If you're Poor, Eat Molasses

Seems everybody and his dog on the Downtown Eastside has a diagnosis of Bi-Polar Disorder. I don't. But because I've known so many people with this diagnosis, I was fascinated by an interview with Dr. John Gray on Coast to Coast a few days ago. Gray believes he has a cure for Bi-Polar; then he caught himself and said he's not allowed to actually call it a "cure".

Gray believes bi-polar is caused by our high carbohydrate diets which require a lot of lithium to process, leaving us lithium depleted. Lithium is, of course, prescribed for people with bi-polar but in doses which Gray says are toxic. Gray has had good results giving lithium supplements to both adults and children with bi-polar symptoms. He says the best supplement to take is Lithium Oratol, but it is only available in the U.S.; it's not approved in Canada. Lithium is available in common foods though: eggs, potatoes, lemons, seaweed. Drinking a lot of coffee can drain lithium from the body too.

Carbs. Coffee. That sounds like the diet of many Downtown Eastsiders, especially people who eat at the free joints. In fact, povertarians such as UBC Learning Exchange management use the bottomless cup of free coffee as bait to get people into their facility, and get their sign-in numbers up to maximize funding. Learning Exchange Director Margo Fryer, health-conscious vegan that she is, gives the lumpen proletarians a bucket of powdered coffee creamer loaded with refined sugars and worse, that you can bet she would never allow to cross her own lips.

Last night, I ran into a friend coming from the Salvation Army soup truck and he had a load of carbs in his hands: buns and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. At the Carnegie cafeteria, the co-ordinator Catriona does a good job of keeping refined sugar to a minimum, but the food there isn't free.

Dr. Gray was also talking during the radio interview about super foods like Goji berries and Maca. I like Maca, which is a root eaten by the Inca in Peru for centuries; I put it in shakes. Gray was saying that he takes a Korean herb which has kept his testosterone levels the same at age 58 as they were at 30, when he first had them tested.

If you're "very poor", said Gray, and can't afford super foods, just take a teaspoon of Blackstrap molasses after every meal, even two teaspoons. He said molasses will give you many of the minerals you need. (I would check with a doctor first, if you're diabetic, because molasses could spike your blood sugar.)

UBC Learning Exchange Cleans Up

Photo: George, who the Learning Exchange forces to stand outside on the sidewalk.

Computer aid or Molly maid?

Have you ever read one of the media interviews granted by UBC Learning Exchange Director Margo Fryer, assuring funders and taxpayers that the Exchange is helping Downtown Eatsiders. In a Globe & Mail interview, Fryer said she learned so much from "troubled" people and that there is really little difference between the homeless and the rest of us, other than a bed. Well, there is only one troubled person who goes to the Learning Exchange and that is homeless George Cartier with his shopping cart. They make him stand out front on the sidewalk. Priceless.

But other Downtown Eastsiders are spending more time out front on the sidewalk too. They have been locked out every Monday since March 8th, under the pretense that Co-ordinator Dionne Pilan had to write two grant applications. Those grant apps are taking a looooooong time.

But after Pilan spends a day without Downtown Eastsiders, it must be tempting to take another. She put a poster on the door, "Closed Tues. April 20 for Spring Cleaning". That meant staff were getting essentially a four day weekend, time when they didn't have to work with the clientele they are funded to work with.

When Pilan and Fryer decided to lock Downtown Eastsiders out last Tuesday, they didn't choose just any Tuesday. They chose the busiest day of the month, the Tuesday before welfare cheque Wednesday, when it is common for people to be broke and eager to occupy themselves working on computers. The Learning Exchange opened again on Welfare Wednesday, the slowest day of the month, the day when most people have shopping to get done and errands to run.

UBC has 17 staff persons working for the Learning Exchange, many of them fundraising. Because every day, the Learning Exchange is cleaning up.

UBC Learning Exchange Flirts with Funding Fraud

The UBC Learning Exchange on the Downtown Eastside is dabbling in the type of funding fraud that was prevalent at Carnegie Centre for years: taking money from taxpayers to provide services to low income people and then locking the doors to those services for the flimsiest of reasons.

Despite making a big deal in the media about the services they provide to the Downtown Eastside poor, staff at the UBC Learning Exchange have begun locking the poor out of the Learning Exchange on Mondays. Monday is a day when most taxpayers would expect a richly funded educational facility to be open and operating full tilt. But the poor arrive and find the door locked and peer in to see povertarians sittin' pretty.

You can bet the povertarians haven't mentioned this to funders.

Dionne Pilan, Co-ordinator of the Learning Exchange, did tell Downtown Eastside "learners" at the Learning Exchange that she planned to lock them out one day a week. In a classic povertarian "exchange" with learners, she asked them what day would be the least worst for them to have the facility closed. Most people chose Wednesday. "We decided on Monday," she reportedly announced. No mention of who "we" was, but presumably it included the Director, Margo Fryer, and others on their 17 member staff, some of whose jobs are fundraising. "Did she ask if Monday was ok with you?", I asked users of the Exchange. No, was their answer.

Pilan explained that staff had decided on Monday because they figured Downtown Eastsiders were too stupid to remember that the Learning Exchange was closed on Wednesday. Actually, she avoided the word stupid. She said, according to Downtown Eastsiders who were reliving the experience at Waves just down the street, that staff believed it would be too difficult for them to remember that the Learning Exchange was closed on Wednesday; Monday would be easier to remember.

The poor actually have no difficulty remembering where they can get a free coffee on the Downtown Eastside and on what day. Coffee is bait UBC uses to lure the poor into the Exchange.

And the poor are smart enough to figure out, as one man who no longer goes to the Learning Exchange said, "'Dionne wants a long weekend." Of course, it is not the sort of long weekend where she can stay home, but it's a slack day. "Any day that she doesn't have to deal with you guys is like a day off", he said. He also offered an explanation for why Dionne chose Monday, over Wednesday, to lock out the poor. She can already count on a slack day one Wednesday a month, on welfare cheque Wednesday, a day when many regulars at the Learning Exchange have more pressing business to take care of, like shopping. If you were already basically getting one Wednesday a month off, he asked, "Wouldn't you chose Monday to close? That gets you an extra day."

Poor but not stupid.

By locking the doors on Monday, Pilan and Fryer end up short-changing the poor for the entire week, particularly on Tuesdays. There is a bottleneck on Tuesdays, caused by people who after a weekend without computer access couldn't get access to one on Monday to check email, etc. People get less computer time as the receptionist who signs people on and off computers is under pressure to cycle them through fast.

Pilan's excuse for closing the Learning Exchange one prime time day a week is that she can write grant proposals for new programs, like a program to teach Downtown Eastsiders how to teach computer skills to others for money. Let's get this straight: she's locking the poor out of services she's funded to provide to them in order that she can write proposals for more funding to provide services to the poor. She reportedly said she had two grant proposals to write and, 'I
can't do that and deal with you people at the same time.'

Here's the dirty secret: she doesn't have to deal with them. The receptionist does that. Sometimes there are even two receptionists. Pilan comes out of her office to chat and socialize with Downtown Eastsiders, to talk about the Olympics or whatever. It's possible she may also cover for a receptionist on a break. Sometimes, I'm told, she also occasionally comes out if there is a computer question that a receptionist can't answer, but that if she were writing a grant proposal, people could simply be told that their question would have to wait until the next day.

Downtown Eastsiders suspect they've been duped, that a closure that was sold to them as temporary, is actually permanent. The sign on the Learning Exchange door announces, "New Hours", not temporary new hours. How long does it take to write two grant proposals? Surely not more than a month of Mondays. The Exchange has been closed for two Mondays now.

If Dionne's grant proposals are not written soon and the Learning Exchange re-opened, the poor have their own proposal: that funds earmarked for providing them with computer facilities on Mondays be returned.

UBC President Stephen Toope Snubs Million Dollar Poor at Christmas

Photo: Christmas Party takes place in background at UBC Learning Exchange on Downtown Eastside while reception staff continue to work

If Stephen Toope drops into the Learning Exchange when there is no media around, does anybody hear?

Probably not. So why bother dropping in.

UBC President Stephen Toope didn't show up at the Christmas party yesterday for the poor at the UBC Learning Exchange on the Downtown Eastside. And neither did the Director of the Learning Exchange, Margo Fryer, whose office is upstairs from the lobby where the party was held. And neither did most of the other 20 people employed full time by the Learning Exchange, a UBC storefront set up on Main St. to grab a share of the lucrative poverty industry.

When journalists from the major newspapers are invited to a Learning Exchange event that could come to the attention of current and prospective funders, Toope and Fryer show up. Last year Toope, who collects $576,000 annually in salary and perks, showed up to give a speech to a sea of camera flashes at the Anniversary of the opening of the Learning Exchange. And last month Fryer was yet again featured in a Vancouver Sun article about this enterprise which has a $2 million annual budget, an enterprise about which she says, "I got drawn in. I couldn't walk away." Priceless.

The Christmas Party was held the day after Welfare Wednesday, a day when Fryer and her staff would, like all povertarians, be aware that most of the poor would be out spending their welfare cheques and wouldn't show up.

P.S. Thanks to Downtown Eastsiders who sent photos.