VANCOUVER, B.C. – Vancouver’s poverty-stricken Downtown Eastside is catching the eye of international media in town for the Winter Games.
A crush of foreign media showed up in the neighbourhood known as Canada’s poorest postal code to hear community groups denounce what they deem a propaganda “spin” centre.
Earlier, B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman and Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson opened the Downtown Eastside Connect Centre, which they say will give visitors information about the notoriously poor and drug-plagued area in the middle of the Olympic heartland of the city.
Coleman says the centre will show the public and media how government subsidies have made a positive difference in the community.
But Wendy Pederson, with the social housing group Carnegie Community Action Project, says the government is trying to spin their own message about poverty and homelessness, and her group will have its own community representatives outside to give visitors the other side of the story.
Pederson says their goal is make sure that the international Olympic audience is appalled by the welfare of the poor and homeless in Vancouver.
