Street sweeps displace homeless in Downtown Eastside

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      On a covered sidewalk on West Cordova Street, where the smell of vomit and urine hangs in the air, Ken Foster talked about what it takes to push the boundaries of his art.

      A homeless artist whose work is well known on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Foster paints on materials he picks up in alleys, like discarded construction signs.

      “I’ll sell it for $6, maybe, and with that buy a can of paint,” Foster related. “And so I end up doing 10 paintings before I finally get enough supplies to make one painting that is actually pushing a boundary of any sort, or furthering, you know what I mean, like, any sort of importance.”

      When the Georgia Straight caught up with the 37-year-old street artist, Foster’s challenges were a lot greater. A Sharpie pen was all that was left of his possessions because of the recent street sweeps by city crews and the police on the Downtown Eastside.

      “The last time, they threw out my wheelchair, $150 worth of paint, my backpack, my ID, and I don’t own anything other than what you see right here,” he said, showing the pen.

      Foster recalled one incident. “They said, ”˜You have half an hour to get that cleaned up; get somebody to help you move it out of here,’ ” he said. “So I had gone. I came back 15 minutes later. It wasn’t even half an hour. And they had thrown it all, and they’re laughing at me.”

      And the police who accompanied the city crew? “They’re laughing at me too,” Foster said.

      Vancouver artist Althea Thauberger temporarily works at 33 West Cordova, where she’s preparing for a street-lighting performance on Carrall Street on September 30.

      “It seems to be escalating,” Thauberger told the Straight about the frequency of these street sweeps. Her temporary studio is a few steps away from where Foster and other homeless people sleep. According to her, taking away poor people’s possessions is simply “egregious”.

      When Thauberger lights up the 200 block of Carrall Street for her show, spectators might catch a glimpse of a large steel shipping container on the south end of the block near West Hastings Street.

      The container has been there for some months. According to Murray Wightman, city manager for street operations, cops have keys to this container, which is used to store items taken from people selling various items—mostly in front of the United We Can bottle depot—on West Hastings.

      Wightman’s people come in every other day to haul the items to the city’s work yard on National Avenue. He explained that police and city crews issue claim tickets to people whose possessions are being taken away. They have 30 days to reclaim their belongings. After this period, the items are discarded by the city.

      “It’s not a pleasant job,” Wightman told the Straight. But he emphasized that his crews are well trained and compassionate in dealing with street people.

      “When we come, we have a list of locations of shelters,” he said. “We’ve driven people to shelters. We try to make it as convenient as possible. We point them to locations where they can have a meal or a shower.”

      One woman is fighting back. With the help of the Pivot Legal Society, Vicki Lyn Dugdale is suing the city in small-claims court.

      According to Dugdale’s notice of claim, police and city workers took away her belongings—including her clothes and blankets—on the morning of July 10, 2008. She had left her possessions in Oppenheimer Park while she went to a welfare office to get identification documents so she could get housing.

      “The police know the scale of the homeless crisis in Vancouver, and they know that, by definition, homeless people have nowhere to store their possessions,” Pivot lawyer Laura Track told the Straight. “The homeless have lives too, and sometimes they go into stores and restaurants to eat, they visit friends, and they have appointments with doctors and service providers.”

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