Down Town East Side, Vancouver

I had the experience of visiting the Down Town East Side on the 23rd of June. Of all the things I had heard, it was nothing like I expected. Sure there are prostitutes and drug users but I expected filthy people who would pick a fight with anyone, a narrow, nasty, dirty road; basically what you would expect of some severely run down location. This really was not the case. The people were really friendly and would come up to us (there were 3 of us there obtaining footage for a documentary) and ask what we were doing. When they were told this, they were more than helpful in telling us how it was down there. We traversed an alley, after "Elia" had asked the 'residents' if it was ok. Those in the alley were either shooting up, smoking crack or whatever they smoked or sleeping. Many dumpsters (slip bins) had been removed from the area for a couple of reasons: One) businesses where given bags to recycle their waste and a truck would come around every few hours and dispose of these bags, and two) if there was any usable 'garbage' it was a lot safer for the street people to access this instead of crawling inside the bins.
Folks down here carry around their pipes or their rigs in their hands most of the time, popping into door ways to smoke up or shoot up. You have a bad fix or too much and you end up "tweeking" out; your body moves all by itself, and you end up with your arms and legs going in all different directions. You are still able to talk and make sense though, but your muscles get all mixed up. If you haven't seen this before, it kinda freaks you out. There are people there that do not like you filming them even though you say its going 'nowhere'. They are afraid that there will be repercussions if it happens to go public, which is quite true. We were very surprised that the media was not down there as well as us. 97% of those we saw were clean and respectable. The clothes they wore didn't necesarily match or were fashionable but tidy. One native gal I talked with in Oppenheimer park had a very sad story to tell, about being a triplet and that her brother (she has a 'twin' sister now) and father committed suicide, that her mum had problems and sort of abandoned the kids. She was trying to get back into communication with them but it was not working. I am not sure what her particular brand of narcotic was, but unless you knew that that was her 'home', you would think she was just like you and I. A lot of the girls on the street would just love someone to come by and say hi, and ask how things are going and maybe give them a cup of coffee or a sandwich.
As I say, this trip was an eye opener, both good and bad, and I would love to make another trip down there.