For the second time this year in Vancouver a homeless person has been burned alive...

Trying to keep warm. This is the Olympic city folks! In BC, "The best place on earth."

Fucking savages in this province. The Olympics will not be stopped, yet people burning to death trying to keep warm is happening.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/12/19/bc-burning-body-vancouver-shopping-cart.html

PS: Duers, right the premier for me. Let them know you AREN'T from BC and you're watching this.

premier@gov.bc.ca

I'll say I used to live there when it actually WAS the best place on earth to live.

See, nothing scares these fuckers more than international opinion, being a tourist destination.

with a couple years spent in Toronto while my father finished medical school. It wouldn't be a lie!

Nope. Just Canadian. :D

though I expect a brusque response...as a former indigent person, I was was probably quite a bit more pointed than I needed to be. I'm sure he has compassion for this problem, he just needs to do more and do better for the citizens of BC, including the homeless. I gave him a piece of my mind.

When do you leave for Beijing for the new job?

The women refused an offer of shelter from police

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/canada/story.html?id=1096536

And I have seen news stories where Vancouver is working on the homless issue, however their are also stories that talk about homeless rates going up.

The workers gave her a thick quilt, a coat and some hot chocolate, but the woman cried when they wouldn't give her a candle to stay warm because it wasn't safe, Ms. Silvergieter said.

"She didn't want to leave her possessions behind to go to a shelter," Ms. Silvergieter said. "To somebody on the street that's their whole world, that's all they have."

Currently, the city's shelters allow neither shopping carts nor dogs. That will change with the opening of new shelters under Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson's 90-day homeless strategy.

"A person should not have to give up all their possessions or their best friend to come inside for the night," said Mr. Robertson.

A new shelter that allows shopping carts is scheduled to open Saturday night.

A few articles on the issue
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Vancouver+mayor+vows+homelessness+make+city+greenest+world/1049348/story.html
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Vancouver+announces+homeless+action+team+shelter+hard+house/1053117/story.html
http://www.chra-achru.ca/english/view.asp?x=968&id=1474

As in within the last two weeks. I'm a reporter with CBC with an accent on civic affairs, which is better than any of the rags you posted (no offense to you personally) and I can tell you without a doubt that the Vancouver and BC governments have done FUCK ALL to mitigate this shit. What they've done is announce projects.... yet, somehow, few shovels have actually sunk into the ground.

As well the other issue is that many shelters don't allow shopping carts, as was detailed in the above article. Plus, shelters aren't always a great choice, they can be very dangerous, so many people would rather risk the street. Add to that the fact that many homeless people are mentally ill and would likely refuse a shelter based strictly on emotion and you have a recipe for disaster.

It says the reason that she wouldn't go to spend the night in the shelter was because they wouldn't let her take her cart in, but that they were opening up a new one that would let people take in their carts. Should I say something about more public housing? Are their any anti-gentrification groups in Vancouver who I should tell him to listen to? The only anti-gentrification group I really know anything about is FUREE in Manhattan...

I'm also thinking maybe I should write to the author of the story; the line about the people in the store ignoring the man because of two other men who had been fighting earlier kind of bothers me. What are they saying? That it's reasonable to ignore a man who tells you that a woman's dying because of what two other men were doing earlier that day? Just because the man who's trying to warn you happens to be in the same economic situation as the two men who were causing trouble? But it doesn't list a specific author in the byline, just says CBC.

Some of the comments are pretty fucking disgusting too. People are saying that "these people" are in need of help whether they want it or not because they "don't know how to take care of themselves" and should basically be coerced or instituationalized, rather than listening to them, finding out why they choose not to take advantage of the services that are offered, and asking them what kind of services they would find more useful. The city could save money if they listened more too; instead of pouring more and more money into the kinds of programs that don't actually work in terms of helping people, they could find out what kind of programs they could set up that people actually want. But no, the people commenting on this story don't want to see that; they'd rather talk about homeless people in a tone that positivley REEKS of white man's burden- one sicko went so far as to compare them to "whales that keep beaching themselves". Anything to avoid acknowledging the fact that these are folks just like them who just happened to wind up in a bad economic situation.

"It says the reason that she wouldn't go to spend the night in the shelter was because they wouldn't let her take her cart in, but that they were opening up a new one that would let people take in their carts. Should I say something about more public housing?"

- Yes. Plus you must realize, people with shopping carts hold them so tightly because they often fill their only possesions. So, mention that if there were more shelters, shelters would not have to cut down on clients by finding excuses such as "no shopping carts."

"I'm also thinking maybe I should write to the author of the story; the line about the people in the store ignoring the man because of two other men who had been fighting earlier kind of bothers me. What are they saying? That it's reasonable to ignore a man who tells you that a woman's dying because of what two other men were doing earlier that day? Just because the man who's trying to warn you happens to be in the same economic situation as the two men who were causing trouble? But it doesn't list a specific author in the byline, just says CBC."

No offense to you personally, but this represent the problem with the public and their inability to think for themselves. Facts are facts... people didn't open the door because of this incident. Why the fuck would you think CBC is trying to make a comment on this? These are the facts, this is what happened. CBC is presenting the facts, and frankly, I know the author and he isn't pulling shit. He's shown it, it's up to you to do something about it.

"Some of the comments are pretty fucking disgusting too. People are saying that "these people" are in need of help whether they want it or not because they "don't know how to take care of themselves" "

I'm not going to speak to all the comments, but you must realize that a HUGE majority of Vancouver's homeless are mentally ill people left there when the government, a la regan, closed mental hospitals thrusting people into street life. And yes, many CAN'T take care of themselves. It is our shame.

I mentioned both of those things and said that catering to the needs of tourists and upper-middle-class folks wouldn't help in the long run, because many of us would-be-tourists won't visit unless we see the government is also meeting the needs of its own people.

I get the point about the guy who wrote the news article: You're right; I shouldn't blame him for just reporting the facts. I guess it was more of a visceral reaction on my part, a "What the fuck is wrong with people?" more than a "Okay, what's actually going on here?"

The mental illness thing is a bit more two-sided, though. Yes, it's a bad thing when Reagan-esque governments slash funding for healthcare, both physical and mental. Yes, everyone should have access to mental health care, to talk therapists as well as psychiatrists, and should be able to get any medications they might need at a price they can afford. And yes, people should have a place to go if they feel unsafe, a place where they can be monitored, get intensive care, talk to people, and find out what services/treatments could be most helpful to them once they get out of crisis mode.

At the same time, imprisonment does not heal. It only punishes. I have a BIG problem with the people who are advocation forcibly institutionalizing and medicating the mentally ill. First of all, many are already trauma survivors and the use of force adds further trauma that has to be worked through. Second of all, it's a very stigmatizing way of looking at people who go through extreme states. Third of all, they did a study in California, and unlocked wards, which people could stay in but leave at will, and which were run by people who were also considered mentally ill, were found to be more effective than traditional locked wards because of the more humanistic approach they took. They also cost less to run. (Called Crisis Residential Facilities, and there's one in Sacramento.) But I know a lot of people who have been so traumatized during the course of forced treatment that they're now scared to seek any treatment at all. And that's a big problem. We're treated like children, even if we're older than the people treating us, and shown no respect for our own free will.
We don't need saviors. We need comrades.

I don't think people should be imprisoned in mental hospitals. The problem now is that those who WANT to be in one, have nowhere to go. I certainly don't agree with force "treatment".

Basically we need the psych beds to be available, cause that would result in people voluntarily going to them. Those that don't well, that's their choice.

Thanks for writing the letter... let me know if you get a reply!