The West End of Vancouver isn’t huge at all.  It’s a neighbourhood consisting of a handful of blocks in a grid, the furthest area west of downtown you can go, mere steps from English Bay and Stanley Park.  It is not to be confused with West Vancouver or the West Side of Vancouver, which I don’t really have the patience or time to describe, so just click on that link and your geographical consternation should be alleviated somewhat.  

The West End can generally be described as running from Burrard to Chilco (east to west) and Beach Avenue to Alberni (south to north), although some local pedants might argue with me on the minutiae of which streets are technically “downtown, not the West End,” or which might warrant inclusion in the West End bubble.  

I call it a bubble because it really seems to be that way for many of us who live here.  Leaving the West End for any reason, particularly if you’re one of the levelheaded residents who don’t needlessly own a car, seems like a Herculean task.  As a pedestrian and transit-user, I find it a chore and a groaning effort to leave this bubble, seeing that mostly everything is here, and walking–or cycling, of course, if you don’t mind the hills–is really the greatest way to get around.

Davie Street is a long major road running from Denman to Pacific; pretty much from one waterfront (False Creek) to the next (English Bay).  Starting from the intersection of Burrard and Davie and heading west to Jervis, however, we have three little streets called Davie Village, which is where I’ve lived for nearly a decade now.  It’s somewhat well-known for being crammed with more sushi joints in a mere few blocks than probably anywhere else in the city (all of them very nice, by the way, although I am far more partial to the unbeatable Tom Sushi than the others).  It also has a reputation for being laid-back, gay-friendly, eclectic, and fun.

Perhaps it was that way once.  Perhaps.  I lived in this area when I was a kid way back in 1996 for about half a year, but was far too bothered by my ludicrous, crystal meth-smoking club-kid roommates to care much about my surroundings.  In no time at all, I packed up and moved to the east side of the city–to Commercial Drive, which was a wonderfully-cheap bohemian area back then–where I was much more at home with three-dollar contraband American Marlboro Reds from the local Chinese grocery (look, we all smoked in the 90s), and cheap samosas from the timeless Sweet Cherubim.  I then lived in a few more places, including overseas, and also spent nearly two years in the late 90s living on Barclay and Cardero here in the West End, one of many leafy, tree-lined, gorgeous streets in this lovely part of the city.  

Having moved back here to Davie Village at the beginning of 2015, however, there is absolutely no overlooking or being distracted from the steady, distressing decline in the quality of the neighbourhood, which is evident in the concurrent diminishment of the residents’ mental health, behaviour, social graces, and energy levels in general.

It’s considered a prominent Canadian gaybourhood (for those needing some help, that’s a portmanteau of “gay” and “neighbourhood”), but let’s not forget what the word gay used to mean before its common, modern definition of homosexual: gay used to mean lighthearted, happy, and carefree, as in, She was in a very gay mood, which was evident by her grinning face and constant laughter.  

Lighthearted.  Happy.  Carefree.  Whatever antonyms exist for those three words, they are the ones I would use to describe Davie Village. And immediately a few spring to mind: 

Miserable.  Depressed.  Anxious.  Nihilistic. Paranoid.  Aloof.  Apocalyptic. Despairing.  Indifferent.

For my last piece about Brutalism in Vancouver, I was on foot for an entire day, spending a few hours on the West Side taking photographs and exploring.  The sidewalks were crowded and full of people, which is something I normally have difficulty with, but I couldn’t quite believe the change in overall energy just across the bridge from where I live: a few perfect strangers actually smiled at me.  Someone biking past me waved his hand and greeted me (Do I know him?  Who is he? What does he want? Have I slept with him?).  A few fellas checked me out, which–come on–never happens to me in Davie Village since it’s largely populated by gay men, so I was easily pleased. Couples and groups of people were chatting, lively, seemingly happy to breathe in the clean summer air, even happier with their iced coffees or takeaway sandwiches.  City Hall itself had several people hanging out in its stunning gardens, eyes closed and taking in the sun, or grinning and carefully examining the carefully-maintained flora and fauna with calm admiration.

Where was I?  Was this the city I thought I loved to hate?     

No.  I keep mistaking Davie Village for the entirety of Vancouver.    

One of a few bridges that will lead you out of dysfunction: Burrard Bridge taken from Granville Bridge.

The negative energy and attitudes plaguing this area are nearly palpable; I don’t think I have ever, ever in my life felt more uneasy and unhappy about leaving my apartment and shambling through my neighbourhood than I have in the last few years.  The worst part of it all?  Thanks to the outrageous cost of living and rentals straight across the country–no matter if you’re in a big city or small town–I am essentially unable to leave.  I could have, and should have moved years ago, when I truly sensed how things here were spiraling into a very unhealthy place of unease and discomfort. 

Now?  Because of BC rental laws and how I moved here before everything quadrupled in price, I pay less than what I would pay for something in Port Coquitlam, or even Chilliwack (were something even available in either of those places).  In one way, that’s very, very nice.  In another way, it just means that I have no options.  I would love to not fret and whinge and complain so much about this place and quickly pack up and go, but I can’t.  Wanna know why?  There is nowhere to go.

Even weirder is that it isn’t the entire West End that is this way: it’s just Davie Village, this embarrassingly antisocial stretch of a few blocks that seems to pollute and bring down an otherwise idyllic part of the city which thousands of people spend good money to visit every year.  I think I know what’s happened here, and it is terminally bizarre, but even just strolling away from Davie Street towards Robson, or down the hill to Denman, immediately straightens your defeated posture, fills your lungs with crisp air, floods your mind with clarity and calm, and settles your agonized soul with the sense that things might just not be as insane as you think.  They just might not.

*   *   *   *   *

COVID did nobody any favours.  We all know this, and my perspective and take on its devastating economic, social, and health impacts would be rudimentary at best; let’s just say that the furor, impositions, and restrictions surrounding COVID had a far more long-lasting, detrimental impact on human beings around the world than the virus itself.  I’m not sure if anyone has begun analyzing and quantifying the collateral damage, but I would be horrified to see and read about the statistics and realities of the fallout.  On a micro level, I saw how sucker-punched and crippled so many people were around me.  On a macro level, I can’t even conceive of the suffering and devastation that so many withstood, and much of which was irreversible and incurable.

As soon as COVID was declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, Davie Village seemed to absorb a great deal of the civic decision-making in Vancouver.  Once the downtown eastside (DTES, for simplicity) tent village was dismantled, its residents were placed into hotels a few blocks down from the neighbourhood, as well as a youth hostel exactly one block down from Bute and Davie, which is the nerve centre of the Village, and which is located half a block from my own apartment.  The consequences of this began to devastate the area almost straightaway.  Despite having free lodgings, the displaced people unofficially declared Davie Village their playground, and they were exempt from the severe public policies dictating everyone else’s day-to-day existence.  

As a majority of the tent city dwellers were heavily addicted to street drugs (meth, fentanyl), they were not not only forcibly yanked from the only sense of community they understood, but they were not monitored, given restrictions or rules, offered treatment, or faced with any repercussions for their behaviour.  They were set free to do as they pleased with impunity, something the majority of us aren’t given the freedom to do without police or public intervention.  Immediately, several of them set themselves up in Jim Deva Plaza (which is at the above-mentioned nerve centre of Bute and Davie), their collected debris strewn everywhere, openly defecating and urinating beneath awnings, overdosing daily, needles and glass pipes collecting in little piles here and there, a few of them wantonly smashing the windows of nearby shops and threatening owners who dared ask them to move.  

Jim Deva Plaza, 2020. 

If I did leave my apartment to stand in line at the supermarket or liquor store–with lockdown and this surreal set of global circumstances, many of us had little to do except increase our alcohol intake–I had to pass through this plaza, which is the only direct route to Davie Street from my place.  Every single day was an exercise in holding in my dismay, my shock, my repulsion at how things were devolving into third-world standards in this once-vibrant, happy neighbourhood; how magnified the enormous issues plaguing Vancouver became once they moved into this area.

2020 also then became The Year of the Machete, where many of these individuals began amassing and collecting weapons for personal use, and there were many, many reports of strung-out, terrifying, angry, usually-screaming men swinging around machetes while just walking down the street (Don’t believe me?  Just Google machete crimes vancouver 2020).  This was no longer contained to the DTES; it had now become commonplace downtown, and in a more concentrated way, the West End.  Arrests were never made.  If they were, thanks to B.C.s preposterous catch-and-release system, the offenders were released again and again.

The DTES advocates who make a terrific amount of cash profiting off its residents’ drug addiction and mental illness believe that only compassion is what is needed for these individuals, and perhaps in some cases it’s warranted, but not when outright violent offenders are threatening the safety and security of civilians.  There is a massive difference between severe drug addiction (which is a medical problem), someone with mental-health challenges (which is not a choice and requires treatment), and a wanton violent criminal.  Let’s put it this way: if I were to plonk myself down in a public space, inhale a vast quantity of drugs in front of passers-by, start staggering down the street waving around a sharp object, kick in a storefront window, and then randomly punch someone walking their dog, would you extend compassion towards me?  

Would I deserve that compassion?

(Note: I am hardly one to shame addiction. I have written here about my own endless battle with such a disorder–that linked bit being the most easygoing of all my divulgences–including my experiences having to leave rehab because of COVID putting a halt to all of the resources I was just starting to get comfortable with. This is not a judgmental assault on those who have succumbed to addiction; this is telling you what happened during that wretched year when people entirely out of control turned this neighbourhood upside down, and how it forever impacted the pace and energy of such a tiny but distinct area of Vancouver.)

And here’s another small blip I witnessed in 2020, in Jim Deva Plaza, in a year characterized by so many unbelievably inside-out, pear-shaped antics, it all seemed like a hastily-written skit of the damned:

As the ravaged addicts did as they pleased, I was walking through the plaza on a very sunny afternoon, where a young, perfectly-lovely couple was sitting at one of the pink-painted aluminum tables sharing a bottle of white wine.  They were enjoying the late summer, the warmth, the opportunity to grasp just a small semblance of normalcy and fun during an era that will forever go down as one of the biggest human-rights travesties in modern history.  This young man and women were smiling, sipping from their plastic cups, and bothering absolutely nobody.  In fact, seeing a nice couple enjoy themselves and appear stress-free was a relief, if not an inspiration.

A bike cop had pulled up to them right around the time I was strolling past.  All I heard was: “You’re not allowed to drink alcohol in public.”

  *   *   *   *   *

Davie Village, once an exemplar of tolerance, acceptance, freedom, and cheer, was forever impacted by COVID; I can’t see it ever being the same again.  Where you could once easily find countless little 1960s apartments with affordable rentals, you are now faced with competing for the same aging, unremarkable suites for nearly three thousands dollars per month.  Where you could once count on the same local, beloved businesses as mainstays, you are now seeing them shut down in rapid succession, even being forced to do so because it was discovered they were cutting corners on permits and wages (allegedly).

Renovation posts were overridden by stern Stop Work notices: Blenz at Davie and Bute.

It’s the residents, however, who have changed the most.  I don’t see this on Denman, I don’t see this on Robson, I don’t see or feel it anywhere else in the West End.  The expressions on most people’s faces here range from glum to sour to unimpressed to downright angry.  On a flawless, sunny day, this rarely changes; and if you see a group of people walking down the street, laughing together and having a great time, I can almost guarantee they do not live in the area.  Davie Village can, and should, be a wonderful, exciting place to visit, and you cannot put a price tag on its proximity to so much intense natural beauty.  I have gone for several early-morning runs around the Seawall, and marvel to myself that I am able to live just steps away from such God-given wonder.  It is a downright privilege to live here, and we should be treating and acknowledging this privilege with our gratitude and happiness.  We should be bowing down to our luck and circumstances, stopping just shy of prayer circles and hug parades for every minute we are blessed enough to live here.

…but something happened in the last four years.  Fear.  Distrust.  Hopelessness.  Stress.  A sad realization that this area may never be the same again.  A gloomy confrontation of the fact that anything is allowed to happen here, no matter how egregious, and the community simply isn’t strong or organized enough to reject threats to its quality of life.  A helpless feeling towards a city that did not, and does not, seem to care about preserving the uniqueness and character of these tiny few stretches of concrete, nor its own citizens, no matter how devastated or elevated their social and financial situation.  Nobody smiles at one another or smiles in general, and nobody greets anyone unless they know them; it’s everyone for themselves, a real detachment and distance from each other instead of the sense of togetherness that once made this neighbourhood so celebrated, and such a coveted place to live.  

I’m not sure what I can do about it.  I don’t know if I can do anything about it.  Get out of the bubble as often as I can, I guess.  I just know that smiling at passers-by makes them reach for their pepper spray at this point.