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Another shot I took during the filming of a short doc about my photography. This was on the way back to my house where we showed my editing process.
Find my latest blog-post and YouTube video here!
October already.. it seems 2022 is on our doorstep and I haven't even fully processed 2020! 😮
I'm enjoying my autumn holiday now (one of the few perks I have as a teacher). And besides doing a lot of resting.. I have also been doing lots of editing of my photos and videos.
In August, I visited a castle in the south of the Netherlands. And because we had a very disappointing cold wet summer, I opted for a maxi dress.
Check out my new YouTube video and post on my blog.
It was quite magical walking around in that castle.. so beautiful!!
I know owning a castle like that is very expensive and not very practical.. but I'd love to dream. 😊
Owned & operated by Gannie (That would be me).
There are at least 30 pieces of Re-ment & Megahouse in the store. Can you find them all?
(Enlarge photo for a better view. A few may not be showing in this picture, but they are there!) *~*
Robert Is Here is a family-owned and operated fruit stand in Homestead, Florida. They specialize in Rare & Exotic fruits and vegetables, mostly grown right here on their own farms. Although the location started off as a literal Fruit Stand located on the side of the road, it has grown into a complete tourist destination equipped with an Animal Farm, Play Area, and picnic tables. They even have live music on the weekends and holidays!
Credit for the data above is given to the following website:
© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.
So, after scaring off the beast of Dartmoor (see previous tale!), a rather grumpy Dave and myself had to next tackle my own personal nemesis........a hill. A person of, ahem the larger persuasion and with the knees of an 70 year old wrestler, I dont fare well on steep climbs. However, I sucked up my overhang, tucked in my muffin top and plodded my way up the rather steep and slippery stone path, watched over with a retaliatory glint in his eye by Mr Shaw. With only a couple of stops we eventually arrived into the promised land (no, I hadn't passed over on the climb!). Thick fog, no wind and trees so full of character even Deniro would have struggled to be one.
The bracken uo here had gone a lovely deep orange, almost red colour as it died off and it contrasted beautifully with the vibrant greens of the moss, lichen and oak leaves.
The fog too reflecting light up from the ground was a mysterious reddish colour in the predawn light. I Often see green mist but never this rust colour to it. Sadly my early images from the session were ruined as I had relied on manual focus on my Z6 and my eyes decieved me as I thought my images were in focus when in fact they were far from it. Ah well lesson learned there and to be fair, the rest of the session turned into a bit of a belter!
I have decided this autumn to work on a new edit and am tweaking a preset I have called Grim Moor. It still needs refining but its getting there and so far i am loving the results I am getting. I think its always a good thing to not put yourself in a rut when it comes to photography and this applies to your editing style too. A couple of years ago my woodland edits were bright and colourful, last year more pastel in tone and this year I am going full on dark fairy tale with my edits. I have already found this beneficial as the day after this shoot I visited a local woodland and got some lovely images of a well photographed patch that I have edited up very differently. I like the way the tone of the images have altered how I approached shooting them as I had this new edit in mind when composing thus making it exciting both in the field and at the mac.
Anyways thats enough of my ramblings for today. I look forward to sharing more images of dark mysterious woods in the coming weeks! Now wheres my bag of breadcrumbs??
Each of us has his own approach to how he performs crossdressing (Note that I use the masculine pronouns because, as usual, I am sharing my opinion as a heterosexual crossdresser). Yes, I am a hetero CD and that will never change. Why? Because that is how I was born and how I will die. To me, presenting as a woman is an art that I try to perform as realistically as possible, within my limitations and capabilities. Now, being more able and less limited has no drastic implications in our approach; and by approach, I mean the way we perceive and portray femininity.
I have previously shared that when I began to dress in a more complete fashion, in my mid-teens, my approach was to emulate women that, as a man, I found provocative in a sexual way. I guess that we all go through that stage in which we think that women dress to attract men and not to please themselves and feel good. That stage did not last long, and I began to pay more attention to how regular women dressed, modifying my approach accordingly. We must understand that 99% of the women out there are not dressing to look appealing to men but to be admired and even envied by other women, while feeling good in their own skin.
What I have sought for the past 40 years is to emulate regular women near my age; women who are fashionable without exaggeration and who dress for themselves and not to draw men’s attention. Is that the right approach? I don’t know but it is mine and I feel comfortable with it. Even though I have worn tight minis with hose in the past, I have tried to do it in a fashionable and classy manner and not in a vulgar/slutty way. Yes, regular women wear minis but there is a way to wear them without saying “I am a slut”. As a matter of fact, when women wear a mini in a fashionable manner, they are almost invisible to men, if you know what I mean.
I know my limitations and work around them to do the best job possible. I fail sometimes and fail terribly others, but what matters the most is that I feel good and enjoy my time as Cristy while learning from my mistakes. I stopped trying to please others almost since I found my Mojo over 40 years ago. As a matter of fact, I wore the same hairstyle, the one with the bangs, in the same color for 30 years, until I changed for a parted hairstyle a couple of years ago and began to experiment with the blonde hair at times. I do feel comfortable with both new looks and will not experiment any more until the time to switch for a shorter/older lady hair style.
Here is a list of points that I do my best to follow in the art of feminine illusion (sorry for the poor formatting but this is Flickr):
What will you never see me wearing or doing?
Lingerie or swimsuits, because I do not have a feminine body and will never ever look good in them without photo manipulation. I know my limitations
Open toe heels with hose, because it is not fashionable (even though I have done it before mostly to hide leg hair). Peep toe heels are ok with hose, though :P
Old ladies’ clothes and shoes, before I become one
Posing in sexually explicit or provocative manner, because I am not trying to look appealing to men and do not want to disrespect women
Show my maleness because I am not trying to appeal to people who find that amusing or even arousing (I am not judging, just don’t share that interest)
Giving in to requests for certain looks or costumes. No bridal dresses, cheerleader uniforms, etc. for Cristy
What do I seek? In no particular order
Enjoyment while practicing a craft that not only satisfies a need that is an integral part of my being but also gives me peace, satisfaction and fulfillment
To develop long lasting and sincere friendships with likeminded people
To emulate women in a respectful and dignified manner, to the best of my ability
To inspire others in accepting themselves and finding ways to express this part of themselves
To share my approach to crossdressing and experience in the craft, with likeminded people
To show people outside our community that we are no perverts and have the same interests and ambitions in life than anyone else
Acceptance from people I care about and who I trust with my particular trait
To find ways to look feminine in a natural way, again, within my limitations and abilities
To improve in my craft, using the experience I gain to overcome the years I gain :P
To pass for a woman even though not as much as in the past. This mostly because it is a confirmation of a job well done
And yes, to achieve respect and admiration from people who appreciate my approach and skills
What I don’t seek. In no particular order
Male attention, sexual advances or disrespectful remarks. If I were seeking that, I would present differently
To receive complacency and/or patronization
To offend, disrespect or misjudge others in any way
Acceptance from those who can’t or won’t understand or take the time to learn about why I need to do this
To mislead anyone with face apps or radical photo manipulation. What you see is what you get
To be a woman, because I am not one. I play one at times but am comfortable with my male body and life
As a thing, I don't smile in any of my photographs ...
Also, I'd like to give a big shout out to possessed2fisheye (Scott McBride), who's daily antics I have followed faithfully for at least six years. I've generally stayed away from producing the above type of image as I would consider creating them would be Plagiarism (of Scott's work) ... but now that I'm getting in to compositing, these images are part of my own creativity (assuming I have any real creativity)..
55002 Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry heads south through a cold, white and dull Retford with 1A15, 10:20 Newcastle – Kings Cross, 17th February 1979.
Locomotive History
On the 9th March 1961 D9002 ran light engine from Vulcan Foundry, Newton-le-Willows, to Doncaster Works and was accepted into BR service and allocated Gateshead MPD. On the 18th October 1966 it was released from Doncaster Works, after General repair, in blue livery, the first of the class to be painted blue. It was dual break fitted and electric train heating fitted during classified repairs at Doncaster in November 1967 and May 1971 respectively. Entered Doncaster Works on the 16th March 1976 for Heavy General Repair and released back into traffic eight months later in November 1976. This included the plating over of route indicators, sand-box fillers and cab quarter light windows. Only five locomotives would receive a Heavy General as the cost for renewal of inner and outer body-skins and rewiring outweighed the projected future use of the class. Released from Doncaster Works on the 11th December 1980, following its final Intermediate repair, in two-tone green livery in preparation for preservation at National Railway Museum. Its final workings were on the 30th December 1981 when as a test run in preparation for the farewell railtour it worked 1M53 07:49 York - Liverpool and 1E98 12:05 Liverpool - York (final Deltic to leave Liverpool). However it arrived back at York on one engine as power unit No. 1 was throwing oil and was declared un-fit work the final tour (55015 substituted). Formally withdrawn on the 2nd January 1982 and presented to the National Railway Museum.
Praktica LTL, Ektachrome 200
i bought a 200 acre farmstead in southern virgina several years back.the property had been basically abandoned for 20 years and the
locals had grown very accustomed to regarding it as their own hunting
ground. we bought the property in oct/nov'ish, which is the begining
of deer hunting season in those parts (the creep of southernism
in my speech will become readily apparent, bear with). so the first
several weekends, i would take my father up there to make a clearing
to put up a storage shed and build up my smithy forge. we put up no
trespassing signs and chains across the road, but they would be torn
down and cut when we arrived. it was clear we werent going to be
entirely welcome. .
One weekend my dad stopped at a pawn shop on the drive up, saying he
wanted to look at something. 10 minutes later he came out with 2
Chinese semi-auto assault rifles and 1000 rounds of high velocity
ammo.
'Ummm....' i said, 'not a good idea'
"We have to be prepared. Things might get hairy."
"Sure, but you know how to fire one of those?"
"pretty sure"
"nice....just put em in the trunk and forget about them dad.'
so when we arrive the signs are down and the chains cut and dad is
freaking out that the locals arent showing us respect. i sigh, roll
eyes, and start a fire to make some coffee. now in virginia they use
dogs to hunt. the deer are flushed out into open fields by baying
hounds and beagles where the lazy hunters sits on his truck or ATV and
pops off shots at them. as we start drinking coffee, a pack of dogs
tears thru our campsite and we see a deer pull out of a grove about
100 feet to our left and tear across 40 feet ahead of us into a broom
straw pasture. shotguns erupted from an opposing treeline about 100
feet to our right. 8,9, maybe 10 shots fired, tangentially in front of us. dad runs back to the car, pulls an assault rifle from the
trunk, loads up a 50 round clip, and marches past me towards the
treeline of hunters.
'whoa! what the fuck do you think you are doing?!'
'im gonna teach those bastards some respect!!'
'put the gun down, dad. you arent going anywhere with that.
just settle down.'
'just relax son, i'll take care of this, i'm not afraid.'
'hahaha, im certainly not afraid of them either. but...they know we
are here. they are just trying to rattle us - and apparently it worked
on you. now look, this is the big picture here. there are probably 4
or 5 locals in that treeline, they can probably see you right now,
they have probably been hunting here since they were children, they
know this land, they know the local sheriff, they dont know you. you
go charging in there and they might even drop you and not a word would
be said about it. you were in the army like 30 years ago, you read
soldier of fortune magazine on the toilet - this doth not a commando
maketh. just settle down, gimme the rifle and go load up the
other one.'
reluctantly he gave me the gun. i took it over behind a huge 4 foot
diameter fallen oak out of the sight line of the hunters, left it
there, and returned to my coffee. ten minutes later, another deer
flushed out and another volley erupted from the treeline. dad gave me
a withering look of contempt as if he was digusted for siring such a
spineless son. i smirked back and said 'breathe....its ok. trust me.'
i went over to the oak and the rifle, put down my coffee, and squeezed
off all 50 rounds in rapid fire. CRACK CRACK CRACK... an assault rifle
is a loud impressive beast, i must admit. a minute later we heard a
jeep and an atv drive off from the treeline. i went back to the fire,
finished my coffee and asked dad to get the other rifle and go get
down by the oak.
'what?'
'trust me...serious. you have about 2 minutes.'
as he got the gun and walked over to the tree, we saw a convoy of 6
trucks and jeeps and atvs barrelling down our drive road (about a mile
long).
'dad, please just stay put behind that tree, dont let them see where
you are, unless, obviously things get 'hairy', then call the cops on
your cell and handle things. but remember even if you shoot in
self-defense, you are going to jail, and its their jail."
"what the hell? what are you going to do??'
'no big, we are going to have a little chat. no worries'
a minute later, the six vehicles pull up around in a semi circle and
like 15 hunters get out, some with their shotguns, others without, but
certainly packing a pistol or something. this huge older thick headed
lout with a stereotypical chunck of chewing 'bacca in his lip and a
grimy blaze orange padded jacket was standing in front, looked around
at our campsite and snorted with complete contempt.
'boy, who the fuck is shooting machine guns around here?!' he says
walking over at me.
i just sat there on a log drinking my coffee looking at him.
'you deef boy? we was up yonder (swear to god they use 'yonder', go
figure!) and some dumbfucker starting shooting automatic machine guns
at us. waddat you?'
i lit a cigarette and just stared at him for another 10 seconds or so.
(honestly i couldnt tell if i was in way over my head, but i
knew if we showed weakness the whole adventure of living up there
would become some fuct hatfield-mccoy OK corral deliverance hillbilly
nightmare)
'this is my land now - and that is my gun. and dont call me boy.'
'now look here, we are out here hunting and you are gonna hit somebody
shooting like that. so you need to settle down...boooooyyyy. we'been
hunting here for over 20 years and the season just started. we'll tell
y'all when you its safe for you to come back here and play or whatever
the hell you california boys do back here (the realtor must have
filled the locals in on our situation).
cigarette drag. stare.
'you got me, boy?'
'no, boyyyy. here is the deal. this is my land now - and you are
fucking trespassing. i fired those shots, not at your boys, but into
the ground, because i know there is nothing a hunter hates more than
to think there is an asshole out there in the trees with an assault
rifle. i knew it would get your attention. now i am going to live
here. i am clearing off this land to build a home and eventually build
a business. i am gonna raise a family here. i believe in good
neighbors. i am gonna be a good neighbors. but y'all have started this
out ugly by vandalizing my signs, cutting my chains, trespassing to
hunt, which can land your ass in state prison for a couple months. so
short of you making some jack ass move and trying to shoot me right
here which i can tell you would be a very bad ideat, we can sit down
and work out some sort arrangement that will make us good neighbors.
so what do you want? you want to fight or figure it out?'
(snort) 'youre fucking crazy!'
'no. just very determined to makes sure everybody walks outta here and
that this little bullshit harrasment stops today. so what do you
want?'
'check this california boy out. who does he think he is'
'look, i already called the game warden this morning before i came up
here. real nice guy (one mongoloid in the back guffawed and said 'he's
a fucker.) he was very obliging and told me all about your state
hunting laws and the serious penalties for trespassing and he even
mentioned that he might be stopping by today to say hello. and last
week i spoke with the county magistrate (DA to them), also a real nice
guy, looks like we are going to be going to the same church (i had
stopped in at the beautiful 200 year old episcopal church on a
previous trip to meet the rector and meet some of the folks - never
especially religious, but i knew enough of small towns to know that
the church is where you socialize and get your social ranking), happy
to see some new faces coming to the county. he told me all about the
history of this part of the county and this property. in fact, he said
if i had any problems to give him a call and he'd give me a hand. so
you and your boys aint got much to stand on right now. you keep up
this hunting and the game warden is gonna revoke your licenses at best
and toss you in jail at the worst, especially if your poachin' was
done in a coercive threating manner, and im sure the magistrate
wouldnt mind a bit drawing up the cases."
'ha, the sheriff is my brother in law,' the lout says.
'cool, roll the dice, see what your brother in law will do for you. or
you put your guns back in your trucks and lets work this out.'
'what'chu got in mind?'
'ok, i accept that y'all have been hunting here since sheriff shappard
died because there was no one to say no, and we all know there isnt
another plot of property with an open 100 acres of clear shooting this
far back off the road for 20 or so miles. so i dont feel right just
telling you boys that you cant hunt here anymore. so you can hunt
here.'
'well thats good, glad youre talking some sense.'
'so you can hunt here for the rest of the season...but next season you
can only hunt the front half of the property and the following year
only the front quarter of the land. you get three more years you can
hunt here, after those three years i should have a home built here and
we can discuss if any of you wants to buy permission to hunt that
front quarter. three years free is a good deal.'
'not really...'
'its better than the alternative. but here's your catch. only you and
your hunt club are allowed to hunt here. no one else. understand?'
'thats not much of a catch, why would we want to share it?'
'the catch is that you are responsible for making sure no one hunts
here, no one vandalizes my gear that i store here, no one messes with
my signs. if anybody hunts and vandalizes this property, then all bets
are off and you can go ask the hunt club down 'yonder!' if you can
hunt with them - i'm sure they wouldnt mind .
long story short, they agreed, we agreed. no more problems with
vandals and such. in fact, they actually called the sheriff on some
boys from another county who had come over during the week to hunt.
and they made sure we knew they had done so. after two years a 300
acre property a mile or so down the road was bought by a timberer and
clear cut. after the trees and shrub growth starting coming back after
a year it was perfect for deer hunting and the timberer had no
objections to the locals hunting there, so it wasnt a problem not
hunting at our place. it was never warm and fuzzy with the locals up
there, but they did respect our property. we never had anymore problems with
them.
damn, i hadnt thought about that story for years now.
I look at his fountain a lot. But this time was different. A random stream of water shooting off on its own. Perhaps it was a "sign." Break free and do your own thing? A darker political message perhaps? Or just a bent nozzle. I see all three.
9399
Modelling the Own It! Style Lab dress and jewelry. "Romance" shoes are from the Legendary Shoe Wardrobe.
This doll is a dream to photograph! So easy to get a great shot!
#Repost @foundr ・・・ Might as well try your luck 😂or as an entrepreneur are you making your own luck? Double tap and leave a comment below! 👇 flic.kr/p/NsfG88
My own self painted figurines in scale 1/87 (H0).
A little man is about 20mm (0.78 inch) tall.
See more of my little sommer scenes:
www.flickr.com/photos/193542172@N07/albums/72177720305827391
I have many, what I would consider close contacts – they see my photo and always pop in to comment or have a chat – regardless of whether the photo is good or not – I do like that sort of contact – although the relationship is only a sentence or two once in a while when I post a photo – they are probably the reason why I stay on flickr. One of these frequent visitors is Bonnie who has been a dear friend throughout my time on flickr. She lives very far away from my home and we might never meet but she is an important part of my flickr life. Pop over to see her photos and you will see her great use of the camera – her passion over animal and bird welfare especially the love of ducks and her great warmth – honesty and humour.
I took this photo for Bonnie the other day. It is just not any duck – it is one of 6 ducks owned by one of the people I visit who has a learning disability. This person has had a hard time of it recently and the people who support them bought the ducks. And it really is working in making this person deal with some sad issues. The smile I get now when I visit is a delight and instead of going into the house for a chat we spend a lot of the time with the ducks. This person feeds and takes great care of them. It has turned out to be the best therapy in the world for this person right when they needed it. Whilst I sit in the sun watching this person with their ducks I think of Bonnie and how she would just love to see what I see.
You are a very good friend Bonnie and long may our friendship last.
Visit her on this link and say hello from me:))
www.flickr.com/photos/bonniesducks/
Have a good day everyone.
"A body and a spirit," he repeated. "The body, lady, is like a house: it don't go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like a automobile: always on the move, always . . ."
--Tom Shiftlet in Flannery O'Connor's "The Life You Save May Be Your Own".
photography/image © 2016 Mike McCall.
Eastman, Dodge County, Georgia, USA..
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Warrington's Own Buses BD12TEV 226 seen leaving Warrington Interchange on 'The Pops' 20 to Orford
ex Transdev Lancashire United (The Blackburn Bus Company)
Here's a close up detail shot of this week's Freight Car Friday offering that I posted earlier with this caption:
For this week’s Freight Car Friday here is an old covered hopper that caught my eye entrained on Providence and Worcester Railroad local PR-3 rolling through ORMS interlocking on Main 7 at MP 186 of Amtrak’s New Haven Line main headed to the Port of Providence. This car is now lettered SLWX 1137 for its present owner Saltine Warrior and is used in short haul rock salt service between the port and Vermont salt sheds. The car is clearly of Chicago and Northwestern Railway provenance and is a 263K, 60 ft. 4750 cu ft covered hopper built in Feb. 1981. I’m not sure of the original number or manufacturer of this car but suspect it was originally in the 190000-19099 series of 1000 cars built that year the first 500 by Berwick Forge and Fabricating and the second 500 by Ingalls Shipbuilding at the Decatur, AL plant. If anyone can confirm the manufacturer and original number I’d love to know.
The car still carries its classic ball and bar logo with the ‘Employee Owned’ moniker from the period after 1972 when the struggling granger was spun off from the parent company to its employees after they were unsuccessful in selling or merging the road. The idea first belonged to Larry Provo, who had joined the company as an accountant at age 29 and would go on to succeed Heineman as president. After two years of negotiations, the employee buyout deal was completed in early 1972. Under the terms of the agreement, employee purchasers had to commit to buy at least $1 million worth of stock. In May, $3.6 million worth of shares were bought when the stock was offered, making the company the largest employee-owned corporation in the United States. One thousand of the 14,000 employees of CNW took part in the purchase, ranging from Provo himself, who invested $100,000, the maximum allowed, to secretaries who bought the minimum ten shares for $500. The official name of the company was then changed to the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company. In order to create an easier mechanism for diversifying, a new holding company, CNW Corporation, was formed in 1985 and after about that date the employee owned logo was no longer used.
In 1989, CNW Corporation was purchased in a leveraged buyout by a group of investors that was led by Blackstone Capital Partners L.P. The group also included the securities firm Donaldson, Lufkin, and Jenrette, the Union Pacific Railroad, and CNW senior mangement. The buyout was engineered in order to avert a hostile takeover attempt by Japonica Partners, a New York-based investment group. Valued at $950 million, the buyout exceeded Japonica’s bid of $747 million. A new holding company, Chicago and North Western Holdings Corporation, was thus formed to take the place of CNW Corporation, which continued to exist on paper as a subsidiary to “Holdings” and parent company to the Chicago and North Western Transportation Company. As part of a $1.2 million recapitalization of CNW, the company went public once again in 1992 with a $200 million stock offering, but this final era was short lived and in 1995 the Union Pacific bought out the shares it didn’t own and merged the CNW out of existence into its vast system.
Providence, Rhode Island
Monday April 20, 2026
01 April 2018
Its into the 9th year since I shot this and the situation in the DTES has only deteriorated. Governments have worsened the situation by piling more social housing in the area adding to the “customers with no cash” syndrome. The area is named “Canada’s poorest postal code” by activists and the poverty pimps love the situation making the area one of “Canada’s richest postal codes”, the only differenence being the pimp money goes home at night. Helpful groups support too many by offering them food daily with zero obligation. Its become an impossible sitiuation to address given the current state of political governance.
I wish this was just a sick April Fools Day joke but unfortuantely not.
Sleeping on a sidewalk in the Downtown East Side (DTES) of Vancouver BC takes on a different sense of survival than is observed in many west side sleepers. A combination of mental issues, drug sale and use, area resident poverty and the resulting community of "Customers With No Cash" combine for a perfect locale to take advantage of people on the edge where living is not comparable to what most of us bring to mind in our own comfortable world. Prostitution and drugs are a large part of this community. One can not help feel sorry and remorseful this exists in self important Vancouver.
The irony of this photo is it was shot about 10 feet from the entrance of BC Housing's recently opened Orange Hall office (open 10 am to 4 pm Monday to Friday) 297 Hastings Street at Gore Ave. This situation has steadily gone downhill since the Federal Governemt cut back funding for social housing.
BLAH, BLAH, BLAH:
From BC Housing website:
October 3rd, 2014
VICTORIA – The B.C. government is strengthening the non-profit housing sector by transferring provincially-owned properties to non-profit housing providers.
The Province owns approximately 350 parcels of land throughout British Columbia that are currently leased long-term to non-profit housing providers who own and operate social housing buildings on these properties.
The non-profit housing sector has been asking for this step for many years. Having ownership of the land will improve a non-profit’s ability to support better long-term planning and selfsufficiency. Owning the lands they operate on will also help non-profits secure the financing they need to be sustainable.
In order to transfer title, the Province will end these leases, and then transfer ownership of the land to the societies. The properties will be transferred at fair market value. The Province will assist the societies to secure mortgages on the properties. The current operating agreement that BC Housing has with each non-profit society will remain in place. Approximately 115 properties will be transferred by March 31, 2015, and the rest will be transferred over the next three years.
In addition, the Province is looking to transfer ownership of two properties currently managed by BC Housing to non-profit societies. The Province will begin the process by posting Expressions of Interest for Nicholson Tower and Stamps Place in Vancouver shortly.
Tenants will not be impacted by these transfers, and the amount of affordable housing stock will remain stable. Non-profit societies have been providing social housing in B.C. for more than 60 years. Today more than 90% of social housing is managed by non-profit societies.
THE GLOBE & MAIL:
FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, Oct. 13 2014
Vancouver won’t solve street homelessness until both the city and province focus on targeting the limited supply of expensive social housing to those who need it most, say experts.
That means help can’t go to anyone who passes through a shelter or an outdoor camp or even to someone who sleeps outside temporarily. In the vast majority of cases, people who become homeless experience it briefly and are able to avoid losing housing again.
But people working on eliminating homelessness do not always understand that the thousands of people who experience homelessness in a year don’t all need expensive subsidized housing. That should be reserved for the chronically homeless, who are not sufficiently helped by temporary assistance with rent or other social supports.
“For nearly 90 per cent of people counted as homeless, they’ll get themselves out of homelessness on their own,” says Tim Richter, who led Calgary’s 10-year plan to end homelessness and is now the president of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness. “It’s critical to set priorities. It shouldn’t be first-come, first-served.”
One of the region’s most experienced homelessness researchers, former Vancouver city-hall staffer Judy Graves, said the city is reaping the results of city and provincial staff not always setting the right priorities for the past six years. This past winter, Vancouver still had a count of 533 people sleeping outside (less than in 2008, but more than in 2011), even though the province and city have opened up thousands of new social-housing units rented at welfare-level rates.
It’s an issue that is returning to haunt Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who promised in 2008 to end street homelessness by 2015, during this fall’s civic-election campaign.
His administration, which has pushed the issue non-stop since he was first elected, has recently exceeded previous efforts by jumping last month into paying for all the costs of converting a downtown Quality Inn to transitional housing, as well as all the costs of a new shelter nearby. Usually the province covers the majority of costs for both of those kinds of housing.
But Ms. Graves said even that unusual effort, accompanied by several hundred other new provincial units about to open, isn’t going to solve the problem by January, 2015.
That’s because the province is only committed to using half of the incoming housing units for the chronically homeless. And city staff also don’t always correctly identify who is the most in need.
“Both the city and province have bought into housing by wait lists,” said Ms. Graves. “It just can’t work. You have to work as though you’re in a disaster zone.”
She said she had doubts that the majority of people who camped in Oppenheimer Park over the summer were homeless, but they got priority for the scarce number of rooms available.
As well, in the early stages of the province’s big social-housing construction push, which will see 14 towers completed with around 1,400 units by the end, non-profit operators were simply moving people from residential hotel rooms into the new buildings.
That meant the housing didn’t go to the chronically homeless and the most in need, but worse, it then allowed landlords in the residential hotels to do renovations, raise rents, or refuse new low-income tenants once the former tenants were relocated to social housing.
That then reduced the overall number of private, low-cost housing units in the city. Ms. Graves said the whole region is experiencing an acute shortage of those kinds of private units now. It has become a game of musical chairs for housing-outreach workers to get a low-cost unit for someone trying to get out of shelters or off the street, she said.
All cities are grappling with constant pressures that create more homelessness at the front end: low working-class incomes that can’t keep up with gentrification and rising rents key among them, said Ms. Graves. That has left cities trying to solve the problem at the back end, trying to house all the people made homeless as a result of many larger forces.
24 HRS VANCOUVER - 16 OCT 14
16 Oct 2014 24 Hours VancouverJANE DEACON Comment at vancouver.24hrs.c
Laura Dilley, PACE Society Action Week, PACE plans to draft housing recommendations for city council before the coming election.
“Oftentimes we will create housing models not including the voices of those we would be housing,” said Dilley.
Rising rent prices that force people out of SROs is a significant factor, as well as landlords who refuse to rent to sex workers out of legal concerns, said Dilley. Low- income housing conditions that require tenants stay in at night or guests to sign in are also significant barriers. She estimates between 10 to 15% of sex workers fall under the category of “survival” or street- based prostitution. For that vulnerable population, simply switching professions is often not an option, said Dilley.
“They’re really forced and entrenched to continuously do that work because they have no options out of it, because we have such stigma in our society that they can’t seek help, they can’t find affordable housing, so they’re really stuck in that situation,” she said.
17 April 2019:
B.C. drug users demand clean supply, but fear they won’t live to see it happen
By David P. BallStar Vancouver
Tues., April 16, 2019
VANCOUVER—Several hundred Vancouverites marked three years since the province declared a public health emergency over the thousands of people killed by overdoses.
But as they marched Tuesday from the safe-injection clinic Insite through downtown Vancouver, advocates say “contaminated” drugs have taken a toll on their own leaders.
For B.C. Association of People on Methadone member Garth Mullins, the losses are mounting, and it’s been destabilizing and “disorganizing” for the drug-reform movement.
“We’ve lost rank and file members and leaders in such high numbers over the last five years,” he said, wearing a distinctive black case of the overdose-reversing drug naloxone on his belt. “It’s hard to organize or think strategically when you’re always doing triage, planning a memorial.”
Just last month the president of his organization, Chereece Keewatin, died from a fentanyl overdose. Mullins knew Keewatin for at least six years, and invited her to join the editorial board of the podcast Crackdown, of which he is executive producer.
“Chereece was really little, but she had this tremendous capacity to lift people’s spirits,” he said in an interview. “You’d have meetings where we talk about really, really bleak subjects, but she had these funny asides to cut through the bleakness.
“She made people laugh. In that way, she took responsibility for the whole collective emotional state of the group.”
It’s not just the B.C. Association of People on Methadone that’s seen the direct “casualties” of what Mullins called “a war.” The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and the national Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs have also lost high-ranking board members in recent years.
Since 2016, nearly 11,000 people have died across Canada from opioid overdoses, according to the most recent federal and provincial data. The majority of those deaths were from opioids such as fentanyl or its more deadly variants, but B.C. remains the epicentre for roughly a third of those deaths, 1,500 of them last year alone.
On average, four British Columbians died every day from overdoses last year, much higher than the national average and largely unchanged since the province’s April 2016 declaration of a public health emergency.
11 May 2020
.
A wall mural in the DTES poses a valid question, "how do we end the drug crisis"? A more basic question, how did we get here?
Vancouver, B.C. is consistently ranked at the top of the list for the world’s most liveable cities - but not for many in the DTES.
The city has a dirty little secret that it has been trying to suppress for decades. The historic four-block area near East Hastings and Main Street — the DTES — known as one of the “poorest postal codes” in Canada, has a combination of drug use, HIV, homelessness, prostitution, mental illness, and crime all making up this poor off neighbourhood.
To be successful as a drug lord you need a steady, reliable, cheap supply of product, a location where you can operate relatively free from prosecution and away you go. The prime location ingredients Vancouver offers is the DTES.
Over the decades continuing city administrations have built a community of “customers with no cash” by loading the DTES with blocks of not for profit social housing. Along with the myriad of Single Room Occupancy hotels (SRO's) the area is prime territory for the drug trade.
Social housing should be spread throughout the city to provide a society of different financial means for common support - IMO.
Administrations over the years have been loath to attempt social housing in the rich city enclaves due to onerous push back. It was and still is more expedient to keep adding more social housing in the DTES where there is minimal opposition.
***** Today there are at least 6 City of Vancouver development permit applications on file for more social housing in the DTES.
The process is welcomed by the myriad of DTES support service groups who like their clientele close at hand and the clientele are fine with it as services are nearby.
DTES government and service support groups along with poverty pimp lawyers who have a hissy fit if anyone tries to change the dial, while also making money off the situation, has resulted in the perfect condition for drug dealers to flourish.
Social housing residents, many older, Asian and often mentally challenged are living in a hell hole neighbourhood with little individual voice.
In recent years, the area is seeing an east creeping gentrification. This is causing the DTES street population to be squeezed into a smaller footprint resulting in more confrontation and the appearance of a worsening situation even though overall the numbers of street people remains fairly constant.
The amount of taxpayer dollars spent in the area is staggering with little to show for the investment.
Vancouver has always had a drug problem. The opioids of choice — and the increasingly staggering death toll — have changed over the years.
In 2017 Fentanyl killed so many Canadians it caused the average life expectancy in B.C. to drop for the first time in decades. But for crime kingpins, it became a source of such astonishing wealth it disrupted the Vancouver-area real estate market.
SOME BACKGROUND:
Excerpt from the Province Newspaper by reporter Randy Shore 18 March, 2017.
When members of the Royal Commission to Investigate Chinese and Japanese Immigration came to Vancouver in 1901, they got an eyeful.
“There were whole rooms of Chinese lying stretched out on beds with the opium apparatus laid out before them — all unmindful that their attitudes and surrounding conditions are being taken note of to assist in keeping the remainder of their countrymen entirely out of Canada,” reported the Vancouver World newspaper.
The fringes of Vancouver’s Chinatown have always been the centre of Canada’s opiate trade. Ever more potent and easily smuggled versions emerged through the decades, culminating in the scourge of synthetic opiates — fentanyl and carfentanil — thousands of times more powerful and many times more deadly than opium.
Opium was a source of revenue for governments of the day. A federal duty imposed on importers fetched hundreds of thousands of dollars between 1874 and 1899. In B.C. ports, and cities charged hundreds of dollars to purveyors in the form of business licences.
Between 1923 and 1932, more than 700 Chinese men were deported for drug-related violations.
Under constant pressure from the police, opium users began to inject their hit, as the technique created no smoke or aroma and used smaller equipment, which could be easily hidden. In the 1920s and 1930s, white users tended to be young criminals, “racetrack hands, and circus and show people” who smoked opium or sniffed heroin.
By the mid-1930s, heroin was one of the most common drugs in circulation and white users were increasingly taking the drug intravenously, especially as prices rose due to scarcity brought about by vigorous law enforcement.
The outbreak of the Second World War put opiate addicts into a state of crisis, as opiate drugs were required in great quantities for the war wounded. The street price of a hit — whether heroin, morphine or codeine — shot up and crime along with it.
In the post-war period, right through to the mid-’60s, Vancouver was ground zero for Canada’s intravenous drug scene, made up mainly of petty criminals, troubled youths fed by drug lords.
Before the ’40s were over, highly refined white heroin had appeared and it was coming from overseas to satisfy a hungry market in Vancouver, home to half of the country’s drug users.
Heroin use remained a constant undercurrent in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside during the ’70s and ’80s, even as alcohol was the neighbourhood’s real drug of choice.
But a flood of a new and even more potent “China White” heroin arriving into the city reignited public outrage in the early ’90s. A spate of 331 overdose deaths in 1993 spurred B.C. coroner Vince Cain to call for the decriminalization of heroin and addicts be prescribed the drug to legally maintain their habit.
It would be nearly 15 years before the Study to Assess Long-term Opioid Maintenance Effectiveness (SALOME) began in Vancouver, just about the time a new threat emerged.
Up to 80 times as powerful as heroin, fentanyl hit the streets and reduced the risk for traffickers as it was so concentrated, transportation was easier.
The carnage wrought by fentanyl has been without precedent.
Heroin seized in drug busts is routinely cut with fentanyl and in recent months the presence of carfentanil.
SUMMARY:
Where will this go next, who knows ?
The richest of societies should be especially judged by how they treat their least fortunate, and Vancouver has its challenge set out for the foreseeable future.
UPDATE 23 MAY 2020 - VANCOUVER SUN
John Mackie: The Downtown Eastside is a war zone disaster — stop ghettoizing it.
John Mackie, Vancouver Sun 23 May 2020
Twenty years ago local musician Kuba Oms was recording at the Miller Block, a now defunct Hastings Street recording studio near Save-On-Meats.
He jaywalked and was stopped by a cop, who handed him a ticket.
“I said ‘Are you kidding me?’” Oms recounts. “You know there’s a guy shooting up over there, and a crack dealer over there. And the cop said ‘That’s a health issue.’”
That story pretty much sums up the city’s attitude toward the Downtown Eastside over the past few decades.
In some ways the cop was right — it is a Vancouver health issue. But letting people openly do drugs in public and turn Hastings and the wider Downtown Eastside into a ghetto is political correctness gone mad.
Drive down Hastings Street between Abbott and Gore and you’ll see dozens, even hundreds of people hanging out on the street, in various states of sobriety. They are definitely not social distancing. It’s a miracle that COVID-19 hasn’t swept the entire area.
The height of this madness was the recent occupation of Oppenheimer Park. Vancouver has real issues of homelessness, but to some degree Oppenheimer was about a fringe group of politicos manipulating the homeless.
Many police resources were diverted to the park and there was a crime wave in nearby Chinatown — one business closed because they were being robbed a dozen times a day.
The province recently made hotel rooms available for the homeless people occupying Oppenheimer Park, so things have calmed down somewhat. But the big question is what happens in a few months? Is government going to find permanent homes for them?
Odds are if they do, it will be in highrises in the Downtown Eastside. For decades that’s where the city and province have been concentrating social housing, especially for the mentally ill and drug addicted.
Their argument is these residents feel comfortable there. But the reality is the more poverty is concentrated, the worse the area seems to become.
Maybe it’s time for the city of Vancouver to give its head a shake and realize that its much-ballyhooed Downtown Eastside Plan is actually part of the problem, not the solution.
Part of the plan decrees you can’t build condos on Hastings between Carrall Street in Gastown and Heatley Avenue in Strathcona, or in historic Japantown around Oppenheimer Park.
Development in those areas has to be rental only, with at least 60 per cent social housing. This pretty much ensures that no market housing is built in the poorest area of the city.
When the plan was unveiled in 2014, Vancouver’s former head planner Brian Jackson said the aim was to ensure that low-income people in the Downtown Eastside weren’t displaced.
“The plan is attempting to achieve balance,” he explained then.
In fact, the plan does the exact opposite. There is no balance in the Downtown Eastside: It’s been turned into a ghetto. A friend who’s worked there for two decades calls it a war zone.
The city desperately need some market housing, co-ops and development on Hastings and around Oppenheimer. The anti-poverty activists will scream blue murder that it’s gentrification, but it’s actually normalization. You don’t have to displace anybody, you just have add a different mix to make it safer.
I live in Strathcona, where about 6,500 people live in social housing and about 3,500 in market homes. It’s a close-knit neighbourhood that has the balance Brian Jackson was taking about — it’s diverse and features a variety of incomes.
Japantown and the Downtown Eastside could be a real neighbourhood again if the city retained its stock of handsome historic buildings but allowed some development of its many non-descript structures.
It could be like Strathcona, even the West End. But I fear it could get even worse, if the planners and politicians continue to concentrate all the Lower Mainland’s poverty and social ills in one small area.
jmackie@postmedia.com
John Mackie is a veteran Postmedia reporter who has written several stories about Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Plan.
13 JULY, 2020
Vancouver can’t catch up to its housing crisis
ADRIENNE TANNER
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
PUBLISHED 13 JULY 2020
It is obvious now the cheers that erupted when Vancouver’s longest running tent city was dismantled were wildly premature. Fearing a COVID-19 outbreak would take hold in the overcrowded inner-city camp, the provincial government in April acquired emergency housing in hotels for homeless people living there and cleared the site.
Many camp residents embraced the offer of a clean room. Some refused and relocated outdoors. The camp shifted, first to some empty Port of Vancouver land, and when a court order quickly shut it down, finally landed in Strathcona Park. With each move, it grew.
Today there are about 150 tents Strathcona Park, roughly double the number there were in Oppenheimer Park. How many inhabitants are truly homeless is anyone’s guess. Some of the tents were erected by activists with homes. Others belong to people living in single room occupancy hotels, the worst of which are noisy, bug-infested and so hot that some residents prefer to spend summer outside.
There is already an air of permanence to the camp; the city has installed porta-potties, fresh drinking water and handwashing stations. Park rangers drop by a few times daily. The area is reasonably clean, but these are early days.
Strathcona residents are largely sympathetic to homeless people, but are understandably unhappy about losing a large chunk of park space. They fear the same violence and social disorder that cropped up at Oppenheimer is inevitable; there has already been a small fire and there appears to be a bike chop shop on site. There are cries for the city to sanction a permanent tent city location – elsewhere, of course.
So how exactly did the province’s efforts to shut down a tent city and house homeless people backfire so badly? The city and provincial officials have been out-manoeuvered and out-organized by anti-poverty activists who seized a COVID-19 opportunity when they saw it.
The pandemic raised fears the Oppenheimer tent city would turn into a reservoir of disease that could overwhelm the health system. The activists know that’s why the government cleared the camp and purchased hotels for social housing. They understand this is the moment to highlight society’s failure to solve homelessness, even if their end goals seem to differ. Some are calling for permanent housing – others prefer the idea of a permanent, free-wheeling tent city.
The sorry truth is, even with the addition of 600 units of temporary modular housing and, more recently, the purchase of three downtown hotels, there are still more homeless people than homes. Successions of governments at all levels have allowed this crisis to grow. They’ve failed to build enough social housing. Failed to provide adequate mental health services. Failed to fund enough drug rehabilitation programs for those who want to quit and provide a safe drug supply for those who can’t.
So, now here we are with the largest homeless camp the city has ever seen and another stressed-out neighbourhood. Legally, the new tent city may prove more difficult to dismantle – it’s a large park and the tents are well spaced so the pandemic may not wash as a valid reason. And unless housing is available for everyone who is homeless, it is unlikely the courts would grant an injunction.
Solving problems associated with homelessness is a huge challenge. We can start with housing, but that alone is not nearly enough. Many of the people living in the hotels and park are drug users. Many are mentally ill. Some are both. It takes money – and lots of it – to provide decent housing and supports for this segment of society.
But to cave to demands for a permanent tent city is an American-style admission of defeat. The park board seems resigned to tent cities in parks and is considering a bylaw seeking to control locations. City council has resisted sanctioning a permanent spot, instead offering up land for new social housing. The province has stepped up with money for temporary modular housing and purchases of hotels.
It will be tough to keep neighbourhoods onside if more parks are rendered unusable for recreation. There is only one palatable solution; the provincial government must stay the course and keep adding decent, affordable housing. It won’t be cheap or easy. Catchup never is.
01 APRIL 2022
More than 2,200 British Columbians lost to illicit drugs in 2021
The toxic illicit drug supply claimed the lives of at least 2,224 British Columbians in 2021, according to preliminary data released by the BC Coroners Service.
“Over the past seven years, our province has experienced a devastating loss of life due to a toxic illicit drug supply,” said Lisa Lapointe, chief coroner. “This public health emergency has impacted families and communities across the province and shows no sign of abating. In 2021 alone, more than 2,200 families experienced the devastating loss of a loved one. In the past seven years, the rate of death due to illicit drug toxicity in our province has risen more than 400%. Drug toxicity is now second only to cancers in B.C. for potential years of life lost. We cannot simply hope that things will improve. It is long past time to end the chaos and devastation in our communities resulting from the flourishing illicit drug market, and to ensure, on an urgent basis, access across the province to a safe, reliable regulated drug supply.”
The last two months of 2021 saw the largest number of suspected illicit drug deaths ever recorded in the province, with 210 deaths in November and an additional 215 in December. The 2,224 total number of deaths is 26% more than the 1,767 illicit drug-related deaths investigated by the BC Coroners Service in 2020, and equates to an average of 6.1 lives lost every day.
The provincewide death rate in 2021 was 42.8 per 100,000 residents. Every health authority in B.C. experienced a record loss of lives.
Since the public health emergency into substance-related harms was first declared in April 2016, more than 8,800 British Columbians have been lost to toxic drugs.
Toxicological testing once again underscores the reality that the illicit drug supply continues to be unstable and increasingly toxic. Fentanyl was detected in 83% of samples tested in 2021. Carfentanil was present in 187 results, almost triple the number recorded in 2020 (66).
Additionally, 50% of samples in December tested positive for etizolam, more than three times the rate of detection in July 2020 (15%). Benzodiazepines create significant challenges for life-saving efforts as naloxone does not reverse its effects. As with previous reporting, almost all test results included the presence of multiple substances.
“We need decision-makers at all levels to recognize and respond to this public health emergency with the level of urgency it demands,” Lapointe said. “The reality is this: every day we wait to act, six more people will die. COVID-19 has shown what is possible when goverments act decisively to save lives. And in order to save lives in this public-heath emergency, we need to provide people with access to the substances they need, where and when they need them. Time has run out for research and discussion. It is time to take action.”
Additional key preliminary findings are below. Data is subject to change as additional toxicology results are received:
In 2021, 71% of those who died as a result of suspected drug toxicity were between 30 to 59, and 78% were male.
The townships that experienced the highest number of illicit drug toxicity deaths in 2021 were Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria.
By health authority, in 2021, the highest numbers of illicit drug toxicity deaths were in the Fraser and Vancouver Coastal health authorities (765 and 615 deaths, respectively), making up 62% of all such deaths during this period.
By health authority, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Vancouver Coastal Health (49 deaths per 100,000 individuals) and Northern Health (48 per 100,000).
By Health Service Delivery Area, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Vancouver, Thompson Cariboo, Northwest, Northern Interior and Fraser East.
By Local Health Area, in 2021, the highest rates of death were in Upper Skeena, Merritt, Enderby, Lillooet and North Thompson.
Quotes:
Dr. Nel Wieman, deputy chief medical officer, First Nations Health Authority –
“The number of deaths due to toxic drug poisonings for 2021 translates to devastating losses of First Nations people: daughters and sons, aunties and uncles, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and grandfathers and grandmothers. These are people who loved and were loved. In every year since this public health emergency was declared, B.C. First Nations people have been over-represented in toxic drug-poisoning events and deaths. We must change our understanding of the root causes of substance use and addiction, and work together to address the stigmas surrounding toxic drug use and the people who use drugs. We must continue to invest in Indigenous-specific, culturally safe harm-reduction, treatment and recovery services that are accessible, timely and free from discrimination and racism.”
Guy Felicella, peer clinical adviser, Vancouver Coastal Health –
“I join the thousands of British Columbians who are heartbroken, frustrated and angry over this unfathomable loss. Every one of these deaths was preventable and represents a failure to act, a failure to learn from mistakes. Change nothing and nothing changes. That’s been the story now for years as the approach throughout this crisis has been to meet policies where they’re at, rather than meeting people who use drugs where they’re at. This approach is killing and continues to kill people. Who has the courage to step forward and make this stop?”
AUGUST 2023
Today’s release of the report on drug toxicity deaths for the month of July 2023 by the BC Coroners Service is a stark reminder that the ongoing toxic-drug crisis continues to have a devastating impact on communities across our province. We hold in our hearts the memories of the 198 people lost in July in British Columbia.
The coroners service said the 1,455 deaths from January to July are the most ever reported in the first seven months of the year since a public health emergency over drug poisoning deaths in the province was declared in 2016.
It puts the province on pace to potentially exceed the 2,383 deaths recorded in 2022. A total of 12,739 people in the province have died from drug overdoses in the seven years.
30 NOVEMBER, 2023
At least 2,039 British Columbians have died from toxic drugs so far this year, according to preliminary figures released by the B.C. Coroners Service on Thursday, 29 November, 2023.
Of those, 189 people died in October, which is about 6.1 deaths a day. Most of the dead were between 30 and 59 years of age, and more than three-quarters were men, according to the coroner.
While the largest number of deaths reported so far has been in urban centres, such as Vancouver, Surrey and Victoria, the health authority with the highest rate of death in 2023 is Northern Health, with 61 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to the coroner.
As in previous months, fentanyl was found in most — 85 per cent — of the illicit drugs tested, often combined with other opioids or stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
Earlier this month, Interior Health issued a drug advisory warning for people who use drugs that some substances being advertised as hydromorphone on the black market contain isotonitazine, a drug the coroner says is as potent as fentanyl.
Unregulated drug toxicity is the leading cause of death in B.C. for people aged 10 to 59, accounting for more deaths than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural disease combined, the coroner said.
Since a public health emergency was declared in 2016, more than 13,000 people have died.
JANUARY 2024:
Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, has released the following statement regarding the BC Coroners Service year-end report on illicit drug toxicity deaths:
“Today, as we reflect on the year behind us, our hearts are heavy with the loss of 2,511 people in British Columbia to toxic drugs. Each of these lives was precious and important, each with their own story, their own dreams and people who love them. They were part of our community, and their loss is felt deeply by us all.
So what is the game plane to stop it?
C. seeks to keep cash seized from Downtown Eastside gang
Courtesy Kim Bolan and the Vancouver Sun.
Kim Bolan is an experienced and award-winning journalist who has covered gangs in British Columbia for the past 40 years. Bolan also investigated the Air India bombing for 25 years until the publication in 2005 of her book, Loss of Faith.
The B.C. government has filed a lawsuit against a group of alleged Downtown Eastside drug traffickers, seeking the forfeiture of more than $150,000 seized from them.
The lawsuit, filed this week by the director of civil forfeiture, names four defendants that it alleges are part of a criminal organization investigated by the Vancouver Police Department.
While the group is not named in the statement of claim, details of the VPD probe outlined in the court document match an investigation into Zone 43 — a gang that originated in Montreal but has taken over the Downtown Eastside in recent years. Zone 43 has connections to B.C.’s notorious Wolfpack gang alliance.
In June, the VPD announced arrests of several Zone 43 gangsters, though they were released pending approval of charges.
The VPD said it had seized firearms, 24 kilos of drugs and $150,000 in cash during searches on May 14 in Vancouver and Burnaby.
The civil forfeiture lawsuit refers to three VPD searches done on the same date in the same cities and alleges Shayne Cozier-Flanagan, Evantee Jevontee Eustace Stoney, Tristin Johnson and Raimon Geday were “participating in the activities of a criminal organization.”
When police searched Stoney’s apartment on the 30th floor at 2388 Madison Ave. in Burnaby, they found $143,910.75 in Canadian currency and $607 in U.S. currency, the lawsuit said.
Officers seized another $5,800 at Cozier-Flanagan’s suite, also on the 30th floor, at 5665 Boundary Rd. in Vancouver, it said.
About $3,417 was seized from Johnson, who also lives in the Madison apartment, when he was arrested in the 300-block of East Hastings. Another $1,920 was found in Geday’s room in a supportive housing building on Kaslo Street, the lawsuit said.
The VPD also seized a 2017 Acura RDX, of which Stoney is the registered owner and which was used “to facilitate the trafficking of controlled substances,” the civil forfeiture director alleged.
The statement of claim notes that both Stoney and Geday have previous trafficking convictions and are banned from possessing firearms.
All four men named in the lawsuit “trafficked in controlled substances in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and the surrounding areas,” the lawsuit alleges.
In the Boundary apartment, police also found a money counter and business cards with the number to call to purchase drugs — known as a ‘dialer’ number.
In the Madison suite, the VPD also found dilaudid pills, oxycodone pills and “score sheets” documenting drug sales, collection and debts.
In Geday’s room, police found crack cocaine, powdered cocaine, crystal methamphetamine and another 275 dilaudid pills, as well as score sheets, bear spray and “miscellaneous drug packaging materials.”
The cash and car should be forfeited to the government because they are proceeds of or were used for unlawful activity, the lawsuit alleged.
The crimes committed include possession for the purpose of trafficking and trafficking, committing offences for the benefit of a criminal organization, conspiracy, money laundering and failure to declare taxable income, it alleged
No statements of defence have yet been filed on behalf of the four men.
Vancouver Police Insp. Phil Heard said at the June news conference that Zone 43 gangsters “pose a very significant risk to the public. They’re involved in a well-documented conflict ongoing in the province of Quebec with a rival group.”
Sources say the gang is still selling drugs in the Downtown Eastside.
AUGUST 2025:
The law protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair
Pete McMartin: I'm tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse.
Published Aug 03, 2025
In 2014, Vancouver Sun reporter Lori Culbert and I wrote a weeklong series of stories identifying the government social welfare programs — and their cost to taxpayers — in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Over 100 programs existed just for housing. Thirty provided health care, 30 offered family services and a miscellany of another 100 services — including a food bank for pets — brought the total to 260 social welfare agencies operating solely within the eight square blocks of the DTES.
Those 260 programs served just 6,500 clients.
Five years earlier, in 2009, Province reporter David Carrigg also did a survey of the programs available in the DTES, and he identified 174 social welfare agencies offering services to about 5,000 clients.
In other words, in the five years between Carrigg’s survey and Culbert’s and mine, not only had the number of people needing help grown but so had the number of agencies serving them.
And the cost to taxpayers?
Over $360 million annually.
That astounding figure — almost a million dollars a day — did little to satisfy the DTES’s voracious appetite for tax dollars. More to the point, it did nothing to eradicate the misery and living conditions of the people who lived there.
Rather than winning the war on poverty — and what a quaint phrase that seems now — governments engineered a truce, with the unstated understanding that if they couldn’t solve the problem or spend their way out of it, they could contain it. Those 260 social service bureaucracies weren’t solutions to an intractable problem; they were barricades. They ghettoized their impoverished clientele by concentrating the services on which they depended.
And let’s be honest: The public was complicit in this, and content for it to continue as long as the misery stayed confined within the borders of the DTES.
And yet here we are. The squalor spreads. It corrodes a once-vibrant downtown core. It infiltrates the suburbs. Daily acts of random violence and vandalism have become normalized, while a cornucopia of drugs — some decriminalized, some tolerated, many deadly — act as accelerants.
In 2016, a year after our survey, provincial health officer Dr. Perry Kendall declared a public health emergency under the Public Health Act due to the alarming rise in opioid-related overdose deaths. Since then, over 16,000 people have died from those opioids. That’s not progress. It’s a plague.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, has worked. Over the decades, the problem has been studied to death — admittedly, a poor choice of words — with consultants and academics and the legions of poverty industry advocates offering up solutions that ultimately fail. They fail because they’re predicated on two simple criteria:
1. Give us more money.
2. Give us more of everything — housing, hospital beds, food banks, drugs, injection sites, counselling or — and this is always implicit — empathy, with a side order of collective guilt.
I’ve seen this in my own newspaper.
In one recent opinion piece, the author laments that it has been the public’s and governments’ norm “to daily bypass our downtrodden, our homeless, our addicted or mentally ill on the street as though they are either invisible or merely equivalent to lampposts” — to which I have to reply: ‘Are you f—ng kidding me?’
The public and its governments have done exactly the opposite and, short of bathing their feet with Christ-like piety, have directed billions of tax dollars not only to ease the suffering of the homeless, the addicted and the mentally ill, but also to make them completely dependent upon those dollars.
Another Sun story — this one again by Culbert — examined the merits of involuntary care through the experiences of three addicts who underwent the process, and while two saw it as beneficial and helped them get clean, the third condemned it as “dehumanizing” and a cause of her PTSD. Though she no longer does drugs, she said that if she relapses she would prefer to take her chances with street drugs that could possibly kill her rather than be readmitted to hospital against her will.
Well, OK, I thought, ‘You’re an adult. Good for you for having the honesty to express that choice, however idiotic I may find it.’
But what I thought was missing in her testimonial was (a) any appreciation of the monumentally expensive efforts governments and the public had tried to make on her behalf, however ill-informed she may have believed those attempts to be, and (b) her failure to recognize the destructive effects that a relapse would have not just on her own health and family, but, more importantly, also on the collective health of the public, who would be asked to offer up yet more money, and deal yet again with her relapse — providing she survives it.
Finally, in The Sun, there was another column, this one by Sam Sullivan, who wrote that, after 52 years, it was time to end the DTES “experiment” and the restrictive housing policies that he believes led to the homelessness and violence bedevilling it.
Funny thing about that.
Between 1993 and 2005, Sullivan was a Vancouver city councillor, and for three years after that, he was mayor. Yet despite the fact that his 15-year tenure at city hall placed him in the midst of that DTES experiment, if not close to its helm, it is only now, 20 years later, that he publicly declares the experiment to be a failure, and — as far as I could tell from reading his opinion piece — without taking any responsibility for it.
I will refrain here, in my own column, from claiming to speak for the public or with any inkling of what popular sentiment might be.
But this is how I feel:
My patience is Exhausted.
I’m tired of the endless, self-regenerating calls for more studies and more funding when all I see is a colossal waste of money and effort leading to no improvement. I’m tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse. I’m tired of civil rights that supersede my own, and treat the right to defecate in the streets with greater regard than my right to be offended by it.
Finally, I’m tired of a social welfare system that not only encourages dependency, but refuses, out of moral timidity, to also admit its complicity in it, and which shies away from asking hard questions about personal responsibility and the consideration of measures more draconian than safe injection sites — measures like a return to complete drug criminalization, a higher threshold of minimum sentences for trafficking, the establishment of rehabilitation centres or work camps exclusively in wilderness areas far from the temptations of cities, the discontinuation of any efforts that facilitate drug use, and yes, the robust expansion of an involuntary care system.
It’s also my opinion that none of these measures, given the current legal climate, will become reality, at least for the foreseeable future. Under our Constitution and the Criminal Code, the law, in its majestic equality, protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair, and, as so often happens, bring about their own deaths.
How enlightened we have become! What progress we have made! We’ve reached that point when now sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing one’s daily bread are no longer evidence of a system’s failure.
They are the system.
Ps
I am taking a break for two weeks and will be visiting Sydney, which is the best city on the Earth! So excited and can not wait to board the plane. See you all soon!
Vintage photo card.
Today, 25 August 2026, Dolly Parton (1946-2026) passed away at the age of 80. Her family announced this in a video message on Instagram. Parton was one of the most famous and decidedly likeable country singers America has ever produced. Famous for her high-pitched voice and enormous bosom, Dolly was not only a singer but also an actress, businesswoman and philanthropist. The cause of death has not been disclosed.
Dolly Rebecca Parton was born in 1946 in a simple wooden cabin on the bank of the Little Pigeon River in Tennessee. Her father grew tobacco, her mother took care of the twelve children, of whom Dolly was number four. Thanks to her father Lee, she became a businesswoman; thanks to her mother Avie, a musician, she always said. As an 8-year-old girl, she was already a local country starlet, performing on local radio and regional TV stations, and at just 13 she released her first regionally distributed record: 'Puppy Love' (1959). When she earned her high school diploma in 1964, she left the next day literally for the country music capital, Nashville, where she began singing on the streets in the hope of being discovered. She was 18. By then, she had already been writing her own songs for ten years. Her professional career in the music industry began as a songwriter with evident talent, employed by Combine Publishing, a company that supplied country hits to artists such as Bill Phillips, Hank Williams Jr., and Kitty Wells. They sang Dolly R. Parton's first country hits on the country charts. In 1965, Monument Records signed the then 19-year-old Parton with the plan to turn her into a teen singer in the bubblegum pop category. But when the label heard the hits she had composed for others, she was allowed to try her hand at the country genre. Even before her breakthrough, she married her beloved Carl Dean, who ran a paving company, in 1966, just 20 years old. They would remain inseparable until Dean passed away at the age of 82 in March 2025, after 59 years of marriage. Throughout those years, he managed to stay almost entirely out of the media as Dolly’s husband. The couple themselves remained childless, but five of Dolly’s younger siblings moved in with them and were raised by Carl and Dolly. Meanwhile, the flow began of – eventually – more than two hundred singles and a staggering fifty albums, if you disregard collaborations, live albums, soundtracks, and the nearly 250 compilations. Parton would eventually sell more than one hundred million records.
In her early years, Dolly Parton formed a successful duo with entertainer Porter Wagoner, who also secured her a regular spot on his TV show, The Porter Wagoner Show (even before she had a hit of her own). Several duets with Wagoner were successful singles, but Dolly’s first self-written hit single as a solo artist was 'Just Because I’m a Woman' (1967), a song with lyrics daring for the Nashville of that time regarding a woman’s sexual past and what her lover feels entitled to think of it: ‘My mistakes are no worse than yours, just because I’m a woman.’ Thus, as a fledgling young singer, she became a feminist voice in the lion’s den: country, a bastion of conservative men. They sang the truth to Dolly with a smile: ‘If you don’t love me, leave me – and don’t let it trouble your mind.’ 'The Bridge' (1968) is chilling, sung from the perspective of a young woman who, pregnant and abandoned, sees only one way out. In the songs of the 22-year-old Parton, women’s suffering was sometimes sung about that went far beyond a few tears of heartbreak. She established her name with it and scored such massive country hits that no traditionally minded male record executive could ignore her any longer: 'Joshua' (1971) was her first number one on the country charts. In 1973, she wrote the two songs that time has designated as her most famous, although the chart rankings at the time do not reflect that: 'Jolene' and 'I Will Always Love You'. Both singles reached number one on the country chart, but initially, only 'Jolene' became a modest hit on the Billboard Hot 100. In the following years, 'Jolene' would become a worldwide pop classic on its own merits. Whitney Houston’s cover version (1992) for the film The Bodyguard played a role in the eventual success of 'I Will Always Love You'. Years later, a cassette tape from Parton’s archive proved that she wrote the two songs on the same evening. That is not how she remembered it. ‘A lucrative evening, in hindsight,’ she said.
Dolly Parton had her big breakthrough in 1980 when she landed her first major film role and sang the title song to the top of the global charts: 9 to 5 (Colin Higgins, 1980). The lighthearted feminist comedy was tailor-made for Parton: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and herself as three women who take over the power of their sexist boss at the office. She earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. With that, Parton truly became mainstream. More films followed. She starred with Burt Reynolds in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Colin Higgins, 1982), with Sylvester Stallone in Rhinestone (Bob Clark, 1984), with Sally Field in Steel Magnolias (Herbert Ross, 1989), Straight Talk (Barnet Kellman, 1992), and with Queen Latifah in Joyful Noise (Todd Graff, 2012). The singer was also known for her entrepreneurship. Among other things, she was the director of media company Dolly Parton Enterprises. Her production company turned the musicals '9 to 5' (2008) and, more recently, 'Dolly' (2024) into box office successes. Through The Dollywood Company, she ran the Dollywood theme park, which attracts over three million visitors annually, a Dolly water park, and a Dolly-themed hotel. In 2025, she announced the opening of her own museum: Dolly’s Life of Many Colors Museum. However, most importantly, Dolly Parton was an icon of country music and one of the most successful pop women of all time. She had another huge hit with her duet with country star Kenny Rogers, 'Islands in the Stream'. With her collaborations with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt ('Trio' in 1987 and 'Trio II' in 1999), she won over two generations of serious Americana enthusiasts once again, just as she did with a series of no-frills bluegrass albums, starting with 'The Grass Is Blue' (1999). In life, she was already an American national heritage, a woman who so gracefully infused her feminism with juicy self-mockery that all contradictions instantly evaporated. Conservatives saw in her an ‘all-American girl,’ a cheerful country girl from a poor farming family in Tennessee, who embodied both the national country ideal and the American Dream: rising from abject poverty to stratospheric wealth and fame through her own efforts. Progressives saw in her, besides Dolly, the incorrigibly optimistic philanthropist who, as kitsch queen and mother of the global queer community, could so delightfully poke fun at herself. Recently, the singer had been struggling with health issues, forcing her to cancel shows and take things easier. Despite her age and health problems, Parton remained true to her craft and her audience. Her husband, Carl Dean, with whom she was married for nearly sixty years, passed away in March of last year at the age of 82. "The love we felt for each other for more than sixty years cannot be expressed in words," she said after his passing. The farewell of Dolly Parton will take place in private.
Sources: Menno Pot (De Volkskrant - Dutch), Nu.nl (Dutch), Wikipedia and IMDb.
And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Almscliff Crag is a Millstone Grit outcrop at the top of a small hill near the village of North Rigton, between Leeds and Harrogate in North Yorkshire, England. The crag was formed due to the softer adjacent strata of shale and mudstone eroding at a faster rate than the hard wearing millstone.
The crag is one of the best climbing locations in the area and was featured in the first rock climbing guide to the Peak District, 'Some Gritstone Climbs', published in 1913 and written by John Laycock. Some classic climbs include Parsons' Chimney Black Wall Eliminate, and Wall of Horrors.
Almscliffe Crag has proved popular as a filming location for Yorkshire Television. From 1998 to 2005 it appeared in the opening titles of the ITV soap Emmerdale.
We'd walked up through the fields from North Rigton where we were staying. The ever lengthening rays of the golden hour sun were upon us. When we reached the top the views across the Yorkshire countryside were something special. If I could have bottled this moment I'd be a rich man.
7 exposure, tripod mounted hdr +3 to -3 with an additional exposure created off the -3. pp in adobe camera raw, photomatix, & photoshop with various topaz plugins. Nikon D700 with 24-70 f2.8,@ 24mm, f9, ISO 200, average exposure 1/30 sec.
Best viewed Large!
One of the most dangerous times in the life of a fox is when he goes off on his own. Life can be so cruel and hard, I hope life treated you well Big Ears. You will live in my heart forever.
www.thephotoargus.com/amazing-photos-of-foxes-by-mary-lee...
Start censorship in one place and it has a terrible habit of drifting into other areas. I pity the organizations who try to bring it through. It makes me think they won't last too long.
Hello there. Relevant comments welcome but please do NOT post any link(s). All my images are my own original work, under my copyright, with all rights reserved. You need my permission to use any image for ANY purpose.
Copyright infringement is theft.
As summer draws near I am tempted to shave because I still feel the shame of going against societal standards of beauty. Instead I did a beauty shoot where I embraced myself, my hairy pits, and decided I am beautiful how I am. If you don't think so, mind you own damn business.
The fate of this camera is interesting in its own way. After the Second World War, it was taken out as a trophy from Germany. The son of the person who used it decided to get rid of it, as from a souvenir. Despite the long years of storage Optician in excellent condition and the shutter fulfills all the exposures. After cleaning the case, polishing the pinched film and restoring the bolts from the back cover, it can again bring joy to its new owner. By the number is set the year of production -1933-36, but having opened today for cleaning the mine, I discovered an engraving on the mirror- 19/12/34 ...
Listenwave Photography (60.00N, 30.00E)
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What does not matter ?😜
1.What to photograph - Camera. 📷📱
2.Where to photograph - Place. 🌋
3.When to photograph -Time.🌅🌄
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What is important ?😎
1.Study and tune the camera. 👨🔧
2.Learn where you are going.
3.Study the lighting at different times.🌞🌚
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What's the secret?♀️
1.Feel the instrument, hear what it says. 🙏
2.Feel the atmosphere of the place, catch the wave. 🌊
3.Switch on .Catch the moment!⚡️
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What to photograph?
✨Finding the observer, comes awareness!✨
youtu.be/-jzwzkvMag8
My own rendition of the new equipment in Kancolle. Though I used a Type 97 Chi-Ha instead of Type 89 I-Go and 14m Daihatsu instead of 17m Toku Daihatsu. All 1/700 scale.
kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/Daihatsu_Landing_Craft_%28Type_89...
My own eyes are no more than scouts on a preliminary search, for the camera's eye may entirely change my idea.
~ Edward Weston, Pictures on a page : photo-journalism, graphics and picture editing by Harold Evans , Page: 75
P.S. Non-HDR-processed / Non-GND-filtered ● Black Card Technique 黑卡作品
Former Phillips 66 Gas Station located at 202 West Main St. in Jones,OK. The building is currently occupied by an independently owned leather shop operating under the name Longhorn Leather Company.
✧ Featuring:
Clover and ERSCH For Wizarding Faire
★ Clover - Twiggort
→ Introducing Twiggort! Your own sentient, silly little twig pet. These guys are a bit mischievous, but when bonded to you, are comfortable hanging out on your hand. This is an animesh pet attachment for your hand, and will soak in all of your good vibes as you roam around SL!
→ Event Below
★ ERSCH - Demelza Suit
→ Skirt/Top/Decor
→ Hud COntrol Massive Color Options
→ Normal ERSCH Sizing and extras
→ @ Wizarding Faire
☆☆Designer's LM's + Media☆☆
★Clover (Updated) Mainstore: SURL
Clover Flickr: FlickR
Clover Marketplace: Market
Clover Facebook: FaceBook
★[E]: || ERSCH
Store:
MP:
Flickr: