Only in BC, a complaint has been filed with the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal on behalf of Junkies & Drunks...
The complaint alleges the guards hired by the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association and known as "downtown ambassadors," unfairly harass addicts and limit their access to public spaces.
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The complaint by the Pivot Legal Society, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the United Native Nations claims the guards discriminate based on the disabilities of addiction and mental illness.
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And they say the guards' actions disproportionately affect aboriginals.
In particular, the groups complain the guards order people sitting or laying on the sidewalk to move and try to prevent people from looking for recyclables in dumpsters.
They say the guards follow and stare at people they find "undesirable" and take photographs and notes for unknown purposes.
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The rest.
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Related: Million Dollar Toilets even Seattle's Junkies won't use...
Related: Margaret Wente - Europe's approach to drugs is more enlightened ... it's tougher
Thursday, July 17, 2008
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16 comments:
You mean, they STARED at them?
And that is grounds for a complaint?
Yes shocking isn't it, imagine being stared at in this day and age. Oh the Humanity!
Fur, do you mean to tell me those mean guys actually had the infernal; gall to walk up to intoxicated persons and politely ask them to move along? The NERVE! And taking notes?! Shameful!
I'm sure the BCHRC will be all over this like ugly on a wart hog.
I know the downtown eastside intimately. Harm Reduction is not the answer.
And what would the BCHRC Commisars do if said "special people" decided to occupy their premises or loiter around their front door?
"And they say the guards' actions disproportionately affect aboriginals."
There's the money statement.
This crap would go nowhere if the bums and panhandlers were not visible minorities. But with a section 15 minority cause this goes to the money level...the merchants asn. must have cash so here's a sleazy law firm that's willing to tap them for a few grand on a 3rd party discrimination complaint. Native homeless do not have to make the complaint, they just justify the HRC shake down.
Great! Just what we needed - the HRT bozos to get involved. It was just a matter of time.
Here in Victoria the bleeding heart mayor, council and media are obsessed with the never ending “plight” of dopers, drunks and various other shiftless vagrants. Hardly a day goes by that there isn’t a front page story about it. They all want to improve “services” to these people - in other words to enable them, to make it easier for them to live their useless lives on the street. Vancouver had one “safe" injection site. Victoria wants three. Then there’s needle exchanges and of course the “human right” to panhandle and sleep in business doorways - anything to encourage dysfunctional behaviour.
And they wonder why the “homeless” population of the city went up 85% in two years during a boom time of near record low unemployment and “now hiring” signs in nearly every small business window.
And WLM Redux is right. The key is aboriginals, a “protected” minority who make up 50% of the street people here.
Oh I long for the days when belligerent derelicts got a crack upside the head with a big stick and told to move along or go to jail to dry out.
The dry out, painful as it is on a hard cement floor would be followed by a one way bus ticket back to where ever they came from.
Those were the days when the streets were clean, safe and enjoyable for the people who PAY FOR THEM!
Before Rudy Giuliani became mayor of New York City, homeless people were running amok. Sleeping anywhere, whizzing anywhere, accosting people, you name it. It had been like that for several years. Within a year of his taking office, Rudy cleaned up that problem but good. How? He told the cops to move 'em along, and move 'em along they did. Problem largely solved.
Now, here's the thing most people may not know (I do, having a degree in psychology and having read lots of peer-reviewed stuff on this issue): The vast majority of homeless people A) LIKE their lifestyle, whether they're mentally deranged, alcoholic, drugged up or a combination thereof; and B) are more than willing to "move along" when told to. In fact, they prefer anonymity, and only venture into the "real world" when no boundaries are defined (as in the case of NYC pre-Giuliani).
In fact, the chronically homeless represent a tiny fraction of (at least the U.S.) population. And we're always going to have them.
The solution? Keep them moving along. We like it, and they like it. I believe we still need to have shelters and soup kitchens available -- and here in the U.S., they exist in abundance -- but maintaining the status quo is best for everyone.
Since one is almost always guilty when hauled in front of the BCHRT, the guards should already start admitting all of their wrongs.
A lawyer for the Pivot Legal Society is running for City Council here in Vancouver. Goodness knows he'll probably win.
Kidz, if you were ever looking for positive proof that illegal drugs harms the brain, Vancouver is your poster city!
I started to laugh at this (it's early for me), then I realized it's not really funny; it's pathetic.
I agree with you, eowyn. I've spoken to many people who've worked with the homeless. Many of them certainly do like that lifestyle - they choose it even when offered other options.
"...the guards discriminate based on the disabilities of addiction..."
I just want to scream when people equate drug addiction with disability, as if it is equal to such conditions as paralysis, blindness, etc. A good friend of my parents was a quadraplegic (he's since passed) - that's a disability (not that I ever heard him complain). He didn't make a choice to be in that situation.
Sigh! Some people take such a narrow view of things. Vomiting and urinating on the sidewalk is a human right!!
- Ellie in T.O.
In San Francisco I am told defecating in the street by the homeless was allowed by law, though it may since have been rescinded.
Here's the thing about homeless people and children. They need rules like everyone else or they turn into monsters. A child likes boundaries, and benefits from them. Homeless people should not be exempt from the boundaries we set up for our children.
Obviously many of these people suffer from mental illness or addiction, but caving to them in this manner is preposterous.
It's like saying, my child is only four, so if she screams and kicks, that's because she's four, and we can't blame her for being four, so let's not erect behavioral boundaries. Then the four year old turns into a monster with no manners.
Similarly, allowing the homeless to run rampant does them no good. It turns them into an unsightly and unwanted part of society. Rather than devising programs to put the homeless to work (in Tucson they sell newspapers) the BC officials are catering to the worst aspects of homelessness.
It's terrible.
Laying what down on the sidewalk in a drug induced stupor is not a Human Right?
Cute;)
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