[goo3]

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Gues...438/story.html

Do we have a homeless problem in Vancouver? Yes.

Is it as bad as some would have us think? No.

Here is a classic example of distortion;

The Pivot Legal Society, which has a $720,000 budget, plans to embarrass Vancouver by handing out red tents for the "homeless" to pitch in public places.

The Salvation Army at the same time says the beds at its Harbour Light Centre on Cordova street are not being used, adding there is enough shelter space for the homeless in Vancouver for those who want it.

Wonder what the legal eagles at Pivot will do if one of these tents go up in flames because of an errant occupant's cigarette?

Then there is the assertion by the Poverty Olympics Organizing Committee -- "Unless we do something about this shameful situation, visitors in 2010 will be treated to a city with more homeless people than athletes competing in the Games!"

There is of course no substantiation to this startling statement.

The number of people currently counted sleeping outside ranges from 350 to 1,000, depending on who you talk to.

And that includes people like Nathan George, quoted as saying he just doesn't like sleeping in shelters or in the same room with 40 or more other people.

None of the spokespeople who have been hogging the headlines with their claims about growing homelessness spends any time talking to the visiting press about the estimated $1 million a day pumped into the 175 organizations in the Downtown Eastside to look after the needy.

But the folks in this poverty industry who are painting Vancouver as a ghetto do no one, especially the people they are supposed to serve, any favours with their distorted rhetoric.

They are a part of the problem because no solution is good enough for them.