The clean air, the pristine mountain views and the hipster cafes. It was impeccable, I quickly felt an attachment to the scenic beauty, the atmosphere, and the wet winters. How else could life get any better in Vancouver? I constantly explored in and out of the city for the first few weeks, but little did I know not everything was painted out to be as it was in the travel brochures and cheesy commercials…
“Mom, turn off the radio please,” I nonchalantly asked as I was attempting to take a nap. “Allison, wake up you need to look at this!” my exigent sister announced. “ What is this place, a dumping ground for junkies?” I carelessly reckoned. Everything went silent. The premise smelled like death and looked like misery. There was graffiti left …show more content…
A disheveled woman throwing herself onto the congested streets, injecting herself with a heroin-filled needle! My eyes were struck with disbelief and trepidity. On one corner dealers were dealing various types of drugs to addicts, on another corner a homeless man was robbing a young woman’s groceries and quickly bolted through the swarm of people. “ knock, knock, knock” on my window as we had just stopped at a red light. “Please help me miss, I need money!” The disturbing man begged. My Starbucks skinny soy latte spilled on my lap from the rude awakening. “ Go, go, go, Dad, faster!” I cried. Phew! I had never been so relieved to see the London Drugs up ahead, I was back in civilization! In the future. it would be seemingly not the best idea to be traveling on the Downtown Eastside alone nor in the car with your windows a tenth way down.
I sat at my desk for the rest of that night and researched information about skid rows all over the globe including The Bowery in New York, Skid Row in Los Angeles and various impoverished areas in America, but little did I know these areas had been problematic for the past few decades and there were limited options left for the homeless people. A part of me was filled with remorse, but when I saw the bigger picture many of them had hard choices to make and it, unfortunately, brought them to a negative
“Mom, turn off the radio please,” I nonchalantly asked as I was attempting to take a nap. “Allison, wake up you need to look at this!” my exigent sister announced. “ What is this place, a dumping ground for junkies?” I carelessly reckoned. Everything went silent. The premise smelled like death and looked like misery. There was graffiti left …show more content…
A disheveled woman throwing herself onto the congested streets, injecting herself with a heroin-filled needle! My eyes were struck with disbelief and trepidity. On one corner dealers were dealing various types of drugs to addicts, on another corner a homeless man was robbing a young woman’s groceries and quickly bolted through the swarm of people. “ knock, knock, knock” on my window as we had just stopped at a red light. “Please help me miss, I need money!” The disturbing man begged. My Starbucks skinny soy latte spilled on my lap from the rude awakening. “ Go, go, go, Dad, faster!” I cried. Phew! I had never been so relieved to see the London Drugs up ahead, I was back in civilization! In the future. it would be seemingly not the best idea to be traveling on the Downtown Eastside alone nor in the car with your windows a tenth way down.
I sat at my desk for the rest of that night and researched information about skid rows all over the globe including The Bowery in New York, Skid Row in Los Angeles and various impoverished areas in America, but little did I know these areas had been problematic for the past few decades and there were limited options left for the homeless people. A part of me was filled with remorse, but when I saw the bigger picture many of them had hard choices to make and it, unfortunately, brought them to a negative