Author Archives: vancouver

VANCOUVER - Herb Varley measures the transformation of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside by the trendy cafes, upscale grocery stores and high-priced salons that are quickly creeping from the city's maze of glass condo buildings toward the notorious intersection of Main and Hastings.

Fifty dollars for a haircut. Ten for sandwich. Three bucks for a doughnut.

An afternoon of that, and Varley, a 28-year-old who's currently living in social housing, would have spent away more than a quarter of the portion of his social assistance money that's set aside for food and other living expenses.

"There's a spa, there's a Brazilian jiu-jitsu place, these boutique shops that don't cater to low-income people," says Varley.

Varley, who was born in Vancouver but whose family is from the Nisga'a First Nation in the province's north, moved to the Downtown Eastside three years ago after a decade of sleeping on relatives' floors and friends' couches. He spent some time at a single-room occupancy hotel, living in a cramped room in a run-down building infested with bed bugs and cockroaches, before finding a suite recently in a native social housing building.

Last year, Varley joined the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council and waded into an emotional debate about the future of the area, which has revealed deep divisions between activists, residents and politicians over how to fix its problems and what kind of community it should be.

"We have a very large, low-income population down here, but developers are trying to upscale the neighbourhood," says Varley. "I don't know where we're supposed to go."

Varley, the neighbourhood council and other activists in the neighbourhood decry the recent push to build condos and attract new businesses to the Downtown Eastside as harmful gentrification, which they argue will increase the cost of living and displace the low-income people who have lived there for years.

Vancouver's city council, the provincial government and developers behind such projects say the Downtown Eastside is going through a rejuvenation that will help the neighbourhood thrive and will actually bring in more affordable and social housing.

The Downtown Eastside is a neighbourhood best known by outsiders through a series of cliches and grim news stories: Canada's poorest postal code, where its gritty streets and alleys are strewn with stories of poverty and addiction. The home of the safe-injection site. The hunting ground of Robert Pickton.

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Recent projects renew debate about gentrification in the Downtown Eastside

The Vancouver library's bedbug problem is virtually under control, but has not been eliminated. Used to be the worst thing you could encounter in a public library was a book with a musty smell.

These days, though, there's a chance an outhouse smell may greet you when you pull a book down from the stacks, or maybe something crawling out from between the pages when you crack it open.

Should you be bringing rubber gloves on your next visit?

Perhaps, if you live in Leamington, Ont., where someone's been soaking library books in urine. Or in Vancouver, where bed bugs have made a reappearance at some library branches a year after a concerted effort to eradicate the pests.

CBC News reports staff at the Essex County Branch in Leamington have discovered 300 books ruined by urine, causing more than $3,000 damage.

[ Related: 300 library books found covered in urine ]

It's happened more than four times in the last three weeks, library chief executive Janet Woodbridge said, adding the damaged books were in an area out of staff sight and not often visited by the public. The frequency of the incidents has escalated, she said.

The books have been taken out of circulation and trashed.

Woodbridge said staff are now patrolling the stacks regularly hoping to catch the phantom urinator, whose motive is a mystery.

"They don't appear to be making an editorial statement," she told CBC News.

See more here:
Libraries under attack from bed bugs, urine-wielding vandal

The Vancouver Public Library admits it has found dozens of bed bugs in branches across the city in the past year, despite tougher protocols.

The VPL put new procedures in place last year after the parasitic insects were found in libraries around the whole Lower Mainland, but 41 of the bugs have turned up this year in more than half of the citys 22 branches.

Staff are trained to look for the critters, said spokesman Stephen Barrington.

If staff suspect an item is carrying one of the insects, librarians put the item in a plastic bag, seal it and throw it out.

Supervisors are notified and equipment and furniture are cleaned and treated.

It's a very responsive approach, it's a very proactive approach. We know that it's working Barrington said. The incidents are indeed very low.

Barrington noted that VPL branches comprise about 500,000 square feet of floor space, with about 10 million items circulating each year and 6.5 million patron visits.

Library patron Gail Meredith's home became infested with bedbugs last spring. Meredith was forced to move out for 10 days and spent nearly $4,000 for an extermination.

She said shes not sure where the bugs came from, but the exterminator had a theory.

"The pest control people came to the conclusion that the only thing that was going on in my life that was likely to bring them in is my library books, Meredith told CBC News.

Original post:
Bedbugs battle still underway at Vancouver libraries

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - Thousands of people in Metro Vancouver are living without a roof over their heads. With World Homeless Day today, governments and organizations are putting the issue in the spot light and trying to change things for the better for those in need.

News1130 spoke with one Vancouver man who is homeless and hangs around the Fairview area. Craig collects empty bottles and cashes them in to buy meals. He makes enough to pay for a single room in the Downtown Eastside but chooses not to because he doesn't like the poor and nasty conditions.

"There are drug addicts, cockroaches, bed bugs, mice...if you don't mind being eaten alive by bed bugs, okay fine live there," says Craig.

He doesn't think social housing is any better and thinks the main problem with homelessness is the rising cost of housing.

"How it all started was that stupid Olympics. I was living in the West End and the hotel that we were in just before February, everybody got evicted," explains Craig.

"The hotels and things like that the government actually has taken over downtown, well, they're just as bad as any of the other ones, so there's really no difference in it...People can't afford Vancouver, everybody is in the same boat so it's like people are getting pushed to the suburbs, go to New West, go to Burnaby, places that are a little more affordable for rent."

He says politicians talk about how they're making improvements but from his experience he doesn't think that's really the case. "They say one thing but in reality they do different things," adds Craig.

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World Homeless Day today