Karen O'Shaughnessy Advises Giving Money to Panhandlers to Buy Beer or Drugs

On Friday, Karen O'Shaughnessy, Executive Director of the LookOut Shelter, was given the CKNW "Unsung Hero" award as part of the Pheonix Project for her work combatting homelessness.  There was no mention of the fact that O'Shaughnessy gets a regular big cheque for her work. It's easy to fight homelessness when you're well paid to do it.     

O'Shaughnessy and her staff do reportedly do a competent job running the LookOut shelter.  I know a guy who recently stayed at the LookOut for a couple of months.  His description of their anti bed bug strategy reminded me of Castro talking about the Kennedys.  They even put poison powder in his shoes.

CKNW's Christie Clarke interviewed O'Shaughnessy on her show on Good Friday and asked a good question:  When people on the street ask us for money, should we give it to them knowing that they may use it to buy "drugs or beer? Is that the right thing to  do?"  O'Shaughnessy responded with a firm, "Yes."  She added, "If they want to go spend it having a beer, then let them."  She admonished, "Let's not judge".

The same people come into local coffee shops month after month hounding and hounding and hounding customers -- even poor customers -- for money which I know for a fact is going to a crack dealer.  I see them buying crack just off Hastings.  One regular aggressive panhandler who always says "God Bless" to coffee shop customers who buy his line about being an orphan  and give him money, was recently yelling "Fuck Off!" to a driver who nearly hit him when he walked into the street after buying crack near Pigeon Park.   He cons and harasses people daily and gets high daily.  But Karen O'Shaughnessy doesn't want the public to judge. 

When it comes to what O'Shaughnessy and her staff have to put up with though, she does judge. Anyone who fails to act in a civil manner at the LookOut Shelter is not allowed to stay there. They're very strict.

"Cooking Drugs" Triggers Flood at Glory Rooms

Last week a guy was “cooking drugs” in his room on the top floor of Glory Rooms near the Gassy Jack statue at Carroll and Powell St. on the Downtown Eastside. But his home cooking accidentally triggered the sprinkler in his room. (The late City Councillor Bruce Erikson, Libby Davies husband, fought to have sprinklers installed in all Downtown Eastside hotel rooms because people were dying in fires.)

Water was streaming down the stairs of the Glory. An aboriginal man who lives in the room below – he's not a drug user and quit drinking years ago – came home in the late evening to find water streaming down his walls. His brand new big screen tv was wet. So wet, in fact, that he's still scared to turn it on. His laptop computer was wet too and he's been drying it out with a hair dryer, said a guy chatting with other Downtown Eastsiders in the Ovaltine Cafe. Even his desktop computer was wet.

Flood damage extended to the Glory Foods store below. The man who runs the store said water came through the ceiling and walls. "I lose a lot of money", he said with a Korean accent. He said that the insurance covers some but not all of his losses. He had to replace a lot of merchandise.

“What happened to the guy cookin’ drugs?”, I asked Downtown Eastsiders talking about the flood at the Ovaltine Café. “He took off”, said one. But he returned on the weekend when he knew the manager would be off. He hung around outside but the other tenants wouldn’t let him in.