'It's a frenzy out there'
Welfare Wednesday becomes Mardi Gras every month as drug dealers cash in [in Vancouver]
By Cheryl Chan, January 18, 2010
On "Welfare Wednesday" last month, Jodi Janzen had her budget all figured out.
After she received her $1,100 income-assistance cheque, she purchased the necessities first -- food, toiletries, cat food -- before buying her cocaine and heroin.
"I don't spend it all quickly," says the 42-year-old as she stands on the corner of Main and Hastings in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
"I try to make it last. I make sure I buy something so I have something to show for it, then I support my habit after that."
A former bank employee, Janzen succumbed to a drug habit five years ago and landed in the Downtown Eastside.
But some semblance of fiscal responsibility remains: She still has $400 in her bank account, unlike some people she knows whose balances are zero.
For the rest of the month, she says, they'll have to hustle.
But that's not hard.
"You can't starve in Vancouver," says Janzen. "Society enables you to spend all your money in a day and still eat, sleep and get clothes for free for 29 days."
"It's not a good thing," she adds, after a pause. "They enable it."
One Wednesday every month, on the day that government welfare and disability cheques are issued, taxpayers bankroll "Mardi Gras," the biggest party in the Downtown Eastside. It starts in the dead of night, shortly after midnight, when people begin lining up at ATMs to withdraw money en masse.
For the rest of the day and into the night, Hastings Street comes alive. The hot spots are Pigeon Park Savings, the wheeling-and-dealing block outside United We Can and the sidewalk outside Carnegie Community Centre, where drug deals are done under the noses of security staff.
"It's a frenzy out there," says Philip Goad, who mans the reception desk at the centre. "If you come out at noon, that's all you can see."
By nightfall, two figures are slumped in a doorway behind the historic building. Three men rummage frantically in a Dumpster. In the alley, a woman lights a crack pipe.
In front of the Carnegie, a group of carollers, some toting babies, serenade the neighbourhood, their bright red scarves a beacon in the darkness.
Across the street, a scuffle breaks out. Two people wrestle each other to the ground, perilously close to the road.
Outside Insite, the supervised drug-injection site, the slight figure of a woman covered in a blanket sprawls on the sidewalk, her white sneakers poking out.
"She's just sleeping," says a man crouching beside her.
Nearby, a police car patrols a deserted alley. It starts to rain.
-
In November 2009, more than 14,300 residents and families in the Downtown Eastside received welfare or disability payments -- roughly five per cent of B.C.'s total recipients.
Of these, 2,045 are designated persons with persistent multiple barriers, meaning they are grappling with long-term hurdles to employment and are exempt from looking for a job.
Welfare rates for a single person range from $235 to $283 per month, while a person on disability receives $531.42. They get a separate shelter allowance of $375.
For people who rely on the monthly cheques as their main source of income, Welfare Wednesday is a bright spot. Many use the cash as it was meant to be used -- for food, clothing and shelter -- but a lot don't.
For them, the party doesn't last long, and the anticipation shifts back to desperation in a matter of days, even hours.
It's a scenario Don MacGillivray, who works at the Salvation Army Harbour Light detox centre, sees month after month.
"People may have the best of intentions," says MacGillivray. "They plan to buy groceries, pay bills, pay child support, but the truth is, if they're using drugs, that money is usually gone in a day. Maybe two to three days."
He's seen entrepreneurial types use their money to buy drugs with the idea of selling them and turning a profit, but end up snorting or injecting them away.
"By Wednesday night, there are going to be some people who know they've blown it."
-
In the days leading up to Welfare Wednesday, Downtown Eastside streets take on a fretful edge.
"A lot of people, they're very anxious for their money," says Lia Gudmundson, who's at the Health Contact Centre which, on the Tuesday before "pay day," was swamped with the sick -- and dope-sick walk-ins.
Health workers keep an eye on the squalid alley outside, where violence often breaks out. The next day, they keep looking: overdoses are more likely on Welfare Wednesday.
At the emergency room at St. Paul's Hospital, visits from mental-health patients spike on the Wednesday and Thursday, although not necessarily just on cheque-issue day, says Bonita Elliott, program manager of ER services.
Sometimes, patients discharge themselves or go on "walkabouts" to pick up their cheques, only to return in a more compromised state.
"From their perception, they might think that if they don't pick it up, they lose it, or someone will take it from them," says Elliott.
Walking along the Hastings strip last month, retired Vancouver cop Ken Frail said Mardi Gras today is a toned-down version of what it was
"You can't starve in Vancouver. Society enables you to spend all your money in a day and still eat, sleep and get clothes for free for 29 days."
-- Downtown Eastside resident Jodi Janzen
a decade ago.
"It used to be a zoo," says Frail, a 12-year veteran of the Downtown Eastside. "None of us wanted to work on that day because it was such a gong show."
Efforts to decrease the destructive party atmosphere on the streets have helped, but there's still a long way to go.
Critics say dispensing welfare funds without sufficient checks and balances or supports for drug-addicted or mentally-ill recipients incapable of handling their finances is irresponsible -- and costly.
Says Frail: "If you don't control the money well at this end, it'll have huge costs at the other end."
MacGillivray agrees. "If someone blows their cheque in
© Copyright (c) The Province
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment