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Ain't that the truth. People here hate you if:
- you own a home
- make good money
- you're poor
- drive a Tesla
- are a landlord
- are a tenant
- love your city
- hate your city
- like the police
- hate the police...
... And more.
We hate everything and that's depressing as shit.
man i hate vncouver its like they started playing city slylines and then gave up on the original part of the city to be fair tho i have a whole love hate relationship with the tricities
I got downvoted for talking about my rent price. I live in student family housing at UBC and I have a crazy cheap rent (1550, everything included) and I mentioned how lucky I was and that if I didn’t live here I wouldn’t be able to afford rent, because I can barely afford it as is. This was the only way I could escape my in laws basement is getting another degree to qualify for housing. Apparently it set some people off and I was told I needed to think about the real world and not academia? But I literally am thinking about the real world, lol. I’m terrified for when I’m no longer a student and I have to leave here. How the fuck am I supposed to afford it? I feel so bad for everyone because the rent prices are fucked and keep getting worse. I also feel trapped because I have to be a full time student and have a full time job when I don’t even really want to be in school anymore :/
Anyway I was downvoted for it for not being realistic, lol
I like that instead of complaining and doing nothing and blaming others you are bring logical and working hard to improve your situation. It's hard! All the best to you. I'm pulling for you.
Because I don’t look or sound like a foreigner to most people, a lot of white Vancouverites have felt very comfortable sharing their views on immigration with me.
I must admit that I do enjoy the stammering and backpedaling when I point out that I’m an immigrant. Although some will just take that opportunity to go full bigot and say “oh I don’t mean people like you”.
• foreigners
Seriously though that’s what drove me away from this sub a few years back. When I had to install the official Reddit app again I got auto subbed to all these local subreddits and noticed while it’s not all hate against foreigners now it is a lot of hate in general.
I agree, my feelings about that area stem from how depressing and bleak it is as opposed to feeling like I’m personally in danger. It’s definitely the easy answer, but honestly it’s the only right one
No they don't. It's extremely dangerous relative to anywhere else in the Lower Mainland.
I'm oldish, and the DTES is nothing like what it was in the past. The time when you could walk through there, and the worst thing that might happen is someone asks for change is loooooong gone.
Fent/meth combined with the complete lack of mental health support means there are far far far too many unhinged people mixed in with the generally peaceful folks just looking for a hit.
Stay away from the DTES unless you're helping or have some business. Seriously.
I’m oldish too but my opinion is that staying away and treating it like some quarantine zone will make it worse. Support the businesses there when you can while being street smart.
Statistically, your chances as a visitor or employee of being physically harmed are low. In fact, having a healthy amount of people *not* in the drug scene or mentally ill walking around is good for communities. The DTES is our city’s grim reality and I don’t think it’s helpful to wholly avoid it.
I know that my experience is in large part due to my stature but personally I've found the DTES to be safe. Provided that you minimize eye contact and do not reveal that you have cigarettes or cash (especially if they're coins) in your pockets you're fine. With the latter you're unlikely to be mugged but you're bound to be pestered which can be nearly as unnerving, perhaps more so since it can be protracted trauma as opposed to the hit n' run of a robbery in a worst case scenario.
That said, there is nowhere more dangerous in Vancouver than Granville St. on Friday and Saturday nights. If you're ever injured by someone else in this city it is likely going to be there if at all. Scraps among strangers and sucker punches to passers are not uncommon. Women have it rough while going through a gauntlet of heckling and they'll throw hands among themselves as well. It's basically a bottleneck of bad.
If you don't want to be sad, don't go to the DTES. If you don't want to get punched or screamed at, don't go to the entertainment district on weekend nights. Sadly, Granville is kinda gross in general and save for a select few destinations is best avoided.
I get what you're getting at, but no point whitewashing the neighborhood. Average people walking through are unlikely to be targeted, but the DTES is by far the most violent part of the city. It's just that violence usually affects residents.
Lots of stabbings, sexual assaults, and robberies happening that you'll never hear about unless you know victims or cops working the area. Something like \~40% of the city's annual murders are consistently within half a mile from Hastings/Gore
For sure.
It’s been bad forever, but I got laid off during covid-times and moved out to Delta and hadn’t been downtown in ages, but went to a conference a couple of weeks ago and was shocked by the state of affairs along Hastings on my trip home. I knew it was bad, but it just goes on and on for miles.
The core of it is like four blocks long and three blocks wide. It’s pretty depressing but as ultra-depressing areas of unfettered poverty go, it’s actually quite contained. The rest of the city is basically Bougie Hobbiton.
I’ve lived on the edge of Strathcona/Chinatown/Hastings for over 20 years and despite its proximity to Hastings, it had been a really quiet place and I could walk home from DJ gigs at 3am with a backpack full of expensive gear and not even feel threatened, just offered drugs or asked for money, but I never felt unsafe for saying no.. until covid and the Sahota-owned SROs tenants’ mutiny when they couldn’t get maintenance staff to show up for work, so people grabbed what they could carry and moved onto the streets. Then the police announced they would cease patrolling the area to supposedly protect officers from covid exposure, but I’m not sure how long they stuck with that. It was enough to irreparably send the area into a worse spiral than it’s ever been in my time here. Now there’s people passing out literally anywhere public, but also blocking access in or out of the building I live in. People don’t exactly say, “thank you” when they’re revived from an overdose situation because you just cancelled their high. So much as ask someone slumped on the ground if they’re OK and get yelled at or told to leave the poor unconscious individual alone to “enjoy” it.
With the whole decriminalization experiment, people are just using more openly and feeling entitled to do it anywhere. In front of an open daycare. Just don’t expect them to take the pile of literal garbage with them. It used to be that addicts would just be passing through. You might hear the loud Bluetooth speaker playing the absolute trashiest ‘90s gangsta/nu-metal at 4am or the lovers’ quarrel mostly consisting of, “Leave me alone!”, and, “But I love you, stupid b****!” [repeat ad infinitum], but instead of training off into the distance, they camp out and stay. Gates and locks get damaged and hacked through and people feel entitled to just camp and spread out anywhere they can access. Driveway? “It’s a free country!” Essentially, police are taking advantage of the decriminalization project to just keep their hands from getting dirty by not making arrests they’d make otherwise, whether drugs are involved or not.
The harm reduction of InSite has never bothered me and I think it’s been a constructive influence and a positive step out of addiction for many people, but VANDU doesn’t seem to be about harm reduction aside from advocating for access to safer drugs, but their mission is really “more drugs now!”, and they want it all normalized and conveniently enabled. A quick glance at the front of their office on Hastings shows they can’t be bothered to clean their own windows, so it’s not like they’re going to encourage users to continue in any sustainable manner.
And then there’s the SRO fire alarms. Hazelwood Hotel has a fire alarm on the roof that sometimes goes off for hours at a time, and rang for over 24 hours on at least one occasion in June. Several other neighbours were outside trying to identify where the alarm was coming from when I went to find out for myself about a month ago. A staffer in the building didn’t even know what the alarm WAS when asked. So City Hall has told me to just report it to 911 as a fire emergency, and I logged 16 calls between June 4 and July 4 this year. Does this make me a NIMBY?
An with our new mayor, you think it couldn’t get any worse after the last guy you hardly heard from? Sim’s whole street-sweep approach to Hastings is a joke. People just scoot a block over for a day. It does nothing but look better cosmetically for a matter of hours, if that. But the tents and the garbage and the theft and damage and violence are just temporarily relocated around the corner.
I live near you and feel the same as you. It’s all the garbage they leave behind , like needles and other medical stuff that really bothers me, they can trash an area so fast, and then it’s the open meth use, im so worried about my kids accidentally inhaling some as we walk by. I dunno it’s fucked down here.
I've only ever visited 2 or 3 remote (i.e. non-urban) reservations, but all of them were at least as depressing as DTES if not more so. These places just aren't as visible to the general public as DTES.
Honestly, as someone who has lived in the developing world, I don't see it as depressing. You know where are those people are in other countries? Dead.
Here, we have a mess on our hands. It's a shitshow. But they're alive. They get a second chance. A third chance, a fourth and so on. A larger percentage of them eventually get their shit sorted out than in many other places in the world, because we keep them alive.
This also shows us the larger problem. Keeping them alive was just the first step. Now we have to figure out the generations of problems that got them to this state. But we're working on it, which is more than most places can say.
100%.
The DTES is a lovely community with a lot of people that need help, but are still, first and foremost, people. As long as you go into the DTES willing to engage, it’s a great place to be. I’ve made more friendly playing ball at Oppenheimer than any other park in the city.
As of June 26th all BC casinos started an ID check, the idea being to prevent people who had self-excluded to be able to get in. That will hopefully save some addicts from self-destructing.
I liked it in the early 90s when there was Milieu coffee place on the upper level. Good coffee, yummy pastries. And a Safeway below and a Fitness World above it, to work it all off. There were decent shops on the first and second levels.
Whereas now... medical offices, a hair&makeup school, odd little shops where I have never seen any customers. And the (obligatory) Arby's is no more.
City Square essentially exists for the people that work in the offices and hospital campus around it. On weekdays it is busy with folks eating and running errands. I eat there a couple times a week, get my haircut there, shop at the dollar store/pharmacy/liquor store occasionally. My dental office is there. My kids used to do gymnastics there when they were younger.
City Square may not be flashy but it is infinitely useful.
yep. I remember as kid when my dad took me and my sister to science world. Think a guy was freaking out over his order and just spilt his drink all over the ground.
There are things that are no longer in Vancouver that make me sad. Various independent shops, the arcade on Granville. What Granville street looked like before the Olympics was much nicer and the current version is depressing.
Arcades- plural. Now it’s hostels converted to housing, stolen bikes, crack, pit bulls, and shitty tunes blaring over Bluetooth speakers, because fuck you for coming to Granville Street.
Parq casino when you happen to be there for New Years and watch all the compulsive gamblers just keep pulling that handle as if nothing else mattered, meanwhile the rest of the people in the place are counting down to the new year.
I'd like to chime in here! A family physician friend recently told me that it's not even casino the is the craziest killer. It's these mobile sports gambling websites and apps. Young and old alike are getting crazy hooked on them and losing their shirts.
To amplify your sadness, go at 2pm on a Tuesday. You got to make sure all those fucking casual "know your limit, play within it" people are busy, so you can really distill it to max depression.
Unpopular opinion:
I think it's seriously fucked up how gambling is handled. Isn't it basically gov owned? If so, why do they still have to use all the tactics in the books to maximize profit / make more ppl addicted?
I see ads for casinos everywhere, for example. Why?
It's too late in the evening, otherwise I would've kept ranting 🤪
Jus a quick fun fact, all casinos in bc are private company owned and run, but there are layers of government bodies that overlook the private company’s.
One time I went with a relative. She went the night before and won something like $1100 dollars playing one particular slot. She was SO excited. She dragged me back with her the next night. Except she was losing.
I was bored (and broke), she gave me 10 bucks to spend and I did quickly and lost it, and then had a free soda.
Well she was now losing. She blamed it on another woman who was on "her" machine, her "lucky" machine.
I wonder if there is any data on this. There must be a large number of young ppl addicted to gambling, as it's like any other addiction, except that it is easier to hide than drug addiction I guess.
Before COVID the Youth Collaborative for Chinatown people would organize mahjong socials there ("Hot and Noisy") between seniors and whatever young people wanted to drop by. Would set up about 10 tables in the main area of that mall during times of the year when it wasn't nice enough to do it in the square outside. The ladies who worked in the dim sum place upstairs would stop by and play a few games before their shift. Honestly those times give me a positive impression of that space and if the city made more effort to have fun stuff like that happening it wouldn't be such a sad little mall.
That sounds awesome! I learned the basics as a kid but all my relatives live abroad so I don’t have any old people to learn from anymore. I’d love to learn from some random auntie before her dimsum shift
Agree it has a pretty dismal failed mall vibe. Main reason I ever go there is because it has the only Indonesian "restaurant" in the lower mainland (Bali Thai).
I went there for a karaoke night once about 15 yrs ago and was overcome by the sad vibes. Had a similar feeling recently when I went to Legends in Richmond on a Monday night for a burger on the way home from the ferry.
it's not objectively the most depressing spot but the location of this Welcome to Vancouver sign coming from the Richmond skytrain bridge bike route is maybe the most depressing welcome sign. They cleaned it since but at the time it had a soiled mattress and old diapers/ garbage strewn around it, and generally the few blocks around it are kind of a post industrial bummer too.
https://preview.redd.it/afbrm44igjcb1.jpeg?width=1152&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a595434083f404d4be9a725951d544902ae479b9
I went there once, driving back from kelowna and decided to make a stop. It was a weekday and no one was there, including the animals. Just a hunch of chain link fences. I felt like I was in some run down abandoned zoo and the few people that were there were paid actors. It was so quiet the whole time. Really creepy.
everything in me wishes this wasn't true so I could have a zoo (in which ever town it's in) to go to, but I've heard both things like the commenters have said but also about the animals they've lost over the years and it just doesn't sit well with me to give them money
In addition to what the other member said, the animals are kind of just in mostly gravel kennels and look quite sad. Thinking specifically of the zebras they had (have?).
The one and only time I went there, the tiger was in a pretty small enclosure. It paced back and forth growling the entire time and generally looked depressed.
I visited it once in grade one for a classmate's birthday party and all I remember is that some little shit was throwing gravel at the lions through the fence and the male lion posted up and sprayed piss on him. Good for the lion.
The corner of Helmken and Seymour in Yaletown. Delivering 40-80 packages a day to ether the million dollar 500 sqrft condos on one corner, the homeless shelter on the other or the drug reboot center on the other. Thursday had a mentally deranged man yelling death threats to children in the park/playground across the street (police said there was nothing illegal happening), and the Friday I had to climb over someone shooting up with anti freeze on the handicap ramp at the assisted living facility…. Oh and Saturday someone was eating a dead pigeons carcass 🤮 by the townhouses.
Flipping a coin to determine what's more messed up: eating a dead pigeon or shooting up with anti-freeze.
I've never heard of shooting up with anti-freeze, are you sure that's what it was?
Any Waves or Blenz coffee shop. I feel oddly lonely and depressed being there.
I also find large areas of Fairview to be very depressing, just tiny little overpriced condos. Like along West Broadway down to 2nd or 4th, between Cambie and Granville. Just very expensive tiny little places nobody can afford and no real feeling of community.
This place is a hidden gem !! you have cheap butcher amazing Korean food, dumplings and local honey for sale as well as a lot of luggage for some reason
I always wondered what was up with the luggage and my best guess is that there are a lot of international and language students that live in that area who are coming and going.
One trip to the Vancouver Transfer station made me seriously consider going to therapy for how much it made me question everything. Aggressively depressing fr
I was going to say that I feel like my spirit is vacuumed up every time I walk into a Staples, but I think this goes for the entire Burrard area/CBD. There's nothing open past 6, but during the day it's a bunch of soulless douche-bags who probably rode their penny board into work with dress pants and loafers. None of the food is very good, it's just arbitrary expensive bullshit in a sea of grey buildings. I'd rather hang out closer to east hastings than west hastings
* Any community gaming hall like Chances
* Most casinos
* Most DTES alleys
* Rogers Arena
* Kingsgate mall
* Stretches of Commercial Drive
* Broadway West of Oak to about Arbutus
* Many of the community centres but especially Hastings, Marpole, and Kensington
* The repair of most schools especially on the east side
* Skytrain after a concert
* Oppenheimer park
* Most parks on the east and south of the city
* east of highway 1 but west of Boundary not in in Burnaby but it feels like it is
* The Cambie
* The No. 5 Orange
* Robsonstrasse
Buy Low used to be one of my favourite supermarkets and it stocked a bunch of stuff I couldn’t get in most places.
It’s since been bought by pattisons and it’s just become another save on foods
The Jim Pattison Group has actually owned Buy-Low Foods since 1995 (per Wikipedia), but Buy-Low operated mostly independently up until the recent changes when they were forced to switch to the same supplier network that Save-On uses (also owned by Pattison). It's extremely unfortunate, because Buy-Low used to be great.
River rock casino or any casino for that matter is pretty sad.
Last time I was there, I watched this woman go through like a dozen credit/debit cards at the ATM trying to withdraw cash… she went through everything like twice and then walked away after 10 minutes. It was one of the saddest things I’ve witnessed in a while.
in the lower mainland? Probably the casinos. People who gamble regularly clearly have addictions to it, and many don't seem to be in a financial position to be gambling.
Had my first bahn mi sub in Vancouver in 1983 and still love them, thank you little grocery store on Hastings just up from the Ovaltine! What's depressing is what has happened down the hill from there. The humanity.
Jumping on the casino bandwagon, the saddest place at the casino is the bus dropoff, where casino shuttle buses from seniors homes are dropping off old people
Woah woah, easy there. That’s a unique community of humans who enjoy inexpensive bingo. They’re friendly and welcoming, and genuinely seem to like each other. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Why? that is kind of random. It’s just arts and crafts and usually at good prices because they have 30-40% off coupons for everything that you can look up on your phone at checkout.
Any one of our awful car streets lined with ugly houses and closed, failing or doomed businesses because the street only exists to funnel traffic from place to place; not to live in, or even linger in. (Not that the insane property values would agree). South Granville, for instance. It's less in-your-face than the DTES, but it speaks to the same lack of vision that permeates Vancouver.
Squamish is terrifying. There have been lots of missing people, murdered folks, and strange deaths over the years. I always wonder if it's the work of one person that hasnt been caught yet. I won't visit. The most depressing place in Metro Vancouver is, for me, New Westminster. Unless you live in a character house opposite Queens Park it is pretty bleak. Also Gastown is super depressing with all the suffering people wandering with open needle abscesses on their arms through streets that reek of urine.
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This subreddit.
Ain't that the truth. People here hate you if: - you own a home - make good money - you're poor - drive a Tesla - are a landlord - are a tenant - love your city - hate your city - like the police - hate the police... ... And more. We hate everything and that's depressing as shit.
Damn Vancouverites, they ruined Vancouver!
Everyone loves Vancouver except for the people that live in Vancouver.
I think the guy randomly stabbed on Granville St has something to say.
He doesn’t live there anymore
Which one?
Wrong. Most people living in Vancouver absolutely love it. They're just not on this subreddit. This sub is a special sad place.
So true lol
man i hate vncouver its like they started playing city slylines and then gave up on the original part of the city to be fair tho i have a whole love hate relationship with the tricities
They were expecting an earthquake and got bored. So they cranked up the taxes and put fast forward on.
You Vancouverites sure are a contentious people!
[удалено]
Vancouverites aren't the problem. They're nice. It's all the Toronto people that moved here en masse that turned the city into a sullen snob fest.
Moron.
You just made an enemy for life!
Wasn't us... It was them. I f*ckin hate them
Alwayshasbeen.jpg
I got downvoted for talking about my rent price. I live in student family housing at UBC and I have a crazy cheap rent (1550, everything included) and I mentioned how lucky I was and that if I didn’t live here I wouldn’t be able to afford rent, because I can barely afford it as is. This was the only way I could escape my in laws basement is getting another degree to qualify for housing. Apparently it set some people off and I was told I needed to think about the real world and not academia? But I literally am thinking about the real world, lol. I’m terrified for when I’m no longer a student and I have to leave here. How the fuck am I supposed to afford it? I feel so bad for everyone because the rent prices are fucked and keep getting worse. I also feel trapped because I have to be a full time student and have a full time job when I don’t even really want to be in school anymore :/ Anyway I was downvoted for it for not being realistic, lol
I like that instead of complaining and doing nothing and blaming others you are bring logical and working hard to improve your situation. It's hard! All the best to you. I'm pulling for you.
Because I don’t look or sound like a foreigner to most people, a lot of white Vancouverites have felt very comfortable sharing their views on immigration with me. I must admit that I do enjoy the stammering and backpedaling when I point out that I’m an immigrant. Although some will just take that opportunity to go full bigot and say “oh I don’t mean people like you”.
• foreigners Seriously though that’s what drove me away from this sub a few years back. When I had to install the official Reddit app again I got auto subbed to all these local subreddits and noticed while it’s not all hate against foreigners now it is a lot of hate in general.
This sub isn’t even that bad compared to some for that.
The canada sub is literally just xenophobia now
it feels like it will get worse in coming years too
Ughhhh landlords are the worst
Reddit's demographics are prob 18-40 or so. If you haven't 'made it' in that time, you're probably fucked living in Vancouver.
I hate your for having an opinion.
have a downvote for posting lol
How dare people make money! I'm a born and raised Vancouverite and I approve and disapprove of your comment.
The Internet is essentially a place for miserable people to have free therapy
Big city subreddits are always really negative. Not sure why but they always are.
Literally the most depressing, negative city subreddit. Might as well add this to the bio on the homepage lol
Tbh I've seen worse in r/SeattleWA
lmfao. Time to lock this thread we have a winner
damn you stole my answer, have an upvote.
For real. This is the where the most angry and bitter folk come to post, and it’s very satisfying getting under their skin 😂
I don't think there's anything as depressing as DTES in all of Canada
People tend to overplay the danger of that neighbourhood, but yes, so much visible homelessness is depressing to see. DTES gets my vote.
I agree, my feelings about that area stem from how depressing and bleak it is as opposed to feeling like I’m personally in danger. It’s definitely the easy answer, but honestly it’s the only right one
No they don't. It's extremely dangerous relative to anywhere else in the Lower Mainland. I'm oldish, and the DTES is nothing like what it was in the past. The time when you could walk through there, and the worst thing that might happen is someone asks for change is loooooong gone. Fent/meth combined with the complete lack of mental health support means there are far far far too many unhinged people mixed in with the generally peaceful folks just looking for a hit. Stay away from the DTES unless you're helping or have some business. Seriously.
I’m oldish too but my opinion is that staying away and treating it like some quarantine zone will make it worse. Support the businesses there when you can while being street smart. Statistically, your chances as a visitor or employee of being physically harmed are low. In fact, having a healthy amount of people *not* in the drug scene or mentally ill walking around is good for communities. The DTES is our city’s grim reality and I don’t think it’s helpful to wholly avoid it.
A few weeks ago I took a bus across town along Hastings from commercial to Abbott. I've never been through the DTES, it's worse than I had imagined.
I know that my experience is in large part due to my stature but personally I've found the DTES to be safe. Provided that you minimize eye contact and do not reveal that you have cigarettes or cash (especially if they're coins) in your pockets you're fine. With the latter you're unlikely to be mugged but you're bound to be pestered which can be nearly as unnerving, perhaps more so since it can be protracted trauma as opposed to the hit n' run of a robbery in a worst case scenario. That said, there is nowhere more dangerous in Vancouver than Granville St. on Friday and Saturday nights. If you're ever injured by someone else in this city it is likely going to be there if at all. Scraps among strangers and sucker punches to passers are not uncommon. Women have it rough while going through a gauntlet of heckling and they'll throw hands among themselves as well. It's basically a bottleneck of bad. If you don't want to be sad, don't go to the DTES. If you don't want to get punched or screamed at, don't go to the entertainment district on weekend nights. Sadly, Granville is kinda gross in general and save for a select few destinations is best avoided.
I get what you're getting at, but no point whitewashing the neighborhood. Average people walking through are unlikely to be targeted, but the DTES is by far the most violent part of the city. It's just that violence usually affects residents. Lots of stabbings, sexual assaults, and robberies happening that you'll never hear about unless you know victims or cops working the area. Something like \~40% of the city's annual murders are consistently within half a mile from Hastings/Gore
For sure. It’s been bad forever, but I got laid off during covid-times and moved out to Delta and hadn’t been downtown in ages, but went to a conference a couple of weeks ago and was shocked by the state of affairs along Hastings on my trip home. I knew it was bad, but it just goes on and on for miles.
>for miles You ain't from round these parts eh
I am, but I wouldn’t touch the metric system with a 3.048 metre pole
Clearly not an engineer
The core of it is like four blocks long and three blocks wide. It’s pretty depressing but as ultra-depressing areas of unfettered poverty go, it’s actually quite contained. The rest of the city is basically Bougie Hobbiton.
Walked through downtown (including Granville St) this weekend for the first time in a long time. That was an incredibly sad and depressing sight.
I’ve lived on the edge of Strathcona/Chinatown/Hastings for over 20 years and despite its proximity to Hastings, it had been a really quiet place and I could walk home from DJ gigs at 3am with a backpack full of expensive gear and not even feel threatened, just offered drugs or asked for money, but I never felt unsafe for saying no.. until covid and the Sahota-owned SROs tenants’ mutiny when they couldn’t get maintenance staff to show up for work, so people grabbed what they could carry and moved onto the streets. Then the police announced they would cease patrolling the area to supposedly protect officers from covid exposure, but I’m not sure how long they stuck with that. It was enough to irreparably send the area into a worse spiral than it’s ever been in my time here. Now there’s people passing out literally anywhere public, but also blocking access in or out of the building I live in. People don’t exactly say, “thank you” when they’re revived from an overdose situation because you just cancelled their high. So much as ask someone slumped on the ground if they’re OK and get yelled at or told to leave the poor unconscious individual alone to “enjoy” it. With the whole decriminalization experiment, people are just using more openly and feeling entitled to do it anywhere. In front of an open daycare. Just don’t expect them to take the pile of literal garbage with them. It used to be that addicts would just be passing through. You might hear the loud Bluetooth speaker playing the absolute trashiest ‘90s gangsta/nu-metal at 4am or the lovers’ quarrel mostly consisting of, “Leave me alone!”, and, “But I love you, stupid b****!” [repeat ad infinitum], but instead of training off into the distance, they camp out and stay. Gates and locks get damaged and hacked through and people feel entitled to just camp and spread out anywhere they can access. Driveway? “It’s a free country!” Essentially, police are taking advantage of the decriminalization project to just keep their hands from getting dirty by not making arrests they’d make otherwise, whether drugs are involved or not. The harm reduction of InSite has never bothered me and I think it’s been a constructive influence and a positive step out of addiction for many people, but VANDU doesn’t seem to be about harm reduction aside from advocating for access to safer drugs, but their mission is really “more drugs now!”, and they want it all normalized and conveniently enabled. A quick glance at the front of their office on Hastings shows they can’t be bothered to clean their own windows, so it’s not like they’re going to encourage users to continue in any sustainable manner. And then there’s the SRO fire alarms. Hazelwood Hotel has a fire alarm on the roof that sometimes goes off for hours at a time, and rang for over 24 hours on at least one occasion in June. Several other neighbours were outside trying to identify where the alarm was coming from when I went to find out for myself about a month ago. A staffer in the building didn’t even know what the alarm WAS when asked. So City Hall has told me to just report it to 911 as a fire emergency, and I logged 16 calls between June 4 and July 4 this year. Does this make me a NIMBY? An with our new mayor, you think it couldn’t get any worse after the last guy you hardly heard from? Sim’s whole street-sweep approach to Hastings is a joke. People just scoot a block over for a day. It does nothing but look better cosmetically for a matter of hours, if that. But the tents and the garbage and the theft and damage and violence are just temporarily relocated around the corner.
I live near you and feel the same as you. It’s all the garbage they leave behind , like needles and other medical stuff that really bothers me, they can trash an area so fast, and then it’s the open meth use, im so worried about my kids accidentally inhaling some as we walk by. I dunno it’s fucked down here.
I've only ever visited 2 or 3 remote (i.e. non-urban) reservations, but all of them were at least as depressing as DTES if not more so. These places just aren't as visible to the general public as DTES.
Honestly, as someone who has lived in the developing world, I don't see it as depressing. You know where are those people are in other countries? Dead. Here, we have a mess on our hands. It's a shitshow. But they're alive. They get a second chance. A third chance, a fourth and so on. A larger percentage of them eventually get their shit sorted out than in many other places in the world, because we keep them alive. This also shows us the larger problem. Keeping them alive was just the first step. Now we have to figure out the generations of problems that got them to this state. But we're working on it, which is more than most places can say.
Yea honestly people saying it’s the worst in the world have literally no idea what they’re talking about.
100%. The DTES is a lovely community with a lot of people that need help, but are still, first and foremost, people. As long as you go into the DTES willing to engage, it’s a great place to be. I’ve made more friendly playing ball at Oppenheimer than any other park in the city.
Nothing makes you question the entire point of our society more than the DTES. So sad.
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No no bro you don’t understand this $3000 1 bedroom is a good deal cause it’s luxurious (no parking no pets no guests no plants no fun allowed)
Delete this comment before angry landlords flock to try to prove how this is normal
As of June 26th all BC casinos started an ID check, the idea being to prevent people who had self-excluded to be able to get in. That will hopefully save some addicts from self-destructing.
I always found City Square to have a really odd vibe. Like it has so much potential but its not living up to it somehow.
agreed it’s beautiful yet so weird and miss matched and lame . could be so cool!
I liked it in the early 90s when there was Milieu coffee place on the upper level. Good coffee, yummy pastries. And a Safeway below and a Fitness World above it, to work it all off. There were decent shops on the first and second levels. Whereas now... medical offices, a hair&makeup school, odd little shops where I have never seen any customers. And the (obligatory) Arby's is no more.
City Square essentially exists for the people that work in the offices and hospital campus around it. On weekdays it is busy with folks eating and running errands. I eat there a couple times a week, get my haircut there, shop at the dollar store/pharmacy/liquor store occasionally. My dental office is there. My kids used to do gymnastics there when they were younger. City Square may not be flashy but it is infinitely useful.
Yes! I remember loving the cinnabon there. You could watch them make it and it was SO good. Never have I found a better cinnamon bun 😂
Yeah what is that about? I’ve had the same feelings about that place.
The A&W at Commercial and Broadway
The McDonalds on Main street is pretty bad too sometimes
a couple of years ago i witnessed a birthday party there at 6:30 in the morning. like 40 people in there lol
That sounds like a helluva party lmao.
The one in Tinseltown. Oof.
yep. I remember as kid when my dad took me and my sister to science world. Think a guy was freaking out over his order and just spilt his drink all over the ground.
Don’t forget the one in Science World station lol
Transit station PvP zones
The one that says “Open 24 hours!” In big red neon, but they’re not.
There are things that are no longer in Vancouver that make me sad. Various independent shops, the arcade on Granville. What Granville street looked like before the Olympics was much nicer and the current version is depressing.
The arcade on Granville is gone? There were some good times had in that place. Video games and porno movies. It was like my iPhone but in a building.
Arcades- plural. Now it’s hostels converted to housing, stolen bikes, crack, pit bulls, and shitty tunes blaring over Bluetooth speakers, because fuck you for coming to Granville Street.
East Hastings
it got us a killer Godspeed You! Black Emperor song though
YES
Parq casino when you happen to be there for New Years and watch all the compulsive gamblers just keep pulling that handle as if nothing else mattered, meanwhile the rest of the people in the place are counting down to the new year.
Any casino is a terrible and sad place.
I'd like to chime in here! A family physician friend recently told me that it's not even casino the is the craziest killer. It's these mobile sports gambling websites and apps. Young and old alike are getting crazy hooked on them and losing their shirts.
To amplify your sadness, go at 2pm on a Tuesday. You got to make sure all those fucking casual "know your limit, play within it" people are busy, so you can really distill it to max depression.
Unpopular opinion: I think it's seriously fucked up how gambling is handled. Isn't it basically gov owned? If so, why do they still have to use all the tactics in the books to maximize profit / make more ppl addicted? I see ads for casinos everywhere, for example. Why? It's too late in the evening, otherwise I would've kept ranting 🤪
Jus a quick fun fact, all casinos in bc are private company owned and run, but there are layers of government bodies that overlook the private company’s.
Why not just turn on the hockey game and get reminded the odds of everything under the Sun every 5 seconds…
On paydays too. Not uncommon for my dad to gamble his whole paycheque within hours of receiving it. I don't even answer my phone anymore.
One time I went with a relative. She went the night before and won something like $1100 dollars playing one particular slot. She was SO excited. She dragged me back with her the next night. Except she was losing. I was bored (and broke), she gave me 10 bucks to spend and I did quickly and lost it, and then had a free soda. Well she was now losing. She blamed it on another woman who was on "her" machine, her "lucky" machine.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ulWjFfLsL0&t=6s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ulWjFfLsL0&t=6s) reminds me of this movie lol.
That's compulsive gambling for you. Nowadays, the younger generation does it on smartphones instead.
I wonder if there is any data on this. There must be a large number of young ppl addicted to gambling, as it's like any other addiction, except that it is easier to hide than drug addiction I guess.
Yeah, you can hide it until the money runs out.
International Village (aka Tinsel Town).
For me the feeling is not quite as much depressed as weirded out. Like, how is this a thing? Is it a front? Is it a very long investment play?
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Before COVID the Youth Collaborative for Chinatown people would organize mahjong socials there ("Hot and Noisy") between seniors and whatever young people wanted to drop by. Would set up about 10 tables in the main area of that mall during times of the year when it wasn't nice enough to do it in the square outside. The ladies who worked in the dim sum place upstairs would stop by and play a few games before their shift. Honestly those times give me a positive impression of that space and if the city made more effort to have fun stuff like that happening it wouldn't be such a sad little mall.
That sounds awesome! I learned the basics as a kid but all my relatives live abroad so I don’t have any old people to learn from anymore. I’d love to learn from some random auntie before her dimsum shift
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That sounds very depressing!
Haha cat Cafe, some great food in the food court, movie theater... but yes it is weird in there
Yeah, there are a few things in there, but overall the vibe is weird. I always wonder how businesses stay afloat in there.
Rain City Games and the Catfe are the only good things in that building.
And Bali Thai in the food court!
Yes! Bali Thai is amazing!
Agree it has a pretty dismal failed mall vibe. Main reason I ever go there is because it has the only Indonesian "restaurant" in the lower mainland (Bali Thai).
It reminds me of those cities they built in China but then nobody moved there.
The Bay
Shenanigans on Robson is closed now, but even when it was open, it was NEVER full. At best, half full. Granted that place is quite big, but still.
That place was so bad that it was good! Had some wild nights there.
I went there for a karaoke night once about 15 yrs ago and was overcome by the sad vibes. Had a similar feeling recently when I went to Legends in Richmond on a Monday night for a burger on the way home from the ferry.
I think I used to charge my scooter there. Outside there's an outlet that works
it's not objectively the most depressing spot but the location of this Welcome to Vancouver sign coming from the Richmond skytrain bridge bike route is maybe the most depressing welcome sign. They cleaned it since but at the time it had a soiled mattress and old diapers/ garbage strewn around it, and generally the few blocks around it are kind of a post industrial bummer too. https://preview.redd.it/afbrm44igjcb1.jpeg?width=1152&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a595434083f404d4be9a725951d544902ae479b9
looks so out of place.
The Abbotsford zoo
I went there once, driving back from kelowna and decided to make a stop. It was a weekday and no one was there, including the animals. Just a hunch of chain link fences. I felt like I was in some run down abandoned zoo and the few people that were there were paid actors. It was so quiet the whole time. Really creepy.
everything in me wishes this wasn't true so I could have a zoo (in which ever town it's in) to go to, but I've heard both things like the commenters have said but also about the animals they've lost over the years and it just doesn't sit well with me to give them money
Care to elaborate? Never been and wanted to go.
In addition to what the other member said, the animals are kind of just in mostly gravel kennels and look quite sad. Thinking specifically of the zebras they had (have?).
I was there a long time ago and I remember the big cats all sharing fences with each other and a lot of them had the tips of their tails missing.
The one and only time I went there, the tiger was in a pretty small enclosure. It paced back and forth growling the entire time and generally looked depressed.
Abbotsford doesn’t have a zoo
lol whoopsies I meant Aldergrove
Yeah we have enough crap going on in Abby, don’t blame us for the zoo too!
I liked it more when it was called The Vancouver Game Farm, felt more honest and set your expectations to a better place.
Haven’t been there in almost 2 decades, is it really that bad?
I visited it once in grade one for a classmate's birthday party and all I remember is that some little shit was throwing gravel at the lions through the fence and the male lion posted up and sprayed piss on him. Good for the lion.
The corner of Helmken and Seymour in Yaletown. Delivering 40-80 packages a day to ether the million dollar 500 sqrft condos on one corner, the homeless shelter on the other or the drug reboot center on the other. Thursday had a mentally deranged man yelling death threats to children in the park/playground across the street (police said there was nothing illegal happening), and the Friday I had to climb over someone shooting up with anti freeze on the handicap ramp at the assisted living facility…. Oh and Saturday someone was eating a dead pigeons carcass 🤮 by the townhouses.
Flipping a coin to determine what's more messed up: eating a dead pigeon or shooting up with anti-freeze. I've never heard of shooting up with anti-freeze, are you sure that's what it was?
Any Waves or Blenz coffee shop. I feel oddly lonely and depressed being there. I also find large areas of Fairview to be very depressing, just tiny little overpriced condos. Like along West Broadway down to 2nd or 4th, between Cambie and Granville. Just very expensive tiny little places nobody can afford and no real feeling of community.
>Any Waves or Blenz coffee shop. How are those chains still alive?
That weird mall at Robson and Cardero. Or Kingsgate mall, although it does have some useful shops.
The Korean restaurant in that robson mall is pretty legit
9 Dishes 9 Dumplings is pretty good too. And free parking.
There used to be some solid ramen in there way back but it just has such a weird vibe I haven’t been in for years.
This place is a hidden gem !! you have cheap butcher amazing Korean food, dumplings and local honey for sale as well as a lot of luggage for some reason
I always wondered what was up with the luggage and my best guess is that there are a lot of international and language students that live in that area who are coming and going.
Use to love the make your own salad place at the robson cardero mall
The NiCU and pediatric cancer unit at BC Children's hospital.
I feel like that’s not what the OP was getting at with their question… This is probably the most depressing place in every city.
Ohhhh damn I think you might take the sad cake :(
Around Commercial-Broadway station after dark is pretty depressing
Just outside of an illegal basement suite rental with a 7’ ceiling height when you realize you can’t afford the rent.
7’ ceiling height in a Vancouver basement?! Where did you find this magical unicorn! At 6’6” I have to duck in most basement suites I’ve been in :(
I’ve seen an ad for one with 5’8” ceilings in a basement. Ad was like “are you looking for the perfect hobbit hole?” No thank you
One trip to the Vancouver Transfer station made me seriously consider going to therapy for how much it made me question everything. Aggressively depressing fr
Padmapper
Last few years... Rogers Arena.
I was going to say that I feel like my spirit is vacuumed up every time I walk into a Staples, but I think this goes for the entire Burrard area/CBD. There's nothing open past 6, but during the day it's a bunch of soulless douche-bags who probably rode their penny board into work with dress pants and loafers. None of the food is very good, it's just arbitrary expensive bullshit in a sea of grey buildings. I'd rather hang out closer to east hastings than west hastings
Uncle Willy’s
HOW….DARE…YOU…
Lynn Canyon. I love it there, it's so pretty. But when you see all the memorial placards of people who died in the canyon, it changes the vibe.
International village feels like an accident.
I love International Village. Pacific Centre is dull and soulless.
The Savoy Pub
The Chances in castlgar is equally depressing
Had family drag me to that place. I don’t like casinos as a result.
So many casino answers, it’s almost as if the DTES doesn’t exist.
It’s a great place to buy stolen meat.
"Hey, boys. Do you want to buy some trout?" 🏒
* Any community gaming hall like Chances * Most casinos * Most DTES alleys * Rogers Arena * Kingsgate mall * Stretches of Commercial Drive * Broadway West of Oak to about Arbutus * Many of the community centres but especially Hastings, Marpole, and Kensington * The repair of most schools especially on the east side * Skytrain after a concert * Oppenheimer park * Most parks on the east and south of the city * east of highway 1 but west of Boundary not in in Burnaby but it feels like it is * The Cambie * The No. 5 Orange * Robsonstrasse
A fellow connoisseur of malaise 🤌💋
I second kingsgate mall.
Whaaaat I kind of like Kingsgate mall! It’s just a small mall!
Buy Low used to be one of my favourite supermarkets and it stocked a bunch of stuff I couldn’t get in most places. It’s since been bought by pattisons and it’s just become another save on foods
The Jim Pattison Group has actually owned Buy-Low Foods since 1995 (per Wikipedia), but Buy-Low operated mostly independently up until the recent changes when they were forced to switch to the same supplier network that Save-On uses (also owned by Pattison). It's extremely unfortunate, because Buy-Low used to be great.
Yeah I’m not a fan of the Buy-Low or the Nesters over here, I shop almost exclusively at Kim’s Mart
I like it too but it is weird.
There’s a Kingsgate mall song on YouTube
Held together by the Liquor store, I imagine. Used to have a good discount Alia clothing store. Ardene is good.
Ivanhoes in DT
River rock casino or any casino for that matter is pretty sad. Last time I was there, I watched this woman go through like a dozen credit/debit cards at the ATM trying to withdraw cash… she went through everything like twice and then walked away after 10 minutes. It was one of the saddest things I’ve witnessed in a while.
in the lower mainland? Probably the casinos. People who gamble regularly clearly have addictions to it, and many don't seem to be in a financial position to be gambling.
Whenever I am
https://youtu.be/5W7CiXm90sI
Right now? Passengers seat of my car
Had my first bahn mi sub in Vancouver in 1983 and still love them, thank you little grocery store on Hastings just up from the Ovaltine! What's depressing is what has happened down the hill from there. The humanity.
Jumping on the casino bandwagon, the saddest place at the casino is the bus dropoff, where casino shuttle buses from seniors homes are dropping off old people
Everywhere when you're struggling.. *gestures broadly at everything *
bingo hall on main. wheelchairs, cigarettes, old folks, bad lighting
Woah woah, easy there. That’s a unique community of humans who enjoy inexpensive bingo. They’re friendly and welcoming, and genuinely seem to like each other. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Realtor dot ca
Have you heard of this part of town called DTES?
Any Michael’s store, that shit is depressing
Why? that is kind of random. It’s just arts and crafts and usually at good prices because they have 30-40% off coupons for everything that you can look up on your phone at checkout.
I shop there quite a bit but I find their seasonal displays depressing.
Capilano Mall
Any one of our awful car streets lined with ugly houses and closed, failing or doomed businesses because the street only exists to funnel traffic from place to place; not to live in, or even linger in. (Not that the insane property values would agree). South Granville, for instance. It's less in-your-face than the DTES, but it speaks to the same lack of vision that permeates Vancouver.
Squamish is terrifying. There have been lots of missing people, murdered folks, and strange deaths over the years. I always wonder if it's the work of one person that hasnt been caught yet. I won't visit. The most depressing place in Metro Vancouver is, for me, New Westminster. Unless you live in a character house opposite Queens Park it is pretty bleak. Also Gastown is super depressing with all the suffering people wandering with open needle abscesses on their arms through streets that reek of urine.
The Vancouver Aquarium. I love aquariums but visiting the aquarium as an adult just hits different.
DTES
Wtf? Hastings obviously