William H.A. Willbond MSM, CD
FREE RENT
A welfare line snakes on the block, like a human poor folks rope
Awaiting taxpayers monies to buy more rot gut and dope
Drug addicts, the low life denizens, of the lower east side
They have 70% Hep C, where the street O.D.’s die
30% they have Aids, just like in Botswana
The hash pipes spreads peace, in dreams of nirvana
Many street folk go insane when they smoke rock cocaine
When the booze and the drugs dulls temporary pain
They sleep on the municipal hard cement pad
When they should be in treatment because they are half mad
All of us taxpayers, we are party to the offence
Our Government shut down the bedlams and opened the fence
Mentally ill patients they moved to the mean street
Where some sold their body’s for something to eat
And others they visited a pig farm run by Willie
Media facts come out daily – it all seems so Chilly!
Our climate is good here, out on the left coast
They can sleep on the sidewalk longer than most
They take up a position on the municipal cement
When the booze and the drugs have eaten up their last cent
And this is a problem for the Olympic Committee
Sleeping drunks on the streets smell pissy and shitty!
And the touristy Olympics will bring in big dough
After the powers that be make the street people go?
©Copyright June 28, 2007 by William H.A. Willbond, MSM, CD
Photograph ©Copyright 2007 by John-Ward Leighton
Author’s Note: A professional photography exhibit by John Ward Leighton, who has a keen eye, gives us an undisputable view of the denizen hovels on the lower east side of Vancouver. A recent shakeup of purchases of older buildings in the area has caused some of the sober, older inhabitants to move. John notes that the street people problems have not gone away.
My father used to say there is no free rent! John’s recent photo has just proved him wrong! Only in Canada you say? Pity!
Grim UN Report Faults Vancouver For Urban ‘Blight’
Victoria Times Colonist 28 June, 2007
CanWest News Service
OTTAWA — The United Nations has singled out Vancouver as an apparent “paradise” city blighted by a two-kilome¬tre stretch of urban misery.
A grim analysis of the city’s drug-drenched Downtown Eastside was included in a report released yesterday by the UN Population Fund, which warns of huge social and environmental costs as urban populations skyrocket over the next two decades.
While the report focuses on the grow¬ing crisis in large and small cities in underdeveloped countries, Vancouver is one of five cities around the world high-profiled as urban areas providing unique examples of urban development.
It describes Vancouver as “breathtak¬ingly gorgeous,” with a sizzling economy.
“But there is trouble in paradise. And nowhere is it more evident than in the Downtown Eastside — a two-kilometre¬ square stretch of decaying rooming houses, seedy strip bars and shady pawn¬shops,” states the UN agency.
“Worst of all, it is home to a hepatitis C (HCV) rate of just below 70 per cent and an HIV prevalence rate of an esti¬mated 30 per cent — the same as Botswana’s.”
“What makes the Downtown Eastside so different is that it is located in one of the most prosperous cities, in one of the world’s most prosperous countries.”