From Van's DTES to San Fran's TL
Think that the Downtown Eastside is a highly impovershed area that sticks out in a modern city like Vancouver? That the conditions that people live in in the DTES should be an embarrasement to BC and to Canada?
You're right.
Unfortunately, the DTES is not alone.
Look no further than a couple states south. In San Francisco, California's "Tenderloin" district, poverty is rampant, bedbug infested SROs are the norm and drug use is a way of life.
Jobs are scarce, support is non-existent, and progress is poor.
And after recent budget cuts, things are looking like they might get worse...
Read more about the Tenderloin in Christoper D.Cook's A Tale of Two Zip Codes at:
Spot.us
or
urbanhabitat.org
Photo by Christopher Cook.









The district is full of homelessness as a way of life for most people and why or where they are able to subsist in that way, probably get help from the local government, but the drug users and homeless are part of the vast region of apartment and hotels and shops. Nobody knows how this is occuring but when I was down there at the Hotel I had been getting the same VIP treatment as the homeless, with neighbors butting into my affairs or maids whoever lurks behind the shadow of the wall, insisting that I take a smoking room when I didn't smoke. zip codes change but you get the same no win situation around here.
Please note that I am now staying at a condominium bequeathed to me from a relative and I can't stay more than 1 hour in it for the gases that are killing me. These apartments and dwellings owned not by owners but by some egregious entity, I am the owner of this on paper, but I can't stay here coz they want me murdered or expiated from lack of oxygen, you pay and pay but you lose and lose, nobody knows the depths of this corruption. The banks call my jobs for the direct deposit paychecks and inform them that I am on the blacklist, can't even hold a job, was wondering why I was getting fired all the time, scrambling to get a job to move out of the hole I was living in, but they were burning the candle on me on both ends, couldn't get the funds, and had to die in that miserable place. They don't like me exposing them, they follow me in the elevators after a toastmasters meeting because they were killing a dog and want to intimidate me not to reveal their evils, all the secrets nobody should know about, gone to the library afterwards and they're killing dogs there too, librarians have me pegged, followed all over the place, dogs being trodden, my tax money is going to support them and everywhere I go like they've got a dog hidden away as soon as I walk in Starbucks or whatever the walls thumping and the aching sounds of a dying mutt, and the firm legs of some goon trying to tell me something. Didn't know a city as beautiful as this could have so much crime on every doorstep, the science of a smiling face and searching eyes, masters of the protocol, this is the new breed of community activism, guess they see the government is for naught so they set up their own neighborhood watch.
Whether your'e on the lower east side or some embankment on the oceans silly antics and criminals prevail, who said that life is fair, you pay these idiots and what do you get at the most, a Hollywood smile.
Pretty soon we'll all be wearing brand names on our foreheads for name tags, individuality will be vanished and corporate entities will rule. There is no more humanity no more community nothing that's all we're left and if you get a penny out of these folks just know they're just trying to keep their face for the public that are dishing out their tax monies to them.