No, this isn’t a post about how I haven’t gotten a job yet. This is about the massive problem of street people in Vancouver. While walking down Denman Street the other day I actually saw a homeless person with the above sign. Young and old, there are just so many people begging on the street here. Its always been a bit of problem in Vancouver (you’re a lot less likely to freeze to death on the streets in Vancouver than anywhere else in Canada), but now its gotten so much worse. And to top it all off, our evil, criminal, fuckwit of a Premier is bragging about the 3.1 Billion dollar surplus for the province this year. Sure, if you get rid of all the teachers and nurses, kick all the mentally ill out of the hospitals, and completely descimate the welfare system, you can save a lot of bucks.

The politicians claim the street people can get a job if they want to. But seriously, who’s gonna hire someone with no fixed address, no phone, no decent clothes, and no education. And to top it all off, many of the homeless are seriously mentally ill. Though Vancouver has a very low umemployment rate at the moment, it seems employers are asking for more and more in their job adverts. Pay rates aren’t great, and the cost of living in Vancouver has increased as we move toward the Olympics in 2010. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of plan by either the city, provincial or federal government to get these people out of the vicious cycle of homelessness. It makes me so sad.