A Game at Poverty Olympics: Stretching the Truth

With just 2 years to go before the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, the Poverty Olympics were held on Sunday. Participants marched up Hastings St. to Carnegie Center on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside carrying an Olympic torch and a banner in which the Olympic rings were handcuffs. Inside the Carnegie Center theatre, a packed audience watched as medals were awarded for such games as: Welfare Hurdles, Bed Bug Broadjump, Buy-athon, and Poverty Line High Jump.

But another game was clearly being played here: Stretching the Truth.

Jean Swanson (photo above), representing 'Raise the [Welfare] Rates' and the 'Carnegie Action Project', told the crowd that one reason the Poverty Olympics had been organized was to draw the world's attention to the fact that: "People in Canada, like people in poorer countries, have to search through garbage for food and things to sell. In Canada. So they can survive."

Swanson deserved a medal, at least a silver. She must have spent years in training to stretch the truth that far.

Nobody in Vancouver needs to go through garbage as a means of survival. Bill Simpson, a homeless man on the Downtown Eastside, says he doesn't get welfare, has no source of income, yet never goes through the garbage. He eats at the charity places, the Salvation Army and churches which offer free meals on a daily basis. And he stays clean by using the free showers and laundry at the City-run Evelyn Saller Center.

In most cases, people who choose to "search through garbage. . . for things to sell" are addicts, according to a former worker at the United We Can Bottle Recyling Depot, a Downtown Eastside facility were poor people get cash for bottles and cans they have collected from garbage dumpsters. No amount of welfare will ever be enough.

For a few non-addicts, collecting bottles and cans is a way of earning 'under the table' cash that welfare can't claw back. They use the money to buy extras, on top of the food allowance they get from welfare. I have spoken several times -- this was a couple of years ago now -- to a "binner", roughly 30 years old, who said he can't be bothered with the welfare hassles, so he collects bottles and cans full time and sleeps outside. But he's amongst a small minority of binners. Most are on the welfare rolls. Why do you think United We Can Bottle Depot closes for half a day on welfare cheque day? Business is slow that day.

United We Can also operates a program offering binners a few hours work a week sweeping alleys. But many prefer the freedom of binning over having to show up at a job at a specified time.

With a strong performance in the first leg of “Stretch the Truth”, Swanson entered the second leg: "We're also holding these Olympics because Mayor Sullivan's Civil City[Project] is cracking down on all the things that people have to do to survive when they can't get welfare or when they do get welfare and it's too low to live on. He's doing things like locking garbage bins, arresting panhandlers. . . ."

Swanson was a now a contender for the Gold. To claim that panhandling is something people “have to do to survive” in Canada, is such a stretch.

The thriving poverty industry on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside has created a plethora of free food places. Every week day morning the Dug Out Drop-in, for example, gives out hot soup and coffee. Homeless Bill Simpson has never panhandled and he is no where close to starvation. In fact, he was at the Sally Ann soup truck on Main St. Sunday night having a piping hot bowl of vegetable soup, along with bread and sandwiches. Sometimes he goes back for seconds. Various Christian churches both in and out of the Downtown Eastiside neighborhood also have regularly scheduled nutritious meals. And a Sikh Temple has a popular meal, although they have recently nixed the chapatis. This is Vancouver's free food "circuit".

Swanson was by no means a shoe-in for the Gold, though, in the “Stretch the Truth” event. She saw stiff competition from Kelly, a woman also representing the Carnegie Action Project. Kelly announced that the “Welfare Hurdles Race” would begin: "This is a race where penniless, homeless, sick people, unable to read and write, will be attempting to jump over hurdles or under hurdles trying to keep them off welfare, and hungry and homeless."

Kelly wowed the crowd with the stretch that the welfare office in Vancouver is trying to “keep” people “hungry”. A truly remarkable stretch. The amount of free food given out in Vancouver would make it difficult for anyone to stay hungry.

Kelly concealed something here, something now showing up like steroids in a urine test. Rather than making the homeless jump welfare hurdles, the government is actually expediting the welfare process for the homeless. Street worker Nancy Graves told the Vancouver Sun last year that her job is to walk the streets and approach homeless people, use her contacts at the

welfare office to get them immediately onto the welfare rolls, and get them a place to live. And Graves is not the only street worker on the Downtown Eastside, although she may be the only one whose job description is restricted to expediting welfare and getting people into housing.

A Downtown Eastside resident told me that she saw another street worker, Bernadette, helping a street person at the wicket in the welfare office about six months ago. In addition to street workers, there are welfare advocates at First United Church, the Downtown Eastside Residents Association and elsewhere to help people get on welfare.

It is a fact that a few years back, the provincial government created hurdles to getting on to welfare and staying on for a long period of time. Hurdles such as a three week waiting period before being eligible for welfare, may continue to be enforced -- I haven’t checked. But the hurdle in the form of a two year time limit for an employable person to remain on welfare is simply not being enforced, according to people on the Downtown Eastside who have been on welfare over two years.

The claim that the welfare office is turning away people who are “unable to read and write” is yet another remarkable stretch. Possibly record-setting. It is common to come across people in Downtown Eastside welfare culture who do not have much formal education, but it is rare to find someone completely “unable to read and write”. In 20 years on the Downtown Eastside, I have known just one completely illiterate man, an aboriginal man from the Canadian prairies whose mother hid him from agents arriving to take him to residential schools. He's on welfare, has been for years.

The Poverty Olympics were clearly an effort to inflict some world class embarrassment on the provincial government, to pressure them to cough up some dough in this month's provincial budget. Bob Sarti, Master of Ceremonies dressed as an alternative Olympic mascot, “Chewy the Rat”, told the crowd that press releases had been sent out “all over the world” resulting in an article on the event turning up in Pravda.

Swanson, in addition to announcing to the crowd that February 19th was budget day, accused the government of not honoring the committment about "housing and inclusion" that it had made when we won the 2010 Olympics. They have ignored the recommendations of a government-created committee that 3,200 units of social housing be built as part of the Olympics plan. At least 1.3 billion dollars must be in the upcoming budget to end the homelessness and increase welfare rates, Swanson told a cheering crowd. The Poverty Olympics are being held to "tell this government that they have a fantastic opportunity," she said. "Ending poverty and homelessness could be an Olympic legacy.”

(photos courtesy of dag)

Gang Violence Task Force at No. 5 Orange Again Last Night

Last night, the Gang Violence Task Force was once again at the No. 5 Orange strip bar at Main & Powell St. They were also spotted there the Sunday before last. And once previous to that too. When the Task Force was first set up in 2006 after a series of brazen gang shootings, a member told the media that they would be 'in the faces' of gang members, showing up at places they hang out.



The officers seemed startled when the camera flash went off, says the photographer, "but they were friendly". The white male to the right asked where the photos would be posted. The photographer told him that one of the sites would be, "NowPublic".

Props Prepared for Poverty Olympics

The finishing touches were put on props yesterday for Vancouver's Poverty Olympics on Sunday. A garbage can was wrapped in newspaper articles about homelessness and displacement on the Downtown Eastside, some of which anti-poverty activists blame on the 2010 Olympics. Crawling over the garbage can were mice, rats, a bedbug, and sitting on top was a cockroach.

Does Libby Love Libel?

The Carnegie Newsletter, which receives annual donations from MP Libby Davies [NDP], continues it’s defamation campaign against William “Bill” Simpson, a homeless man who was elected to the Carnegie Board of Directors.

Carnegie members were surprised to see Carnegie Newsletter Editor, Paul Taylor, start off the New Year by once again publishing false commentary about Simpson. Just last summer, Taylor had been forced to print a retraction of what he acknowledged in writing was "libelous commentary" about Simpson in the Carnegie Newsletter. Carnegie members had also attempted to curb Taylor’s power at the Newsletter due to the libel targeting Simpson.

This month’s attack on Simpson in the Jan. 15, 2008 Carnegie Newsletter was muted compared to the attack in the Aug. 1, 2007 issue in which Taylor stated that Simpson had written “sadistic, lying attacks on various individuals,” that his "activities and writings . . . were criminal", and that he had used "fraud" as a means of getting elected to the Board.

Taylor began this month’s attack by reminding readers that William Simpson is the 15th Board member and is banned from the Center. “For the ban to be lifted, said individual must recognize that the behavior went against ‘conduct. . . in a civil and proper manner.’ To regain access an honest person agrees not to indulge in said anti-social activity again. Simpson apparently refuses to do so.”

When Taylor's accusation of "anti-social" behaviour was read out loud to Simpson, he chuckled for a moment and then shook his head. Simpson is still waiting to be given specifics that justified banning him from the Carnegie Center and Board meetings held there. The official reason he was given for the ban in a June 2007 letter from Jacquie Forbes-Roberts at the City, was that he operated a website that "features links" to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog which had run articles critical of Carnegie. Despite libeling DTES Enquirer bloggers in her letter with a zeal that could rival Taylor, Forbes-Roberts has never managed to come up with one specific example of content of the blog that would justify banning Simpson for linking to it. And neither has Carnegie Director, Ethel Whitty, who works under Forbes-Roberts' supervision.

Taylor seems to take lightly the destructiveness of the Carnegie Newsletter. In an article unrelated to Simpson on page 3 of the Jan. 15, 2008 issue, Taylor jokes that people have been “pissed” after being “featured in biased, insulting and crude coverage in Ye Old Carnegie Newsletter.”

And Libby Davies seems to also take lightly the destructiveness of the Carnegie Newsletter. When Davies received a written complaint from Carnegie member, Wilfred Reimer, about last summer's libeling of Simpson in the Newsletter, she responded in an email dated Oct. 29, 2007:

“I have always loved the Carnegie Newsletter and still do. I know you want me to, but I do not feel I can weigh in on this . . . .”

But Davies had already weighed in. Despite a bout of name calling by Taylor in the Dec. 15/06 issue -- "blog bozo", "slimy", a "blank", a "four year old spoiled brat pissing his pants", a "pest", a "neighborhood snitch", a "dismal excuse" -- Davies slapped down a $100 donation to the Carneige Newsletter in 2007. One hundred dollars carries a lot of weight at a newsletter that operates on a shoestring.

The City of Vancouver has also weighed in. It continues to provide the Carnegie Newsletter with free office space, electricity, telephones, and even a promotional link from the City of Vancouver official website. These perks are provided to the Carnegie Newsletter despite awareness on the part of Mayor Sam Sullivan and City Managers overseeing Carnegie, Ethel Whitty and Jacquie Forbes-Roberts, that it has been inciting hatred toward a homeless man and bloggers in the neighborhood -- to the point where bloggers are choosing to remain anonymous out of fear for their safety.

Even Carnegie Board member, Gena Thompson, appears to have weighed in. When Board member Rachel Davis, who has broken ranks by repeatedly raising alarms about the use of the Newsletter to defame Simpson, wrote to Thompson on Jan. 17, 2008 about Taylor's latest round of insults, she got a response the same day: "Sorry Rachel, this is exactly the type of e-mail I no longer have time for."

Dog Disappears at Sally Ann Soup Line

The dog on this poster, Pariah, shows up regularly with her owner at the Salvation Army truck which gives out free soup to the poor on Sunday and Tuesday nights. The soup truck arrives at roughly 10:15 p.m. and parks in front of the court house at Main & Powell St.

Last week, the dog disappeared.

One guy who regularly shows up at the soup line says he thinks somebody may have stolen the dog.

This dog, like many of the poor humans at the Soup Line, did not look like she was getting top-notch nourishment. But she didn't seem unhappy with her owner. People would give her attention and she would wag her tail.

The owner has plastered the Downtown Eastside with posters looking for Pariah. The phone number on the poster is 604-307-1548.

Gang Unit Enters No. 5 Orange

Last night, members of the Integrated Gang Unit entered the No. 5 Orange strip bar at Main & Powell St. They could be seen by a man standing in the free soup line up at the Sally Ann which parks across the street on Tuesday nights. "There were six of them," he says. "They had yellow stripes up the sides of their pants so I knew they were RCMP. They had dark jackets with 'Gang Unit' or "Gang something' on the back." They arrived in unmarked cars.

A few minutes later, two additional officers whom the witness says "looked like detectives" arrived in an unmarked car. They were looking at a laptop in their car, he noticed as he walked by with his hot soup. Then they got out of their car. "They were well dressed and they had briefcases." They spoke briefly to the other officers. Then all entered the strip bar together.

A woman who lives just a few doors up from the No. 5 Orange, which is rumored to be operated by the Hell's Angels (although an older man in the neighbourhood says he doesn't think that rumor is accurate), says a year or a year and a half ago, she was awakened one night by what sounded like gun shots. She looked out the window and saw a twenty-something East Indian male and another guy whom she couldn't see clearly, taking cover between parked cars. The East Indian guy told the other guy not to be crazy as he could get himself shot. There was a Jeep in the middle of the street with the door open and she got the impression that somebody in the vehicle had a gun. The guys on the street acted as though they had been drinking but she doesn't know if they had left the No. 5 Orange. There are other bars west of that block.

This woman, who is not criminally involved, didn't call police because, like many DTES residents, she is aware of evidence that the VPD can be "dirty" and she prefers to avoid them.