Vancouver is going to get its first safe smoking site for crack cocaine users since 2003.
A support group, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), is planning to convert its office in the Downtown Eastside into a place where crack cocaine users can smoke in a supervised space.
The facility would be modeled on legal [...]
It is well-known that British Columbia is home to many Asian Canadians. More than 27,000 people (PDF) immigrated to the province in 2007, with less than 600 settling outside Vancouver.
A much less known fact is that this community is one of the most vulnerable ethnic groups to contract HIV and AIDS, according to the BC [...]
The H1N1 flu vaccine has arrived. Now what?
The dilemma is most acute for people like Lauren Arens.
“Just when I decide that I think I’m going to get [the vaccine],” she said, “I’ll read another article or some new information that makes me think twice.”
As a 34-year-old pregnant woman, with a history of pneumonia, she is [...]
The European chafer beetle is the influenza of pest infestation – threatening, infectious, and inconvenient.
Flashy tin foil, chicken wire, and fake owls are popping up in response to resident’s anger, confusion, and annoyance about the pests, the crows eating them, and the cities’ limited options and information about the chafer invasion.
“The city does not know [...]
In the green grass, just off Victoria Drive, stands an apple red shed. It represents a full year’s work for the Cedar Cottage gardeners.
Unlike so many community gardens in Vancouver, this one is here to stay.
The City of Vancouver is enthusiastic about community gardening. The City’s 2010 Challenge calls for 2,010 new shared gardens on [...]
Every evening between 10 p.m. and midnight, 23-year-old Kaleigh Coolsaet takes her two pugs for a walk near Kitsilano Beach. Despite safety concerns she has to go out alone during night-time hours because she lives alone.
Coolsaet’s apartment is near the site of a violent sexual assault that took place at Hastings Mill Park near Point [...]
Tim Horton’s is an odd place for an anthropologist to find a job. But when Veronica Grigio arrived in Vancouver just over a month ago, that was her best hope.
Grigio interviewed at clothing stores and for food service positions, but she didn’t mention the B.A. she completed in Rome in her resume. She thought employers [...]
Curtis Ballard rushed to fasten plywood between parking curbs as rain cascaded down Wesbrook Mall. The water runoff streamed toward TRIUMF, the laboratory for particle and nuclear physics at UBC.
“The water outside eventually rose to our knees,” said Ballard, TRIUMF’s operations manager, who worked with personnel from the lab and the physical plant to clear [...]
The head of schools in Vancouver says she’s concerned that children are getting a one-sided view of the forthcoming 2010 Winter Olympics.
“Our kids are not a rent-a-crowd to come out and create buzz and excitement during school hours,” said Patti Bacchus, Vision Vancouver trustee and chair of the Vancouver School Board.
“There is the competition and [...]
Preparations for the 2010 Winter Olympics have had an unexpected effect on a vulnerable group in Vancouver.
Government-assisted refugees from volatile countries such as Somalia, Sudan and the Congo have not escaped the influence the Olympics have had on the city, even though they are not familiar with the Games.
Officials rushed refugees through the system so [...]
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