Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is a warehouse for the desperate: filled with crackheads, hookers, chronic alcoholics and the mentally unhinged. Drive down Hastings and it looks like a Dostoevsky novel. There are drug addicts shooting up in the alleys, pawn shops, scuzzy hotels and a myriad of agencies trying to unravel the mess.
This sketchy area—one of the poorest in the country—is getting a makeover, but not everybody thinks that’s a good thing.
The Pantages Theatre, a once beautiful building that told the story of early vaudeville in Vancouver, was ripped down last year. Five years ago the Woodwards Department Store was replaced with condos, and for a while it looked like Save on Meats—an institution since 1957—would suffer the same fate. But the owner refused to sell to developers and Mark Brand bought the business.
Brand, has sunk a ton of money into the building, kept the neon sign, a butcher shop, bakery and diner. He’s also employing the unemployable, installed a roof top garden to grow produce, and created a type of currency to feed the homeless.
The “currency” is a token that can only be exchanged for food at his diner. He kicked off the program at the end of November thinking he might sell a thousand. He sold 5,000 in the first 10 days. His reasoning is that give money or bus passes or gift cards and 90% of the time it’s turned into drugs, booze or cigarettes. It’s a big reason that people won’t give handouts.
“All it is, is giving somebody a sandwich, it’s really black and white,” he told me. “What’s really important to me is being able to create the conversation between the affluent and the people who are struggling. The token has to be handed to someone. You are not doing a random donation you have to look somebody in the face and give it to them.”
Brand is not without his critics. They say he’s part of the problem—he’s making the area trendy again and increasing rents and prices for the poor. He’s also accused of making money off the tokens—many which will never be redeemed.
Personally I don’t have a problem with this, he should be making money. He’s not going to fix the systemic problems of the DTES, but he’s not going to hurt them either, and he’s offering a way for people to do something to help those in the area.
He’s also attracting like minded souls.
Justin Young and Nora Ahern were making big bucks at an ad agency on the right side of town, before leaving to form Village&Co, a small social media shop on the edge of Chinatown. They like Brand’s vision and wanted to help so they devised a campaign. Whenever someone clicks on #shareameal the agency puts a token on the office Christmas tree. On December 31, the tokens will be donated to the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre and transformed into food at a time when it’s needed the most.
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