Vancouver tries to clean up problem of people defecating in street

[3dGameMan]

Vancouver tries to clean up problem of people defecating in street: ~source (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/WeirdNews/2005/06/08/1077793-cp.html)

By AMY CARMICHAEL

VANCOUVER (CP) - The ripe stench of human excrement is getting stronger in downtown lanes, curling the stomachs of workers who no longer want to relax by the back door for smoke breaks.

"We're getting to the point where the need for public toilets is getting serious," said Charles Gauthier, executive director of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association.

"There's a burgeoning entertainment district, a growing homelessness problem and people have nowhere to go.

"I've been with the association for 15 years and it's just becoming more and more of an issue for more of our members. The stench of urine and feces in back lanes in the central business district and the Downtown Eastside, where it's probably a lot worse."

The 10-block city slum is swollen with up to 5,000 injection drug users who have less control of their bowels. Many are homeless and have nowhere to go to the toilet.

Often the drug users roam out of the neighbourhood into alleys linking downtown businesses.

Gauthier said his members don't want to clean up the piles excrement the homeless make on their properties and he doesn't blame them.

The Vancouver Coastal Health Authority has gotten involved and is calling for action before disease spreads.

"Defecating and urinating in the street is not something that's healthy for individuals," said Richard Taki, public health protection officer for the authority.

"A number of diseases are passed through the fecal-oral route. If people are tracking this bacteria into eating establishments and public facilities we're running the risk of a problem with rodents and insects carrying bacteria...

[bejohnson]

Sounds like they have poo-pooed the problem long enough. Maybe if they used the idea of red-light cameras and put in poo-poo polaroids they could catch the dumpers. :KICK ASS

[CyberGuy]

Sounds like they have poo-pooed the problem long enough. Maybe if they used the idea of red-light cameras and put in poo-poo polaroids they could catch the dumpers. :KICK ASS

I don't think the homeless would give a crap.

They don't have an awful lot of self esteem left.

Homelessness is a problem in any large metropolitian area and the lack of sanitation facilities for them makes the problem even worse.

As I live outside fo the GTA area, I know when I wander thru the city in the pre-dawn hours of the morning (5:00-6:00AM) I literally gag at the overpowering reek of open sewers and sh*t. Breating thru your mouth helps but...

They say that your sense of smell gets desensitized after a while, but man I gotta tell you this reek brings tears to my eyes. I sometimes wonder how anyone can live and work in the downtown core on a daily basis.

[egarrard]

The thing that strikes me is that, if the city won't clean up the streets to keep them from smelling, what makes you think they will clean up the public restrooms? :lmao

[Raedwulf]

I'm waiting to see the response from the Vancouverites in the forum

For some reason, this kind of thing happening over there doesn't seem to surprise me, not that I don't doubt it happens over here too. But from my experience, pan-handling almost seems like an acceptable lifestyle there

[T-shirt]

I don't think the homeless would give a crap.

They don't have an awful lot of self esteem left.


I don't think it s a matter of self esteem as it is a matter of lack of choice, you have to go somewhere.
Certainly junkies don't care.
The city need to deal with it, hopefully better than Seattle did, which ordered a number of automatted, self cleaning street toliets which cost about $120,000 each per year. However with a 15 minute time limit the 5 units hardly are sufficient for the local population.

[pan]

Vancouver's main problem is that the weather makes it easyer for people to live on the streets year round. As a result many homeless form other provinces end up there. (Hell, for a few years the maratime provinces were paying the bus fare for welfare recipients to move to BC. Didn't make Eastern Canada that popular in BC.)

In Calagay and Edmonton the problem is much less noticable; it's to damb cold in the winter to make it a comfortable place for the homeless population to stick around in the winter. Also Vancouver is much larger and has all the problems that come with a large population.

Most of the window washing street people in Vancouver actually came from Eastern Canada when some of the other provinces created panhandling laws making it illegal for them to wash windshields and ask for money. Once Vancouver put bylaws in place it was to late, the migration had already happened.

Vancouver also changed it's welfare policy to cut off anybody who was capable of working. This had the affect of putting more people on the streets rather than convincing them to get a job; it's hard to get a job when you have been on the dole for years and have become addicted to drugs, after all you had to do something with all your spare time.

Compouding the problem further, BC basically closed all of its phsyciatric facilities forcing all patients not a danger to others onto the streets.

BC on the whole has some issues they need to solve. The homeless problem is something that will require a Canada wide solution; but in the mean time a few more public restrooms wouldn't be a bad idea.

[Bobenis]

Yup, that is East Hastings for ya. Pan handling is big in this area as the weather is mild year round, thus many flock here just as they do all the way down the West Coast.

[wazman]

I don't think the homeless would give a crap.

Sounds like they give quite a bit of crap, actually... :)