new local malls, the DTES (or Skid Road as it was more commonly known as until the late 20th century)^[8], began to decline. With the area already beset by numerous cheap hotels and public houses, Eaton's moved its Vancouver flagship store out of the neighbourhood in the 1970s and Woodward's shut down its multi-storey store in 1993. Around this time, crack cocaine was becoming a serious problem in the city. The main businesses that remain are pawn shops, restaurants, sex shops, and convenience stores, some of which are suspected to be fronts for drug dealers. Many of the storefronts along the DTES stretch of Hastings Street are empty, often with the entire building for sale. New art galleries, convenience stores, fast food outlets and social service organizations and businesses continue to open here.
In the 1980s many of the street prostitutes in other parts of Vancouver, such as the nearby West End, were harassed out of those neighbourhoods and moved into the DTES-- now known to sex trade workers as the 'low track'--and contiguous industrial areas near Vancouver's ports. Many believe that this has exacerbated the problem of violence against prostitutes. Dozens of women associated with the DTES low track have gone missing since the early 1980s. Robert William Pickton, of Port Coquitlam has been charged with the murders of twenty six of these women and is currently standing trial on six of these counts. The BC Missing Women Investigation is ongoing.
The demolished Woodward's building, at one time a central highlight of the neighbourhood, sat empty for many years.^[9] Now the site is being reconstructed and is to contain the Simon Fraser University School for Contemporary Arts, 125 units of social housing as well as a large share of market units.^[10]

Significant locations

Vancouver's historic Chinatown (Pender Street) and Gastown Historical District (Water Street) are popular tourist areas in the Downtown Eastside. Gastown is home to many high-end restaurants, lofts and boutiques. Some see this creeping eastward gentrification as a promising development while others are concerned that this will only force many of the poorest from the only housing they can afford. Vancouverites do not traditionally see Gastown and Chinatown as Downtown Eastside locations although they do fall within its borders.
A number of art galleries, artist-run centres ^[12] and studios have located themselves in the area. The beautiful Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Garden, built by monks from China in the early 1980s, also reposes in the area. The flatiron shaped Europe Hotel, an SRO, sits at the crux of Water, Powell, Alexander and Carrall Streets.
The Strathcona neighbourhood is adjacent to the DTES and is a historic working class neighbourhood that has retained a very strong sense of community, despite the decline of areas nearby. However, some people believe that this sense of community is being threatened by the growing number of wealthy land speculators buying up the neighbourhood in advance of the 2010 Winter Olympics.^[13]
In 2001 17 mosaics^[14] were laid, employing local artists and community members. ^[15] Tours of these mosaics are conducted by various groups. The Vancouver Walkers Meetup group has posted some photos of the mosaics.
The park area residents fought to create is still at risk to development. Crab Park^[16], or Portside Park as the City likes to call it, provides a haven for dogs, fowl, and human elements. It is attached to a small beach that has views over Burrard Inlet.

Events held in the Downtown Eastside

Numerous culturally significant events have been happening in DTES in the recent past, beginning with Opera Brevé's series of short opera held at the Four Corners Savings Bank^[17]. A grand piano was brought in for each event and full costumes and interactive singers put on shows inside the bank at no cost. In 2003 Vancouver Moving Theater partnered with the Carnegie Community Center to put on the Heart of the City Festival which attracted thousands of visitors from outside the area. It was the 100th anniversary of the Carnegie Center. The festival was repeated in 2006.
The Japanese Festival, know as the Powell Street Festival is held each summer in Oppenheimer Park and at the Japanese Language school nearby. In 2008 the festival may relocate temporarily. The Jazz Festival also comes to the area in early summer each year, with both renowned and local performers. Gastown is a hotbed of activity and music during this time. Also check out contemporary dance at the annual Dancing on the Edge Festival. One of the venues is the old Firehall Arts Centre.

References

1. [1]United We Can
2. [2]CBC News, Olympics making Vancouver housing crisis worse: critic
3. http://www2.vcn.bc.ca/ Vancouver Community
4. [3]IATSE Union, local 118 site
5. [4]Bridge Housing for women
6. [5]Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement
7. [6] Guy Babineau, "Poverty and Prejudice, not drugs, fuel BC's HIV rise," The Georgia Straight, 1 December 2005.
8. "Demolish City's Skid Road, Murder Protest Demands". Vancouver Sun. 6 April, 1962. p.1
9. Woodward's - The Story of Woodward's
10. The Future of Woodward's
11. [7] "Council defers vote on redevelopment," ''Metro News'', 20 October 2006.
12. About Artist-Run Centres
13. [8] Olympic-related property speculation and its effect on the DTES housing stock: PIVOT Legal Society Report.
14. Western Diversification site related to the mosaic project
15. Map of Mosaics tour
16. [9] Crab Park area views
17. [10] Opera Brevé at Four Corners Bank reference

See also

★ Downtown Eastside Residents Association

★ Victory Square

★ Woodward's building

External links

★ Map and definition of the DTES neighbourhood - City of Vancouver

★ City of Vancouver's Revitalization Program

★ Article on Vancouver's safe injection site