Homeless Hell Hole Below Science World

'Worst' of many 'really rough spots' says city's outreach worker.
By Monte Paulsen
Published: February 21, 2008
TheTyee.ca

As downtown development squeezes a rising number of homeless British Columbians into a dwindling number of urban campsites, Vancouver's homeless are passing their nights in some surprising locations.

Judy Graves has spent the past dozen years touring Vancouver's dark parks, garbage-strewn alleys, and mouldy abandoned buildings. Graves, who co-ordinates the city's pioneering street outreach program, said the roughest place she's found yet is located directly beneath the glistening dome at Telus World of Science.

"This is the worst," Graves said as she led The Tyee on a tour of the murky labyrinth at the eastern edge of False Creek. "This is the place that scares me the most."

It's a place that one must be either mentally ill or drug addicted to endure. Yet the piles of abandoned clothes, drug paraphernalia, and oddly disassembled household appliances strewn just above the tide's reach suggest there is no shortage of such visitors.

And it's a place literally soaked in irony: even as the Olympic Village for the 2010 Winter Games rises next door, the piers beneath what was the signature structure of Expo 86 have become a last refuge for Vancouver's most desperate residents.

The city's police know the place well. Last summer they worked with the Coast Guard to help pluck a homeless man from underneath the shiny tourist attraction. He had been trapped by the rising tide.

Read the rest here