Advocates slam government's `spin-doctoring' of Vancouver homelessness ahead of Olympics.

VANCOUVER – Vancouver advocates on Monday criticized the British Columbia government's plan to highlight the drug-plagued Downtown Eastside with an information centre for Olympic journalists.

 

Downtown Eastside Connect, which opened on Monday, will provide the 10,000 reporters set to flood into the city with fact sheets and story ideas about the notorious Vancouver district, made famous by the murders of sex-trade workers by serial killer Robert Pickton.

 

"This is government spin-doctoring," said the Carnegie Community Action Project's Wendy Pedersen.

 

Pedersen and representatives from several other community groups protested outside the $150,000 centre on Monday, dismissing the initiative as a "propaganda kiosk."

 

The community groups handed out pamphlets outlining "the facts that this propaganda is keeping from the Olympics' foreign media."

 

As an example, Pedersen said, the groups want to expand on a wallboard in the centre stating that "homelessness is a complex problem that is the result of years of abuse, addictions, and/or mental illness."

 

The government information doesn't highlight that their own policies involving welfare rates and social-housing construction are also to blame for homelessness, Pedersen said.

 

Meanwhile, B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman defended the government's joint project with Vancouver city officials.

 

"Someone can write a negative story by taking a picture of someone in a doorway, but we have some things to celebrate," Coleman said Friday.

 

He said he hopes reporters will learn that B.C. "is facing the issue (of homelessness) head-on."

About 35 non-profit organizations that work in the community – providing clothing, meals, addictions treatment and harm reduction programs to residents – will have representatives at the centre.

 

A so-called "living library," operated by the non-profit agency Atira, offers 30-minute appointments with Downtown Eastside residents and workers, who will tell their stories about the neighbourhood.

B.C. New Democratic Party housing critic Shane Simpson said that the centre won't reveal that funding for 500 shelter beds will end in April.

 

"They'll present a good face here. But the important thing is: What are the depths of services being provided and what is the long-term plan?" asked Simpson, who represents the provincial riding of Vancouver-Hastings.

 

Coleman dismissed the criticism, saying they should go to the centre to check out what the government has accomplished in the Downtown Eastside.

 

"I think there's a remarkable sea of change that is happening down there," he said.