Homelessness in the Downtown Eastside

Gilles Cyrenne is the president of the Carnegie Community Centre Association and has been involved at the center for over a decade as part of the Thursday Writer's Collective and helping out in the learning resource centre.  

He explains the Carnegie Community Centre Association's relationship with the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) and the field house at Oppenheimer Park. He connects the need for social housing and cooperative housing, access to green space and parks, and how this has created conflict between the homeless/activist community and the homeowners and businesses of the Downtown East Side. Oppenheimer park and Crab Park are the backyards of the the Oppenheimer district in the DTES. The parks are known as gathering places for Indigenous peoples,  

The war on drugs is a contributor to the addiction problem -- Gilles argues that using resources to help ensure a  safe supply of drugs would be a better use of taxpayer money than the punitive policing system that feeds  the system of dysfunction.

Carnegie Centre and CCAP programs continue to be low barrier epicenters for residents of the DTES. The satellite program at the Oppenheimer field house is a vital component for some individuals who live on the streets in  active addiction and compromised mental health. Some barriers still  keep some folks from accessing the Carnegie Centre’s  safe space, it's services and other shelters and services.

Gilles shares with us how creative writing and poetry have filled his life with positive coping techniques for overcoming addiction and depression. He invites viewers to drop by the Thursday Writers Collective on the 3rd floor of the Carnegie Center -- once the COVID-19 cloud has lifted, hopefully the group will meet again. 

We continue to follow and reflect on these residents of the Downtown East Side as they remain unhoused and articulate. As a core group of organized Indigenous camping activists were evicted from Oppenheimer Park in May 2020, Full figure Media follows their  move to Crab Park and then to Strathcona Park . The resilient campers have created a safe space and community that shares food shelter and a sacred fire stay tuned as we all try to figure it out, from harm reduction to housing, Full Figure Media is on the beat and reading the street.

-Written by Molly Caron