Over a decade ago now, as a seminary student, I made a foray into inner-city ministry at a street mission in Vancouver, BC’s Downtown Eastside. At that time, that neighborhood had the highest rates of drug addiction, HIV infection, and deaths from both of any neighborhood in the developed world. It was a grim place to be. My time there didn’t end all that well, for a variety of reasons—one of them being that I discovered I’m not well gifted for that area of ministry—but when I left, I left carrying many people in my heart. I still think about them, and pray for them, and wonder how many of them are still alive. (Given the odds, I doubt even half of them are, but I really don’t know.)
Now, apparently, there’s a massive development project going on right within the Downtown Eastside, putting in both high-end condos and good-quality affordable housing, combined with other efforts to turn the area around (such as cleaning up Oppenheimer Park, which boggles my mind); the National Post has one of its reporters living in one of the condos for a month, writing about the development and its effects on the neighborhood. It’s a fascinating series; I’ve linked to the oldest page of posts, and if you have a little time, I really encourage you to check it out and follow it up to his most recent pieces. It will be interesting to see how this story plays out over time; if this sort of project can bring meaningful renewal to a neighborhood like that—well, I wouldn’t have believed it possible.
Once, when listening to a radio broadcast from B.C. a caller said that he received shots of lidocaine and smoked pot for his fibromyalgia pain. The doctor answering asked, "Do you live in east B.C.?" The caller said, "Yes." "Oh," the doc said. "That explains it."
It's an interesting province, no question. The politics there were the screwiest I've ever seen.