Binky
05-16-2005, 04:16 PM
Vancouver City Mayor Larry Campbell. (CP/Richard Lam)
AMY CARMICHAEL
VANCOUVER (CP) - The grimy poor hang over the sides of dumpsters lining the alleys between 60s-era apartment buildings in the city's downtown, home to retail and officer workers, gay men, students and seniors.
This is the shabby heart of Vancouver-Burrard, a riding that's the battleground for a tight and sometimes ugly race in Tuesday's British Columbia election.
Liberal incumbent Lorne Mayencourt has been slapped with expletive-laced verbal shots from Mayor Larry Campbell, a popular, tough-talking former hockey player and coroner.
Campbell is disgusted with Mayencourt because he was behind a crackdown on beggars who harass people for change.
Mayencourt spearheaded the government's safe streets legislation, which bans aggressive panhandling. Not long after the bill was passed, he was allegedly attacked by a homeless man, his glasses smashed and his face cut. Police are still investigating the case.
The mayor says Mayencourt has cooked up a cruel and totally ineffective way to deal with rising homelessness in the riding.
The NDP's Tim Stevenson, a reverend and former city councillor, is promising a gentler touch based on providing treatment services, not punishment.
Campbell supports the NDP candidate and has promised to do whatever he can to help Stevenson "kick the living ass of Lorne Mayencourt."
Campbell isn't an NDP supporter. He usually backs the Liberals. The Vancouver-Burrard race is the only one he's waded in to.
Mayencourt is "a menace to the city," Campbell spat at a recent news conference.
Stevenson could use the high-profile help, said political science Prof. Gerald Baier of the University of British Columbia.
Although there is a large population of youth and students temporarily living in the riding who would normally be expected to vote for left-wing candidates, Stevenson can't count on them because most don't vote.
They have less at stake than the owners of condos in the upscale pockets of the riding, which are set a safe distance away from the West End junkie haunts.
The West End stretches through the gay men's Davie Village, along Sunset Beach and up to the bushy jungle of Stanley Park. The riding is also a mix of young people who work as bartenders, retail workers and waiters living next to new immigrants and seniors.
It's a mix that Stevenson and Mayencourt, both openly gay, are courting.
"It's very live and let live," said Baier.
Stevenson accuses Mayencourt of playing the lower-income residents of the West End against those people living in the designer condos in surrounding high-rent neighbourhoods.
"He's pushing the politics of divisiveness, pitting people against each other with this Safe Streets legislation," said Stevenson, who held the riding before Mayencourt beat him in 2001.
Advocates for the poor say the Liberals have cut services and been frugal to the point of cruelty.
Researchers conducting this year's homeless count reported that the overall number of Vancouver's homeless people has more than doubled from 1,049 to 2,139 since the first count in 2002.
"People are living on the street," said Stevenson. "It's a fact, banning panhandling has done absolutely nothing to solve the problem except pit people against each other."
He wants to get rid of the law and fight for funding for more addiction and mental health services.
Mayencourt refused to respond to the mayor's attacks.
"I'm going to avoid heating things up," he said.
But he said he doesn't like being painted as someone who doesn't understand the plight of the homeless.
"I've spent nights living rough on the street, because I wanted to experience what it felt like," he said. "I've taken my friend who's addicted to cocaine several times to the detox. It's a long, hard road."
There has been speculation during the campaign that if re-elected, the Liberal government could move the 100-year-old St. Paul's Hospital, a lifeline for the riding's many HIV patients and ailing seniors.
Stevenson is demanding consultations and promises to keep the clinics most used by the community where they are.
Mayencourt said he will also do everything he can to convince the government of that need.
"I think they (government) understand," he added.
The large and vocal contingent of gays and seniors who live in the compact West End turned out in droves to a recent all-candidates debate, interested to find out which candidate will make sure they have health care close by.
On the same night the Marijuana Party held a smoke-in at a nearby park.
But easy access to an emergency ward and the fight to decriminalize pot aren't issues that resonate as deeply among residents of trendy Yaletown or Coal Harbour, where most people own their very pricey flats and stylish cars to match.
"They want to keep their property values up," said Baier.
So Mayencourt's strong-arm tactics to cut down on aggressive panhandling may appeal.
He's certainly concentrating his efforts in the area, opening his campaign office in Yaletown, far from Stevenson's headquarters in the thick of the West End's gay shopping strip.
Mayencourt said he wants to give homeless people a room with a door, a lock and a key to provide them with some peace of mind.
More shelter beds are necessary, he said, but he also wants to upgrade and expand rooming houses because the kid with the dog lurking in shop doorways, waiting to harass people for money, is trying to survive an extremely dangerous and vulnerable existence.
http://www.recorder.ca/cp/national/050515/n051505A.html
AMY CARMICHAEL
VANCOUVER (CP) - The grimy poor hang over the sides of dumpsters lining the alleys between 60s-era apartment buildings in the city's downtown, home to retail and officer workers, gay men, students and seniors.
This is the shabby heart of Vancouver-Burrard, a riding that's the battleground for a tight and sometimes ugly race in Tuesday's British Columbia election.
Liberal incumbent Lorne Mayencourt has been slapped with expletive-laced verbal shots from Mayor Larry Campbell, a popular, tough-talking former hockey player and coroner.
Campbell is disgusted with Mayencourt because he was behind a crackdown on beggars who harass people for change.
Mayencourt spearheaded the government's safe streets legislation, which bans aggressive panhandling. Not long after the bill was passed, he was allegedly attacked by a homeless man, his glasses smashed and his face cut. Police are still investigating the case.
The mayor says Mayencourt has cooked up a cruel and totally ineffective way to deal with rising homelessness in the riding.
The NDP's Tim Stevenson, a reverend and former city councillor, is promising a gentler touch based on providing treatment services, not punishment.
Campbell supports the NDP candidate and has promised to do whatever he can to help Stevenson "kick the living ass of Lorne Mayencourt."
Campbell isn't an NDP supporter. He usually backs the Liberals. The Vancouver-Burrard race is the only one he's waded in to.
Mayencourt is "a menace to the city," Campbell spat at a recent news conference.
Stevenson could use the high-profile help, said political science Prof. Gerald Baier of the University of British Columbia.
Although there is a large population of youth and students temporarily living in the riding who would normally be expected to vote for left-wing candidates, Stevenson can't count on them because most don't vote.
They have less at stake than the owners of condos in the upscale pockets of the riding, which are set a safe distance away from the West End junkie haunts.
The West End stretches through the gay men's Davie Village, along Sunset Beach and up to the bushy jungle of Stanley Park. The riding is also a mix of young people who work as bartenders, retail workers and waiters living next to new immigrants and seniors.
It's a mix that Stevenson and Mayencourt, both openly gay, are courting.
"It's very live and let live," said Baier.
Stevenson accuses Mayencourt of playing the lower-income residents of the West End against those people living in the designer condos in surrounding high-rent neighbourhoods.
"He's pushing the politics of divisiveness, pitting people against each other with this Safe Streets legislation," said Stevenson, who held the riding before Mayencourt beat him in 2001.
Advocates for the poor say the Liberals have cut services and been frugal to the point of cruelty.
Researchers conducting this year's homeless count reported that the overall number of Vancouver's homeless people has more than doubled from 1,049 to 2,139 since the first count in 2002.
"People are living on the street," said Stevenson. "It's a fact, banning panhandling has done absolutely nothing to solve the problem except pit people against each other."
He wants to get rid of the law and fight for funding for more addiction and mental health services.
Mayencourt refused to respond to the mayor's attacks.
"I'm going to avoid heating things up," he said.
But he said he doesn't like being painted as someone who doesn't understand the plight of the homeless.
"I've spent nights living rough on the street, because I wanted to experience what it felt like," he said. "I've taken my friend who's addicted to cocaine several times to the detox. It's a long, hard road."
There has been speculation during the campaign that if re-elected, the Liberal government could move the 100-year-old St. Paul's Hospital, a lifeline for the riding's many HIV patients and ailing seniors.
Stevenson is demanding consultations and promises to keep the clinics most used by the community where they are.
Mayencourt said he will also do everything he can to convince the government of that need.
"I think they (government) understand," he added.
The large and vocal contingent of gays and seniors who live in the compact West End turned out in droves to a recent all-candidates debate, interested to find out which candidate will make sure they have health care close by.
On the same night the Marijuana Party held a smoke-in at a nearby park.
But easy access to an emergency ward and the fight to decriminalize pot aren't issues that resonate as deeply among residents of trendy Yaletown or Coal Harbour, where most people own their very pricey flats and stylish cars to match.
"They want to keep their property values up," said Baier.
So Mayencourt's strong-arm tactics to cut down on aggressive panhandling may appeal.
He's certainly concentrating his efforts in the area, opening his campaign office in Yaletown, far from Stevenson's headquarters in the thick of the West End's gay shopping strip.
Mayencourt said he wants to give homeless people a room with a door, a lock and a key to provide them with some peace of mind.
More shelter beds are necessary, he said, but he also wants to upgrade and expand rooming houses because the kid with the dog lurking in shop doorways, waiting to harass people for money, is trying to survive an extremely dangerous and vulnerable existence.
http://www.recorder.ca/cp/national/050515/n051505A.html