The human form in an image and various ways it can be photographed has subsequently drawn me to street photography. These photographs reflect real life situations, with an emphasis on social issues, in a raw & candid way. I wanted the images to be memorable and confronting, in that a fleeting moment of another human beings life that is entirely divergent to the viewers is captured to expose the harsh social issues of society. It gave me a new appreciation of previously overlooked aspects of other people’s daily lives.
Vancouver, Canada has a population of 1,837,969 (as per current WPR statistics) and is a tourist mecca. But, most tourists are unaware that approximately 12,000 of this population are injection drug users, with more than one-third living in the Downtown Eastside, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Canada.
Despite being squeezed between popular tourist destinations, such as Downtown, Chinatown and Gastown, Hastings Street is infamous for being the skid row area of Vancouver. In reality, Hastings Street runs nearly twelve kilometres through two cities, but to locals less than two kilometres is considered "skid rowâ€.
Hastings Street and the Downtown Eastside is inhabited by a concentrated community of drug addicts, the poor, prostitutes, the homeless and those from de-institutionalized mental hospitals . The area is not hard to miss, the stench of urine is more of an indicator than any street sign. The drugs of choice are heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine. The area is also considered to be the centre of an "injection drug epidemicâ€, and all just three blocks from Vancouver's central business district, the most expensive commercial real estate in the city
In view of this, the area is home to Insite, the only legal intravenous drug safe injection site in North America, which is part of a harm reduction policy aimed at helping the area's drug addicted residents. The clinic does not supply drugs, its focus is to provide addiction treatment, mental health assistance, and first aid in the event of an overdose or wound. But, despite this facility users can be seen crowding the streets, gutters and alleyways shooting up in broad daylight, oblivious to those who are watching or passing by, all they are focused on is the rush their illicit drug of choice offers. Next to them are shopping carts and black refuse sacks hold their worldly possessions, a constant reminder of what they possess and do not possess.
To obtain cash to feed their habit occupants of Hastings Street can be seen selling items on the street , obtained from questionable sources. Anything from fresh chicken fillets, lamps, electrical items, DVD’s to a Marilyn Monroe handbag are scattered randomly across the pavement and offered to the many passers-by which only adds to the street chaos.
It appears that the police have given up the street and a Mayor who vowed to “to end homelessness†in 2008, statement fell on deaf ears. The Downtown Eastside is like looking through a window into another world, completely alien to you or me, but to its inhabitants it is home, an area that has been shaped into a place tailor-made to house a permanent population of addicts and those less fortunate who are fighting to survive any way they can. The graffiti I read on a wall in the Downtown Eastside stated "Remember it could always be worse, be grateful……..t could all be gone in a blink of an eye" which is not only philosophical, but also so very true.