Summertime Blues

I'm gonna save two weeks, gonna have a fine vacation.
I'm gonna take my problem to the United Nations.

From Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochrane.

According to a recent United Nations Population Fund report, Vancouver's Downtown Eastside "is home to a hepatitis C (HCV) rate of just below 70 per cent and an HIV prevalence rate of an estimated 30 per cent -- the same as Botswana's."

While city managers pulling overtime during the three-week civic workers' strike are keeping affluent shopping areas like Robson Street and West 4th Avenue speckless, they don't appear interested in dealing with the piles of biohazardous litter on the sidewalks and alleyways around Main and East Hastings Streets in the DTES. The deplorable conditions in which the homeless in this neighbourhood live are more than unacceptable. They are a human rights violation, yet a city spokesperson was quoted in this morning's paper as having said that while the strike has left the neighbourhood smelling unpleasant, there is no health risk to the public. I took this photo near the southwest corner of Main and East Hastings Streets about two hours after reading the story. I believe this is a health risk, so I have sent a report with photos attached to the United Nations Population Fund.

United Nations invites Pivot Legal Society lawyer David Eby to Geneva.

Note added September 1, 2007:

A United Nations housing specialist who this year blasted Australia for its record on providing housing to that country's poor and aboriginal populations will next turn his attention to Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside. Miloon Kothari, the UN's special rapporteur on adequate housing, will tour the stricken neighbourhood during a cross-Canada trip this October.The Globe and Mail, Friday, August 31st, 2007.

I'll be there.