Inside Vancouver’s Homeless Crisis

In this episode of the RedTape Podcast, we sit down with filmmaker Misha Clyder, creator of the documentary Streets of Plenty, to talk about one of the most pressing issues facing Canadian cities today — homelessness.

Years ago, Misha conducted a powerful social experiment by living on the streets of Vancouver for 30 days with no money. His goal was to understand the reality of homelessness from the inside. What he experienced changed his perspective on poverty, survival, and the systems that shape life for people living without stable housing.

In this conversation, we explore:

• What it's really like to survive on the streets
 • Misconceptions about homelessness
 • Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and its challenges
 • The impact of housing affordability in Canada
 • Mental health, addiction, and social policy
 • Why public perception of homelessness matters

Through firsthand stories and honest reflections, this episode sheds light on a crisis that continues to affect communities across Canada.

If you care about housing, policy, or understanding the human side of social issues, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Subscribe for more conversations on politics, culture, and the issues shaping Canada.

Transcript

unknown 0:32

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

So how's the day been? It's good.

SPEAKER_05 0:34

It's good. How about you? Good, good. Episode six. Episode five. Episode five. Episode five. Yeah. I know. It feels uh it's crazy to see five episodes in already.

SPEAKER_04 0:44

Five episodes in already, man. It's uh hopefully getting better and better with each episode. I know we have a phenomenal uh episode on the agenda for today. Yep. Um, I know you've done a lot of research on uh on our on our guest today as well.

SPEAKER_05 0:56

And it's our first guest. And it's our first guest on the red tape pod, which is awesome. Very exciting and super exciting because I came across this documentary back in 2015, 2010, I think it was. It was in 2010, he did it, but I came across it in 2015. Oh yeah, gosh. Um exactly while we work in Xbox Capital. Oh, no, it's okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

Yeah, because for those that don't know, Renee and I uh used to be coworkers at uh at Cost Capital. And we're real estate colleagues and real estate colleagues and podcasts.

SPEAKER_05 1:25

Uh crazy how time flies and progresses, right? No doubt. So today's actually a pretty interesting day. Uh we actually have a great guest coming on. Um may you may have heard of him, you may have not. He was born here in the lower mainland, uh, grew up in Fort Langley. He uh actually did a social experiment back in 2010 and it was fully documented. Uh the documentary is called Streets of Plenty starring Mitzha Kleider. Now, what Mitzha did was absolutely interesting and uh absolutely fascinating. So he actually did a social experiment where he lived on the downtown east side for 30 days as somebody who essentially is homeless and uh going into the systems that uh Vancouver offers as resources, uh he dealt with homeless shelters, lived on the streets itself. He even experimented with some hard drugs that are commonly used on the downtown east side to really dive into it. Um it definitely shows also the amount of dedication he put towards that project. And we're really excited to have him here because at the end of his documentary, he actually interviewed then-elect Vancouver mayor elect, sorry, Gregor Robertson, who is now sitting as the housing minister of Canada. So yeah, we're really excited. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

I think it's gonna be a fascinating conversation. Um, lots to kind of dive into to kind of get gain his perspective as well. Um, things that, you know, I watched it and I was I was totally blown away by not only his commitment to the experiment, but you know, he he really dove into it. But there were so many questions that that came to my mind, and uh I'm just I'm really looking forward to it for sure.

SPEAKER_05 3:14

Yeah, and I saw this documentary back in 2015. He did this in 2010 for the Olympics. Yeah. And the fact that he's here today is just it's it's crazy to me.

SPEAKER_04 3:24

Yeah, hopefully he's a he's a better golfer golf uh golfer than us as well. So yeah. I mean, that's not really hard. Yeah, we're we're pretty terrible, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

So we're uh practicing today with the nine iron, so let's see how this goes.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

Yeah, absolutely. Uh with that said, um, I'd love to introduce uh Misha Klatter. Yeah, Misha, come on in. Come on in. Yeah, thank you sir for being here. My pleasure. Thanks so much for coming here. I'll grab you, uh I'll grab you a club. Do you have any preference? Uh nope. Are you are you much of a golfer? Don't know anything about golf. Neither do we. Which is uh which is fitting. We're actually in the process.

SPEAKER_05 3:57

We actually have a competition going to see uh who can get better by the end of the season. And honestly, there has been zero progress.

SPEAKER_04 4:04

Yes, yeah, we're we're at the terrible. But uh, but yeah, so I mean let's um you know, kind of for for the audience, for the listeners, do you want to kind of give some background into kind of what drove you to to conduct this experiment and what were what did you really want to learn from that? What inspired you?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, I was uh I was working at Kentucky Fried Chicken right after high school. Yeah, and uh a friend of mine and I, we worked there together. Uh we somehow got enough money together uh to get a plane ticket to Hawaii. Okay. So we got the plane ticket and uh we got we um we flew down there and we got it for a whole month, so the return ticket would be in a month's time. So, but we had just enough money to pay the plane ticket, and we went down there with some cans of tuna. It was before 9-11. We could actually go through customs with a massive pile of tuna cans, and it was fine. But uh the tuna ran out after like a week, and then uh and we had no money, and so we're we're in Waikiki, and we had to somehow make it through the month with no money, and we couldn't legally work there. And how do you do this? So we're essentially homeless in Hawaii, and uh, and we had the time of our lives. Yeah, it was it was an amazing time. It was uh, you know, um we found out like what services we could get for free, and uh, you know, and then we depended on like the charity of this church as well, and uh, you know, surfed, met girls. It was just a it was a fun young in our 20s experience, right? Yeah, and we just thought like this is not hard. Yeah, you know, it's just not, it's not hard to be homeless and and to have a good time. What's happening with all these homeless people back home? Like they're it doesn't look the same. No, you know what I mean. And so we just thought, well, let's let's find out, you know, let's let's let's be homeless in our own city back home and let's do it in the hardest time of the year so people can't say, oh, you did it in the summertime, it's easy. Let's let's do it in the most miserable time.

SPEAKER_04 6:10

Yeah, December.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, right, yeah, and and uh and see how it goes. And so it came from there.

SPEAKER_05 6:16

Wow. So at the beginning of your uh documentary, yeah, I do remember seeing um your like you're walking through an alley introducing downtown East Side, and you took a bottle to the head.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 6:29

So some what how how did that happen?

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, my uh my brother was filming me, yeah, and then there was this um black dude from across the street, and uh he was uh drug dealer, and I guess like he was in, we weren't trying to shoot him, but he was like you he was just in the shot. And he knew he was in the shot, and so he was just screaming at us, don't fucking film me! Yeah, yeah, and but this is all that you heard out there. If you try to take your camera out anywhere within the vicinity of the downtown he said, you're gonna get people screaming at you. And so we just got used to filming under these conditions, right? Someone's always telling us to put the fucking camera away. Yeah, so uh we always ignore them, right? Otherwise, we wouldn't have shot the film, it wouldn't be possible. So once again, we're ignoring the guy. And uh, but you know, he he found like a perfume bottle, yeah, right? Those things are heavy, like that kind of really heavy glass. They're dense. And he was like uh, what is it? I don't know, like far away. I don't know. Like it was crazy how far away he was. Like he was, he was, you know, uh and and but he, you know, yeah, he just went this perfume bottle and I was just talking to the camera, you know, and it hit me in the head, like just bam, it connected perfectly. Like this guy should have got a scholarship to somewhere. He would have accuracy. Right? He could have been the VIP baseball star. But uh and it and just blood everywhere.

SPEAKER_04 8:02

Yeah, that looked pretty that looked pretty serious. Yeah. Was that like really early on? Was that like day one?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Uh no, that was like probably like I don't know, two weeks in or something. Two weeks in okay. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:13

Yeah. Honestly, I just had to throw that in there because I was curious just what happened in that scenario, because I feel like you just kind of showed that you got hit and didn't really get into explanation and then dove right into the rest of it. So it was uh kind of cool hearing the interesting to hear that part of it behind the scenes, I guess you can say.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

Yeah. I I do feel like probably being homeless in Hawaii would be a lot better than being homeless in Vancouver.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

You got the beaches at least, you can being homeless in Vancouver. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 8:43

That'd be tough, especially in December, it's so cold.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

It depends on drugs, are probably a lot more difficult to get there, though. It depends on what you're into. It depends. It depends on why you're homeless. Yeah. If you're homeless because you know, everything's functioning normally up here, but you just ran out of money. Yeah, and you're just still looking for a good time somehow you have to make it through the month. Yeah, I recommend Hawaii.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

But uh, but yeah, if you're, you know, if you want to get a lot of, I don't know, cocaine or whatever it is, it's so accessible here in a way that it's not over there.

SPEAKER_04 9:14

I mean the safe injection sites, that's I mean, I think at the time you uh you mentioned, I don't know if this is still the case, but you mentioned that that was the only safe injection site in North America. Uh at that time, I think. At that time, yeah. I think that's yeah. So that I mean that's pretty telling in terms of how accessible things are and what's available, right? It almost do you feel like it perpetuates the problem? Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Uh yeah, but you know, the the thing about the safe injection site is if you don't do it, uh everyone that gets AIDS, every homeless person or seriously drug addicted, or just any person in Canada, if you get AIDS, we have the public health care. Yeah. So it's two million dollars a pot for everybody, everybody that gets AIDS. So just as a as a as a cost reduction strategy, more well, harm reduction, cost reduction, probably the same thing economically, but it's just you either pay for each one of these people who gets AIDS an extra two million, yeah, or you do a safe injection site site which lowers the the rate of transmission for HIV, and suddenly you're saving just hand over fist in terms of money. So just uh while it may have a a bad effect on, I don't think it encourages anyone because let's face it, by the time you go to East Hastings to the safe injection site there, yeah, you're you've been into it a while. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? That's not your first rodeo.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

Yeah, right. I found it interesting though, because you you told the the lady that was working with you, um, you're like, I've never done this before, I have no idea how to do it. Yeah. And she walked you through the steps. She's like, Oh, okay, well, here you go.

SPEAKER_05 10:47

And like I thought that was just well, I would figure they'd say, well, maybe you shouldn't do it, at least give some, like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Yeah, she got in trouble for that too. She reached out to me afterwards. Really? Yeah, she just kind of um, I don't know about trouble, but there was just there was like media blowback on her after having once we you know made the film.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

And yeah, what I I can't remember the details of our conversation, but um she let me know that she felt bad about that whole experience. And when she when she uh hooked me up with all the information on how to do it and provided me with the needle and all the rest of it, it didn't sit well with her because someone like me that says to them that it's my first time. Yeah right, she'd never they don't have a protocol for that because it's never happened. Right, right. Um no one again, no one goes into there for their first time. That's not where you do it. You probably do it in a safe environment around your your friend's house, or you know, you're you get into it socially or something. You don't walk in after living a good life and suddenly find yourself in the safe injection site on the downtown east side.

SPEAKER_04 11:59

No kidding.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

So um I'm I'm suspicious. I I I'm dubious of claims about that being the slippery slope. Right. Like you're you're a hardcore user by the time you're there.

SPEAKER_04 12:10

That's fair. Yeah, that is fair. Yeah, and and you you definitely didn't fit the profile, obviously. I mean, you you you mentioned that in the documentary as well, is you didn't fit in as a as a homeless person downtown. You had to like he had to like dirty himself up and you had to really work at fitting the part, if that makes sense, right? So um yeah, I just thought that was crazy the fact that you can just walk in and kind of you have those resources.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, that I mean they they messed up in my opinion. Yeah, right? Like, but if if someone does, I did say it was my first time, yeah, and she's still hooked me up with the things. What I think in retrospect she probably would have done, like if if she had another go-around at this, I assume that she would have been like, okay, what? Tell me your story. Do you know what I mean? Got more information from me, kind of like maybe tried to do a push towards therapy instead of here's the drugs.

SPEAKER_04 13:01

Yeah, yeah. How do we do it? Yeah. So I was gonna say, do they have uh those types of resources there? Like in terms of if somebody needs to talk to somebody, if you if you need to talk to somebody about the issues that you're having, is that something that's available or is it just straight up safe injection site you can I don't know. Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, because I feel like that would be very important.

SPEAKER_05 13:24

Yeah, and one thing that was interesting. Sorry to cut you off. I was just gonna say that one thing interesting that you did mention. Um, I had no idea of the um, I guess the cost of like like it goes into public health care then, um like tax dollars, obviously, right? Two million if yeah that shows that they're looking at looking at it for obviously they're looking at it from a financial perspective, but at the same time, I feel like it's sort of going against humanity at the same time because yes, you're right. I mean, you're already there, I understand that, but if that's the key that one of the biggest reasons is it's cheaper to do that and keep people on drugs than it is for them to develop something else and just keep them out of the public care system. Yeah. Um I I just don't know what to say to that. That blow that blows my mind. I never even knew that.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah, and I don't want to give you the wrong information either. Like I um it was two million, it was two million dollars when we looked into it in like before like 2009, 2008. I don't know what that is now. So it's actually could could be more inflated, but I know they've got better drugs now, maybe for HIV. Yeah, it's been a minute, so I don't know. That's true. That's true. But regardless, it's still expensive. That's expensive. Yes. Healthcare is paying for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 14:40

So and I guess yeah, it doesn't uh cost that much overhead, it's not that much overhead to run something like that on the downtown east side. Yeah. Versus, I mean, I guess there are in in this in these cases, I guess you have to look at it from all sorts of angles when you're trying to really control the situation. Yeah, right. Now, do you feel that we've gone backwards since you've done did this uh experiment when it comes down to the um the issue at hand, when it comes down to the the homelessness, with um I guess you can say with the current policies in place, with uh drugs, I guess, possession being decriminalized? How do you feel about that given the with your experience doing this experiment?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Well it it never seemed like it was the issue was effectively policed, right? Even before these new this new legislation. So it uh yeah, it always yeah, it it never I and I don't know what the I I don't know what the solution is. I don't I don't know if the if if it is a solution that the cops can provide. Uh probably not, but I don't think that they yeah, it it what what can what can they do? They could put people in jail, that's so expensive. Yeah, right? You want like that's it's the issue it is cost. If you had enough money, we could solve this problem. Yeah, not maybe not solve it too. How do you solve serious addictions and and serious mental illness, even with money? Sometimes that doesn't work. But uh we could we could certainly solve the problem of the eyesore and stink and all the rest of it that comes with them living on the street. But that we could fix with money, we could we can remove them from Vancouver, yeah, yeah right? Yeah, um, but uh but anything past that, I don't I don't know. These are these are seriously messed up people.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Yeah, yeah. It's uh it it is tough to once you're in that hole to climb out of it, right? And and I think that unless you're unless you're healing yourself, yeah, and you know, that's the only way to solve it, I feel. But money is not gonna, you know, it's hard to you can't you can't heal everybody from from what they have, right? What they're suffering from. You know what I mean? Like it's it's really tough to kind of I I don't know what the solution would be either.

SPEAKER_05 17:02

I can't think of something that's I it's it's hard to say. I do believe that there's certain uh policy, certain things that have been happening right now for within the NDB government, and I feel like they're flip-flopping quite a bit with uh trying to get, I guess, control on the situation. I believe that they have the right ideas in a way, but I just don't believe they're doing it in the right steps. Um one going into the uh housing aspect of giving them housing before any treatment is offered, right?

SPEAKER_04 17:37

Like social housing? Correct.

SPEAKER_05 17:38

Like you can't, and their idea, like I remember seeing hearing that uh one of the like the ideology behind it was oh, if we give them a home, yeah, they're gonna want to become better on its own. Right. Not realizing that no, that's not the case. All you're doing is just giving them a warm place to then do drugs. Do drugs exactly, like deal with their addiction. At the same time, they acknowledge that, oh, we just realized that they're turned into drug dens instead. Which I mean, I'm not even a politician or have a degree, but I mean I could have told you that. And my advice would have been free. Yeah, for sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

What would you do?

SPEAKER_05 18:22

If uh how I would handle it, yeah. That's a good question. Well, I do believe that um treatment, I feel like there should be uh offerings at least where these options are available to you because I do believe everybody deserves a second, like they deserve to get better, without a doubt. Everybody does, everybody deserves a second chance, and addiction is no joke, without a doubt. It's it's something people struggle with. Now, with that being said, I mean, those who want to get better and are at least, even if they try, but then their addiction gets the best of them, you know, in the back of their mind that they do want to get better. So I feel like there's ways of, I mean, I feel like they have the right idea. Once again, I feel like they're doing in the wrong steps. I feel, you know, treatment should be mandatory. And then if they can complete X amount of time sober, then they are there eligible for housing. And then once they get the housing, then I feel like there should be resources to help them at least get employment at the same time. So then they can at least the idea is to get them back out and where they're not relying on the program anymore. But that's the end game as well. Like I just I don't know the exact plan on the spot here, but I do feel like there could be a better way that uh money could be invested into these resources and it just better planned out than just trying to throw it out there. I know that they're talking about now having involuntary care. Um yeah, involuntary treatment, yes. I involuntary care.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

So then for uh people on the downtown east side heavily addicted.

SPEAKER_05 20:01

So they talked about opening up a location like these care facilities in Surrey and also Prince George, and they never mentioned the downtown east side, at least, not yet. So I don't know exactly where they're going with this, but they are talking about, but it's for um people who are severely they have um really bad mental health issues or severe addiction. So I don't know what they classify as severe addiction and what it classifies underneath uh mental health disorders.

SPEAKER_04 20:30

Yeah, but I think treatment is obviously and again, I don't really know how much treatment resources out there, but I think treatment needs to be the focus. And I think people need to be able to tap into some sort of resource that allows them to be treated, right? I think that's the really that should be the focal point in my mind is treatment. There should be there should be a way for somebody to get better without a doubt.

SPEAKER_05 20:56

Yeah. And especially with addiction, you're a victim to the addiction. So you can't rely on somebody at the same time, it's nobody wants to be addicted. Nobody down there wants to be down there. They're there because they got trapped into they're in a vicious cycle with themselves and they're battling it on their own in a way. And it sometimes I don't know, maybe sometimes I I do believe involuntary care is ideal for situations like that. It's tough, it's definitely tough to enforce it. It may come off as inhumane, like taking somebody, throwing them into, you know, getting them off the streets and keeping them away from drugs. You know, obviously there's things you have to consider like getting dope sick, right? You have to, you can't just when you're that deep, you can't just straight kick the habit and go cold turkey. Your body now relies on it. So you do still have to get small doses of it. So there is, I understand that there's a lot that will have to go into it. It's just a matter of how bad do they want. Want to solve this problem because it seems to keep growing and it's getting the radius from that downtown east side to me feels like it's expanding. Correct me if I'm wrong.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

It's worse than it used to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Treatments don't look very I mean, are there treatments that are really successful for addiction?

unknown 22:21

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Right? Yeah, like you know, 90% fail rates for almost everything.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah, I I heard stuff about Eboga. Once in a while you hear about some psychedelic that's gonna solve the problem and then they do it large enough trials and then no, it doesn't. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't it's a problem that as a culture, we know how to create. We know how to create addiction.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

You know, uh indigenous peoples didn't have problems with substance abuse the way modern cultures do. So there's something going on there that's not like in the brain. Do you know what I mean? It's not just uh uh it's it's addictions aren't an aspect of, or at least substance abuse addictions aren't an aspect of what it is to be human. You don't find it in all cross, it's not a cross-cultural phenomenon. Right. It's a uniquely modern phenomenon. So then, like, what is it about our culture that is doing this thing to people? That's a good question, you know?

SPEAKER_05 23:17

Well, even like with music nowadays, you know, going back to uh early hip hop, let's just say like back in the early 2000s, it was the artists were singing more about drug dealing. Yeah, and now modern, like uh now modern younger artists now are talking about drug using. Yeah, yeah, that's true. So there's something being glorified. I something times uh I guess it's just uh it's crazy to see that shift.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:46

And you know, there was a one that one artist, Juice World, when he passed, he was he was really big on uh lean, I think it was, or like cough syrup. So I I believe that's what it was, but he was highly depressed. And people like uh our younger kids are relating. Well, they related to they felt like they related to him a lot more. They called when he passed away, they called him that generation's Tupac, which to me was crazy. Yeah, because I I couldn't I couldn't really get into his music, I didn't understand it, but there's people that connected to it, so it's a lot I guess that kind of goes into the whole modern modern situation, I guess. I don't know if that falls right into what you're saying, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Well it's it's ubiquitous. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:34

Let's see your point.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

What's your point?

SPEAKER_04 24:36

I realize we haven't even taken a shot yet. I've definitely been uh let's let's let's hit a shot each.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

And then uh so where am I I'm just supposed to shoot it?

SPEAKER_05 24:43

Just think of it as a driving range. It's exactly a driving range. Just shoot how you please, and it'll Okay. You're good. We're just uh trying to see who hits the furthest here. Oh, that's not bad. There we go. Okay, about 60, okay, 70 yards. All right, 72 here, okay. Here you're up, buddy. All right, you know what? I think after this, uh I think we've we're good to go into the hot seat. I don't know. I feel like we've been kind of getting deep into it 100%. 100%, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:09

100%.

SPEAKER_05 25:10

All right. Now let's see. Okay. Half that.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

You're about to see my chip game. Yeah. All right. It's because I can't do anything. I can't do anything else.

SPEAKER_00 25:31

Oh, horrible. You won. Hey, you won, man.

SPEAKER_04 25:42

Well, welcome to the hot seat, Nisha. This is uh kind of where we get into uh the meat and potatoes of the conversation. Um the first question I've been dying to ask you um is how did you convince your friends, your family, your loved ones to let you do this? Because if I asked my mom, hey mom, I'm gonna go be homeless on the streets of downtown Vancouver for 30 days in December over Christmas, I'm gonna be fully getting my immersing myself into this experience. She would have told me, no chance in hell. How did how did you what was that conversation like?

SPEAKER_05 26:19

Because I know my mom would have said, You are homeless, this is my house.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

I I wish I could do a better job of remembering. I I think uh I can imagine it would have been easier to sell my dad, but uh but my mom, I don't you know what I can't remember. Yeah, I can't remember. That that you're right though. That that couldn't have been easy. I wish I could have some of the details for you.

SPEAKER_04 26:48

Like even your brother, I mean, or or whoever, it's like, man, if I told anybody I'm gonna do this, they wouldn't be like, you're crazy, like not happening.

SPEAKER_05 26:58

Well, I mean, technically your brother did do it with you because he was recording you the whole time. Yeah, right? But he just wasn't like as in it as you were.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

That's right. Right? Okay, got it. He wasn't doing the things, but he was recording the things.

SPEAKER_05 27:10

Okay, so he was there with you all night and day. Yeah. Okay. So at least he had some support in that sense.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah, well, not all night. He was, you know, he didn't he didn't stay over at the the shelters a lot of the times. Okay. Um actually any of the times. But uh but he was there in the morning.

SPEAKER_05 27:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

You know, for the shoot and everything. Okay, that's cool. So, but uh yeah, he experienced like the light version.

SPEAKER_05 27:33

Yeah. The light version. That's why I remember uh at the end, you know, you're after uh like well, we'll get into that in a bit, but I remember you telling him to fuck off because you're saying this. Yeah, you was trying to get you to just stick it out for five more days, and I remember you telling him, No, you're not doing this the same way I'm doing it, I'm done. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

No, he wasn't he didn't love that.

SPEAKER_04 27:53

Yeah, yeah. I can imagine so, yeah, for sure. Um, so I guess before you you started this whole experiment, um were there any sort of assumptions that you had about what it's like to be homeless that maybe changed, or what was your biggest learning or takeaway from it?

SPEAKER_01 28:13

I thought that it would be really easy. Yeah, you know, because uh it was it was really easy in Hawaii. Yeah. So I just thought, oh my goodness, this is like I expected to see scammers because I thought it was gonna be so easy, given the amount of resources that are available to these people on the street, right? Um, there's free food, there's free housing, there's free all of this stuff. So I thought like, I thought I was gonna find a bunch of slackers.

unknown 28:40

Right.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

You know, and I was kind of looking for them, right? Like, where are the slackers? Yeah, you know? Yeah, no, no, that's not what you do as a slacker. You don't wanna you don't wanna live on the street in a homeless shelter. Yeah. Uh, you know, so it was this was uh this I never found. Yeah, okay, yeah. Yeah, the people were there for very different reasons. It wasn't because they they wanted to slack off. I expected to find a bunch of dudes, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah but just hanging out, you know what I mean? Just like screw it, I just don't want to work. Um instead, I I just I never one guy I thought I found that in, actually. Right. Just one really interesting guy at one of the shelters, and um he was eloquent and there was a uh quiet dignity about his person. He just didn't seem like everybody else there that was kind of like frenetic and nervous and just kind of was strung out. Yeah. Uh he was like a very chill guy, very well composed. And I was like, oh, this is the dude. This is the dude. So there at least he exists. At least there's one. At least there's one, right? But then um I started hanging out with him a bit, and and over the course of about like a like a week, um, it became clear that like, oh okay, his thing was gambling. Like he he would he would go onto the um crappy CTR monitor computers that they had at the time in the in the common area that the homeless people uh hung out in, and he every everything that he had, he would gamble away on there, either online gambling or in-person. Really? Oh, everything. Like he couldn't keep 25 cents. You get him a cigarette, he'd be gambling the cigarette. Like it's funny actually. Uh he was a guy that worked at the at the racetrack, and it turned out that my dad knew him. Oh, no kidding. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:27

So that's that's uh that's quite incredible.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

So he had a job? Uh once upon a time. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, but at this point he couldn't. I mean, he couldn't hold down anything. Right. He literally had a homeless shelter.

SPEAKER_05 30:41

So you said you were looking for scammers.

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 30:44

Is that what you saw in Hawaii?

SPEAKER_01 30:46

We were the scammers in Hawaii. Right? Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

And we thought there'd be more like us. Fair enough, man. Right?

SPEAKER_01 30:52

And so you just project, I guess, right? Yeah. The world's Roshab lot. And uh, and so I just thought, okay, there's gotta be a lot of people, I guess, because it's a pretty good gig. It's an easy thing to scan the system like this. I didn't I didn't find it.

SPEAKER_04 31:02

I didn't find it. Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. So we kind of alluded to it earlier. I mean, you you took a bottle to the head, yeah, right, pretty early, or two weeks in, roughly. Yeah. Um what was your you know, obviously you were in the homeless shelters, you were on the streets. What was your hardest moment, or was there one thing that uh or one day that really stuck out as okay, like this is this is the toughest thing I've ever dealt with.

SPEAKER_01 31:33

Yeah, the most difficult experience I had working out, like uh when we filmed the movie, was um so much of the best things we didn't get on film.

unknown 31:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yeah, and so much of the deeply emotional stuff too we didn't get on film. Maybe that's for the best, but there was this one time where I was sleeping at the the Yukon homeless shelter, yeah, and I wake up in the morning and uh and I see at the reception desk is this girl that I was crazy about in high school.

unknown 32:12

No way.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

Yeah, and I'm looking all homeless. I got my gear on, you know, and uh and I just see her, and then she looks at me, and I'm just like, oh god, and I do it like an about face, and I turn and walk back the way I came, right? Because I have to do this part, and she works at the shelter. If she knows that I'm a phony homeless per pretending to be a homeless person, like that, I'm gonna get kicked out of the shelter. We have shots that we need to get that we haven't got there yet. So uh I had to stay in in the role. Yeah, um, and uh, but now I'm being perceived by this girl that I really liked as a homeless person. It's not a good look. Oh no, that can't uh that can't do you any magic for sure.

SPEAKER_05 32:55

Yeah, that goes backwards. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

So I remember I I did the uh yeah, I I turned around, I went down the stairs, and I was just like, oh god, was that her? Like, was that her? And then and then I anyway, I didn't have a phone on me. And uh, but there was a phone in the common room. So I just I I walked up the stairs and I beelined it to the common room without even looking at the lady at reception because I couldn't, and I wasn't I wasn't positive that it was it was her, yeah, right? Because it was just a glance, you know, when you get that fear jolt, and you're just like, oh god, you know, yeah, yeah. So I didn't look back to confirm, right? But then I picked up the phone there and I called uh a friend from high school who's into everyone's business, and I'm like, hey, do you know what happened to this girl? Yeah, and and he's like, Yeah, yeah. I think she went to UBC studying social services or something.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

I'm just like, oh god, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:50

I'm like, oh no, oh no, right? And and he just said that, and um, he's just like, why? What's going on? I'm like, nothing, I I gotta go. I hang up the phone, I'm just like, blood's draining from my face, right? And she walks in the room at that moment and she looks at me, she's just like, like, what are you, what are you, what? What are you doing here, right? And then comes up to me and gives me this hug, like, oh, you poor thing hug. And I'm just kind of like, this is it, this is the worst experience. Yeah, you know, being the subject of pity. No, no one wants to be the subject of pity, right? So, and I and I had to go along with it.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

Yeah, you had to convince her, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah, yeah, and that didn't feel good, so it just suddenly got all really messy.

SPEAKER_04 34:28

So then, so then after she figured it out, yeah, did you ever have any reaction?

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yeah, actually. Uh, we talked about it afterwards. Yeah. Um not in person, just I think on Facebook. Okay, okay. Um, but uh, but yeah, and that was a whole that was crazy because um, yeah. I don't because I was very curious about her after this. I want to like I think I want to just talk to her, just to tell her, like, hey, I'm not this homeless person that you think I am. You know what I mean? Like, I'm my life is okay. I'm not on the street doing drugs or anything, like I'm I'm just a normal person. I'm good. And uh and I just want to have that conversation for my ego, I think. And then and then her concerns well. I didn't want her to be like concerned about me when there was nothing to be concerned about.

SPEAKER_04 35:25

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

But then uh so I looked into her afterwards, and uh and by the time I did, uh bad things had happened in her life and she was living on the street, I found out.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

Yeah, and that was like such a like trip into itself. It's like, what? So and then I thought like somehow she saw me on the street, because we all had the same social group in high school. Okay, you know, is she just like, oh, this is maybe I just I have no idea what happened. I'm sure I'm hopefully I I don't know why I would be a piece that transitioned her into this ugly world, but uh but I wasn't sure if maybe I was or not. I don't know. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So oh man, that's that's that's tough. Yeah, that's yeah.

SPEAKER_05 36:14

I definitely did not uh expect that in the story. I did not expect that part.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

No, the the life is stranger than fiction. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, yeah. That was no kidding. And she was so lovely too. She's such a lovely girl.

SPEAKER_04 36:26

Yeah, yeah. And she and she and so she was working at the shelter.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

She was working at the shelter, and then I heard that she ended up dating some person as well that was kind of like really into drugs. Okay, and then that was a a transition piece, I'm sure. Ham. And then there was some other stuff as well in her life, and then it just kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:43

I thought you were gonna say she started dating somebody at the shelter, and I was like, that could have been you. That's what I thought you were gonna do. Could have worked out anyway. I definitely went the other way on that one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, you you obviously during this whole this 30 days, you you interacted with all sorts of systems. I mean, the shelters, um you know, all the services that are in place. Um what did you kind of what kind of insight did you gain regarding how those systems work? How those resources are available to people? Do they work? Are they are they where do they succeed and where do they fall short to you based on your experience in terms of all of those products that you interacted with during the time?

SPEAKER_01 37:30

I mean, I know it's kind of a hard thing to know in retrospect, but they succeed well where it succeeds is ironically enough, Vancouver can be a very lonely place. Uh, I think most people that are making even a good income are generally lonely in Vancouver. Uh, and there's the stats by the Vancouver Foundation that show this to be the case, actually. So I know this is true. Um this population of people, right? I feel like they it was not lonely. They all hang out together, yeah, they do drugs together, they've got like a big posse. They're all no one has jobs, so it's not difficult to organize. It's like basically high school all over again in this one sense. Everything else is, I mean, everyone has serious health problems and mental illness, and I'm not creating a rosy picture. But the reality is for most working people in Vancouver, life is pretty lonely. It's very difficult to get together with your friends. Most people are on a different schedule. There's a thousand other things, mobility of the workforce. It's uh, yeah, it's it's hard to feel um socially full on the regular. This is a community that does have that, yeah, right? They have a lot of hanging out with their homies. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:47

It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Yeah, that's definitely and going on adventures with their homies too. Yeah, like stealing together and stuff. It's true, it's true, right? Yeah, it's a it's a tribe. They have the same goal, yeah. They're unified in the same, it's basically high school over again in terms of that.

SPEAKER_05 39:06

Isn't that interesting?

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_05 39:08

I guess it's uh you need to say like they have their own way of like their own hustle in a way going on within, and they're they work together at that, I guess to help each other out, I guess, get their goal. Um, yeah, yeah, whatever it is. That's I mean, that's kind of interesting to think about because I don't know, like that that's such an interesting thought that you just mentioned about comparing loneliness and then you're going to a community that has much less, yet they feel more connected.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Yeah, yeah, in some ways they are. Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_05 39:42

That's that's interesting. I've never thought of it like that.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

And if you go, no, go ahead. No, no, you go ahead, please.

SPEAKER_05 39:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Uh if you talk to a lot of them too, uh, one of the things that's very difficult for them in terms of their treatments, uh, for those that really want to, you know, kick their addiction, it's uh the social element to living in the downtown east side that draws many of them back. Right. Right. And there's so many anecdotes of this. Uh they just were in some addiction treatment center or whatever, doing their life, and you know, oh, then they got a job working at SO or whatever it is, you know, and life was pretty good, but it was just so lonely. Yeah. And there was actually a lot of camaraderie down there. Yeah. Right. And they missed their tribe.

SPEAKER_04 40:29

Yeah. Yeah, it's fair. I mean, it it makes sense when you think about it. I mean, a lot of people, I mean, just to survive, we all know how expensive it is, right, to live where we live. And just to survive, some people work two or three jobs just to keep the lights on in the house. And so there are a lot of pressures that I think are on society, especially here, that make it lonely, as you say, to your to your point. Um, it's hard to connect with friends, it's hard to go out for dinner, it's hard to do these things. Everybody has different schedules. And and so, yeah, I can definitely see it. I never thought about the camaraderie aspect uh of the tribe of that tribe, but yeah, you know, it it it makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Yeah, it's easy to make friends down there. Yeah, yeah. In that in that world, in that community, it is easy to make friends. Way easier than it is in everyday life.

SPEAKER_04 41:15

Isn't that crazy? Yeah, it's hard to make friends. There's no question about it.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

Yeah, it is, yeah. Particularly post-thirties.

SPEAKER_05 41:24

Now everyone I talk to is pretty much a colleague. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:27

My circle is getting smaller and smaller. As it does. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's that's that's super uh, yeah, I've never thought of it that way for sure. Um looking back on it now, is there is there anything that maybe you would do differently? If you like, let's say you were to go and uh start this thing all over again tomorrow. Is there any part of your experience that you might change or that you might do different at all, do you think? Now that you in retrospect?

SPEAKER_01 41:58

I got a lot of flack for kind of being silly. Okay. You know, I had that fashion show in there and everything like that in the film, you know. And I guess a lot of a lot of people what they expect from a whole homeless documentary is a kind of like hand-wringing, you know, um vibe of all these poor people and it sucks to live this life, which it does. Of course, you know, but I came into this with so much like where are the scammers? Yeah, and this like whole other energy. Yeah, and the the it I did not come into this documentary because I wanted to show just how hard and shitty it is to be homeless and drug addicted.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

That was not, and that I think is most of the time when people make a documentary about this subject, what they're doing.

SPEAKER_02 42:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

And that's not what I was doing. Right. I was like, um, I want it to be fun and creative, despite the um disturbing, how disturbing the subject was, you know? And and that came through, and it, and, and so there were parts that were silly, and some people thought that that was uh that kind of levity given the subject matter was not appropriate.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

I understand.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

You know, yeah, and because there is so much suffering out there. But I think the reason why people watched it, yeah, and it was basically like a student film, it was like none of us had any, you know what I mean, professional experience with cameras or anything like this, right? But somehow we s we made it and it we sold it to distributors and all the rest of it, right? I think the reason why it was somewhat successful was because uh we just had that different angle. Yeah, it wasn't like this, like, oh boo-hoo, how horrible it is to to be this way. Yeah, you know, instead it was kind of like, well, is this even hard? Yes. Do you know what I mean? Um and so that lent to it, I think an energy that was was was more playful and curious than it was um tired and sad.

SPEAKER_04 43:51

Yeah, and I mean, well, you were a young man too at the time, right? So yeah, um, and I think I think the reason, or at least one of the reasons uh that it was. As successful as it was, is it was authentic. You could tell that you weren't you were real. You were a real person in this, right? You didn't have any sort of ulterior motive, you were your true self, and I think that showed through the documentary, right? So um I think that authentic piece was huge.

SPEAKER_05 44:21

Yeah, well, I have a follow-up actually to the question, or like well, I guess to the whole now. You said you went in with this um different type of energy, of course, right? Now going into it, did you feel that coming out of it, did you feel like your energy shifted at all, or your thoughts on the whole matter at the time of closing? Did you were or were you kind of the same throughout?

SPEAKER_01 44:46

No, there was definitely the hero's journey.

SPEAKER_05 44:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

You know, like I went in with these like I went in bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Yeah. And you see throughout by the time the movie has ended, I I got my ass handed to me. I'm tired. I am kind of tired and sad.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Right? And so, and that that genuinely happened. Yeah. So, um, because it was it was not Hawaii.

SPEAKER_04 45:10

It was not Hawaii, there was no beach. No. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

And it was cold. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 45:14

And it was December. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you started off by swimming in the river. Yes. Yeah. That was an interesting uh interesting thing.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

For sensationalism, we thought so. Okay, okay, okay. Uh and we had to take that, uh, we had to do that shot like five times by the way.

SPEAKER_02 45:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

We had to like, we had to do that shot so many times. Uh we had we want to cameras were not what they are now. Now they're so light sensitive. We could have done it in the dark and we it would still be fine. But back in the day, we had to have enough light. Yes. And uh, and so it was always just in the morning when we, you know, at like 5 a.m. when we needed to do get that shot, 5 or 6 a.m. And uh, and I remember I I woke up and I was exhausted. Yeah, and uh I remember one of the times too, I'm there and I'm about to jump in the water, and uh, I just turned to my brother who's the camera operator, and I'm just yelling at him because it was a you know, it was a long distance shot. I'm just like, there's a problem. I forgot my underwear. He's just like, just go, man! And I'm like, you're gonna see my junk. Uh can you see my junk sideways with myself? Can you see it? I'm just like, I can't see it, we're good. We watched an average, you can totally see it. You can totally can't do it. You can't use the shot. I jumped in the water, I swam, I did the whole thing, right? And then things kept on happening, some technical issues that kept on happening. So we literally had to do that shot so many times. I swam that thing so many times. Oh, we had the dive nailed down. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:01

No wonder you were hypothermic hypothermic, right? Like when you checked in, you were yeah, I was cool. Yeah, that's that's insane. Yeah, yeah. Once again, goes back to your commitment, that's for sure. Oh yeah, yeah, that was it. Yeah, so another thing I was wondering too, uh, do you think how how much of the problem that's occurring in the downtown east side, how much of it would you attribute to um a housing crisis in comparison to, let's say, addiction, for example? Do you think housing is is the issue and or is it more so what people are going through maybe even on the mental health side of things?

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Not my field of expertise, yeah. I would I would assume I assume that uh housing doesn't have a lot to do with that. You know, because you see places in the world that have housing issues and they don't have that. You know? Um my girlfriend's from Turkey, we visited Istanbul this summer. And uh yeah, they have I'm sure that they have uh poverty there um greater than we do, right? Um so it's there's tons of people that can't afford accommodation there, right? But uh they don't have this problem. They don't, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:25

And this is Istanbul as well. Sorry to cut you off. So I I've seen it firsthand too. It just it's a really clean city.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you don't see no crack attics all over the place shooting up in the corners. Yeah, you just don't you don't see homelessness doesn't look like what it does here. If it I didn't see I didn't see any homeless people there. I'm sure they're I'm sure they exist, yeah, but they're not visible in the way that uh our you know mentally ill homeless are.

SPEAKER_05 48:50

Yeah, and I was using the the subway system there, yeah, and it was you know not the same as like their transit areas are clean, like it's just over here around transit areas, there is a lot more um I guess addic drug addicted or homeless people surrounding those areas more or less over there. There's just felt like a really clean system overall. It's just I did just yeah, validating your point. It's I did not see any of that either. And I was going everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Yeah. Do you think it's a housing issue?

SPEAKER_05 49:26

I personally don't once again just like you said, not field of expertise, but I don't believe it's a housing issue. I believe it's more of the addiction and the uh mental illness factors.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

I mean, yeah, I think so too.

SPEAKER_05 49:38

But at the end of the day, you got you if you're un like you're unhealthy in that sense, how are you supposed to really uh I mean you can't expect to be and pick up yourself in a way. You do need support around you. And I believe that you know, obviously they want to offer so there's support offered by that, but I just don't believe that it's maybe the right approach to actually solve the situation, or even at least reduce the the problem.

SPEAKER_04 50:11

Yeah, and I think it's hard, it's hard to come up with a viable solution. I don't think there is a solution, but I think all of course people need support, right? I think that's uh I think that's key. And and we kind of touched on this earlier as well already, but it's a very hard thing to kind of pinpoint, but it's it just seems like it's getting worse and worse and worse. I mean, even since 2010 when you did this, I think the downtown east side has transformed even more into into this problem, right? And yeah, it's sad for sure.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

I don't think there's a solution to mental illness and addiction, but I do think there is a solution to getting them out of Vancouver. Yeah. And I think we should.

SPEAKER_04 50:52

And what and what what does that like look like in your cut services to them?

SPEAKER_01 50:57

Okay, right? It's so it's draconian, yeah, right? It's not I don't think there is a solution within the framework of let's give them as much support as we can. Okay, right? I don't think that within that framework you're gonna get a solution. I think you do have to be harsh. Yeah, and I s I but I don't think you have to be too harsh, but I think you have to say what I would say. I live in Vancouver, so as a resident there, I want my city to look and smell and feel nicer, right? And so I want them out. So I and that's relatively well, that's you can definitely do that, right? You can say, hey, all the services that you guys get, you're no longer getting them in Vancouver, right? Right? You're getting them, I don't know, pick up pick a place and create literally a an ecosystem where you don't even have to ruin a small town, right? You can pop up a small town with these services, but somewhere far away from the city center where all the major commerce takes place and everybody else is living. And uh yeah, provide the services there, you know, and without all the resources, they won't be there. All the resources are there. So, what what are all the resources doing there? Like, I get that the people that provide these services, the the homeless industrial complex or whatever it is, you know, they like living the people that all the doctors and lawyers and all the people that support them, they like living in Vancouver. They don't want to live in some cow town in the middle of nowhere um to do their jobs for these people, just the support staff. But uh but I don't care. I don't want it in Vancouver.

SPEAKER_04 52:46

So yeah, I I one time, so to your to your point, um I think it must have been maybe my 25th or 26th birthday. So, so yeah, must have been somewhere in that time. Um, what we wanted to do as a family was make sandwiches and head downtown and uh and hand them out. So we put together like a little lunch kit, if you will, like a small bag of chips, a water bottle, and a sandwich. So we made like three or four hundred sandwiches at home, put everything in a cooler, and went downtown and handed them out. And we thought, I guess my biggest takeaway from that is first of all, when you get into that area, you already see hundreds of groups doing the exact same thing, which is you know, handing out food or maybe blankets or whatever the case is. There's there's tents set up where people can go and and seek help for whatever it is that they're going through. And it's really evident that people are involved in that community and in helping that community, but even more so than that, when I when I was handing out food and and that sort of thing, it was almost like that was expected. They knew that that day there's gonna be people giving food. And and so it wasn't like it wasn't like we were doing anything that was a it wasn't like a super nice gesture, it was just this is what is I kind of got the feeling it was expected. And and and and I think that's because it's always provided. You know what I mean? Like it was the support is there in in terms of food and and shelter and clothes and that sort of thing, right?

SPEAKER_05 54:18

So I kind of have a follow-up as well to one thing you said earlier. You brought up the fact that there's a community there and it draws people back. Now, just kind of like is this last summer, sorry. My um my family came from Australia, so I took them to the suspension bridge and they wanted to check it out, and uh, we're driving through the east side, and I braced them for it. Let them know that okay, you're about to see some crazy stuff here, and it's kind of crazy as well to the fact how normalized it is for us to see that. It's almost like you're creating an experience when you bring out-of-towners here and take them through that. And I had my cousin, her husband, and her two little kids, and they're just like looking out the window, and they were just their mind was blown at what they were seeing, yeah, and they couldn't believe it. And then I explained there's also that documentary that they show us in uh high school called Through the Blue Lens to explain drug addiction and everything to us, where VPD officers are you know going around and uh recording it to show young people all across Canada the problems of drug addiction. Now, I don't you don't see something like that anywhere else in the world in reality. I mean, sure, I mean maybe in the States there's some areas where you could see that, and but not to that extent here in Canada. So do you feel that not just the resources, but finding a way to as crazy as this is gonna sound, it's what if you broke up the community? Do you feel like that would at least uh I guess what I'm trying to ask is do you feel like that would prevent people from coming back there and grouping together?

SPEAKER_01 56:07

Hmm. I don't know. It's like in part, I think. If you don't have community, it's it's a pull. You know, it's less of a pull. There's no community there, but but then if you're still getting all your free things there, you're getting your your shelter and your food, like your basic essentials for life. I guess on um Masl's hierarchy, there is like a need for social interaction. Like community is a piece, is a social need, we're social animals. But uh more essential than our social needs, I think. Uh, well, just I think our social needs are just as essential actually as our food and shelter needs. You you you die without other people. We're hardwired that. Right. That's why we get lonely, is because it's like it's the pain that alerts us to get back to the group because it's very dangerous for a social animal like us to be alone, right? We would we die really quickly out in the wild in isolation. So um, so yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's a sufficient condition to break it up, but it's uh it's a it would be a significant factor.

SPEAKER_04 57:22

Yeah, excellent. Fair enough. Were you were you was there any criticism around this this film for you? Like when you when when it came out and you released it, did you face any sort of backlash or was it uh not a ton in person online yes?

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Online, yeah, of course. Everyone's right, but not not anything in person. Okay, okay, fair enough. Yeah, and then so there was one woman actually.

SPEAKER_04 57:52

Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_01 57:52

Yeah, I remember on Pender Island, I was uh yeah, I was swimming in the lake there. Yeah, and it was a woman that worked for the like she worked at a shelter. Um maybe it was a safe injection site, and uh she was just there and she just couldn't believe that she that she saw me in the flesh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This this guy that uh I guess in at her workplace, I was like much reviled after doing this and making a safe injection site look bad.

SPEAKER_04 58:23

Right, okay.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

Um, which wasn't my intention, but I guess maybe that's some people's takeaway. Um and uh and yeah, she was what did she say? She's just like uh she joke she joked around about having my face on a dartboard.

SPEAKER_03 58:42

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 58:44

But then it fell so lamely because the social dynamics of the situation weren't in her favor. Yeah, she was by herself on the dock, and I was with three of my friends, and it just kind of like you could tell after she said it, she felt awkward and it just kind of fell lamely, like no one laughed, and it was just like, oh cool. That was the only negative experience I had in real life.

SPEAKER_04 59:06

Okay, yeah, fair enough. And then so in terms of because obviously now, like we're fast, like we're fascinated by by your work. I mean, we we've told you so many times already, but did you kind of looking back on it now, would you were there any sort of long-term effects you know, going through this process? And is there anything that changed you as a as a person kind of going through and experiencing this? Because I'm I'm always so curious about the mindset.

SPEAKER_05 59:40

And to add to that, I know in during obviously you did some hard drugs, uh, you also got uh a stomach bug. What was it called exactly again? Gastroenteritis. Right, right, yeah and so do you like do you also feel effects from that as well to this day or yeah, I think um I think my guts, well I think my guts were like for a while after that film, it took a while for them to recover.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:12

I think they kind of yeah they're still sensitive though. So maybe maybe I'm still kind of feeling that, you know. Um in terms of uh in terms of like how the film changed me. When you gave out sandwiches that day, yeah, and it was kind of you were met with it. I don't know, how did that make you feel? Like when you when you did that and you realized everyone else was doing it and it wasn't very appreciated.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:47

Yeah, it was it was eye-opening for sure. Um I kind of walked away from from that that day thinking that you know they're just well taken care of. I could there was a part of me that I couldn't help but feel that I don't want to say society's encouraging homelessness, that's not the right way to phrase it, but there is some degree of reliability and dependence that I think maybe they're used to at this point. And that's kind of that was kind of my biggest takeaway. And um I feel like yeah, they I I don't even want to say we're perpetuating it, but maybe in a sense we are, right? And that's kind of the way I walked away from it.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:37

Well, one time I went to Chipotle in downtown and I had some chips like left over, so I had them, and there was a there's somebody, a homeless guy on his knees with his hand literally his hands out like this. The guy that doesn't wear the shirt? Uh I don't know if he was was wearing a shirt. I can't remember. This was a while back. This was a while back. Um, and he just had his hands out like this, and I put the bag of chips in his hands, literally, I put it in his hands. He then like opens his eyes, he looks like chimps, and he throws it to the ground. I was like, I would have eaten those.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:09

I was trying to be nice. But yeah, just to your point, I it's I but then there's been ki times where I've given food and it's been met with gratitude too. So I can't say I can't say that that's the mentality personally for what I see and personally from everybody. But I I get what you're saying. I do understand what you're you're trying to say and feel.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:29

And I mean, even like you mentioned it's it's a community, right? They're they're like boys hanging out. Um I feel like that gives me a different perspective as well, because there is that sense of belonging that I would not have thought of. Like you experienced it because you were there, you were immersed in in the whole thing and and you experienced it. But that's I don't think that's something that most people think about or realize either. And I think that kind of changes perspective a little bit too.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:01

Yeah.

unknown 1:03:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

Well it's yeah, once again, I feel like in these indigenous cultures, they don't like traditionally, homelessness was not a thing. Right? Like you look at like if we contact people in the Amazon, there's not a there's not a homeless guy, right? And so um in this strange culture that we've created that affords us all these technological marvels and does so many amazing things medically and all the rest of it, uh obviously uh it's doing some things very wrong. Right at at a high and and and so the cost of these technologically advanced marvels is quite high. And the the cost, one of the costs is tribe. Right? I don't know if the mobile workforce necessary for late-stage capitalism is compatible with tribalism.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:56

Yeah, okay. Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:57

That's a fair point. Of having a tribe, of you know, and you you need to move people around based on where money flows and things like this, like pawns on a chalkboard or on a on a board, you can't uh prioritize familial networks over profit. Um otherwise you don't have transnational corporations and the things that run this world. So uh so anyway, long-winded way of saying like in this in this ecosystem of very weak social ties, uh and and where loneliness is a great epidemic, uh these people have found it, it's it's it's an indictment of our culture in a way that one of the best ways of finding friendship in Vancouver is to be homeless.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:44

Man, isn't that saying something? Right?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:45

Because like like we're so you know, our jobs require so much of us, so much time and energy. And then by the time you're done your job, you're spent. Yeah, you have your kids and you have your wife and kids, and then that's that's as much as you can afford. You know what I mean? All your energy is gone, right? Yeah, and but these guys, right, they get together, they can hang out all day, they can actually afford friendship in their 30s and 40s and 50s, yeah. And they still they have it. Yeah, you know, that's that's saying something, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:13

I mean, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:15

That's a lot to digest, like that's a lot to think about. It really isn't great. I never thought about that's that's insightful. Like, I don't know what to say to that, really. In one hand, it's what are you you have to give up something somewhere, yeah, to get you it's almost as if what what I'm hearing is it's hard to have it all. Yeah, you can't. It's yeah, it's really hard to have, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:38

Yeah, that's true. Another part of uh uh again, closing closing in, like when you were closing out the film, you you had um you had your meeting with uh Gregor, Gregor Robertson. I thought that was a a very insight or a very uh insightful conversation to witness. I know you kind of had a question about I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:58

So I you know when I'm just gonna I want to make sure I get it exactly uh correct to you here. So, you know, like at the end of your experiment, you interviewed at that time the mayor-elect of Vancouver, who ended up serving for 10 years, right? Uh and now he's serving in parliament as uh the mini housing minister of Canada. A big part of his campaign was ending homelessness by 2020 or 2040, but during his tenure, homelessness grew by 30 percent. Given your interaction and lived experiences during your experiment, do you feel that his expertise is ideal for solving what many call a housing crisis in our country?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

Yeah, I don't I don't uh I would have to look at his resume really closely before answering that. And um yeah, what do you think?

SPEAKER_05 1:07:03

Personally, when I was looking into um typically like what experience he brought to the table, because I mean being realtors, I don't believe you can blame a mayor for house prices going just skyrocketing up and becoming unaffordable. Most people blame realtors. Yeah, most people blame uh shadow flipping and all that. Everyone finds everyone needs some a point a finger to point at. However, when it comes down to what he really brings to the table on creating housing, you know, his experience comes from creating mobile homeless shelters. And where my thought, where my mind goes to is UK and how fast he put them up. Now keep in mind, these are shelters with the bare minimum to house homeless. Like that that's solely like what he was that's where his experience lies. And I know that he was even creating modular homes in just empty plots of land, and once again with the bare minimum. So, how do you bring somebody like that on to then solve a housing crisis for middle income families with whom don't need homeless shelters, they need housing supply that's affordable for them to purchase and uh you know, build a life in. So I don't believe that he brings the necessary experience. And I feel like it's being no, actually, you know what? I I don't believe that he's the right person for the job. If that if that's solely the reason they brought him on, unless he's got a different approach, because it just feels like to me what he is doing, well what he did in Vancouver over his 10 years, he's now just doing on a grander scale. Because realistically, who are we housing then if he's the person you felt was the best candidate to do this?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:53

I don't think there is a solution, not to get too into a real estate talk, but yeah, I don't think there is a solution to the housing crisis, unfortunately, in our country. Um, if you look at what's happening right now in the market, obviously it's one of the slowest markets we've had, if not the slowest market in the last 20 years, right? In terms of transactions, prices, there's downward pressure on pricing, all of these things are happening. Um, and that's due to a slew of policies that have come into effect over the last couple of years, right? They changed the immigration policy, there's things like foreign buyer bans, um, they changed uh rental policies, so now it's harder for the investor to actually be an investor. There's all these roadblocks, all these red tapes that go into it. Red tape go into it, right? And so what we should be doing now in order to solve the housing crisis is builders need to be building. We need to increase our supply. However, that's not really happening because builders, their pro formas are jacked up. They're not going to be able to build homes and sell them, right? Because the market doesn't support the cost. So I think the only way to really solve it is to heavily incentivize builders to build this supply during the downturn of the market. That's clearly not happening. So as soon as these policies change again, which they will eventually, we're gonna see a rush of people trying to get into the market, rushing the market all at the same time, and prices are gonna ultimately go back up. So we're not really solving the problem. And you know, is is is he the best man for the job? I think I don't know. I don't think there's gonna be you who is, in other words, I don't think there's gonna be somebody who can come in and fix this without drastic, drastic measures.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:45

So it's a tough one.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:47

But I mean you hit the nail on the head. Yeah, they the people creating the supply need to be incentivized, right? Right? If it's a supply and demand, it's clearly like it's economics. It's it's basic economics, it's supply and demand, right? So if you're not creating supply, then obviously at the time demand comes up, we're just gonna we're it's gonna be a consistent cycle of pent-up demand coming in, driving prices up, and then next thing you know, there's no, it's just we're gonna see policies come into effect, like interest rates going up, whatever they can do to then slow it down. But then during that period, there's nobody creating supply because it's just at the end of the day, I can understand developers are not running a charity. No, it's a business, and it is what it is, right? So there's a simple solution to that, I feel, but um I feel we can that's a whole that's a whole other topic on its own, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:11:44

Yeah, we can talk about this for hours and shut us up. So um, you know, we want to be respectful of your time, of course. We we really appreciate you coming on on the show today. Um, the last question I'll have for you, just to kind of close, close this out, um, is with regards to the to the homeless uh epidemic, if you will. If if you could sit down with policymakers, what would you recommend they do? I mean, you mentioned earlier you want Vancouver to be cleaned up. Yeah. You know, I don't think anybody can argue with that. Um what what would you recommend to policymakers to kind of get that ball in motion?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:23

Because yeah, uh just no more services for them in Vancouver. That's it. Yeah. Just cut cut it out completely. Yeah. It's Vancouver's not the place to um take care of this social misery that are the lives of these very broken people. Vancouver should not be the epicenter of that. Where where is it gonna be? I don't know. No one's gonna want it. That's obvious. But certainly not in Vancouver. One of the top ten cities on earth. Yeah. Um put it, just obviously have it somewhere else. Yes, you know? It's going to be ugly wherever you put it. So try to put these people uh in in a place that isn't uh an epicenter of tourism and trade. You know, and and just so expensive to live there, and then to have to have to put up with all these homeless drug addicts, you know, sores all over the place, and they're shooting up beside the kids as they walk by. It's not it's ridiculous to have that there. It seems so obvious to me.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:30

You're I don't think you're gonna solve it like we said, yeah, but you can move it. So move it.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:35

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's fair. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you go like two blocks down and then you're in coal harbor, and then it's like it's insane. Yeah, it's weird.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:43

Yeah, the containment is it how they have it contained like that to me is it I don't I don't understand it, how they pull it off because it's literally the the one street over and it's just clean and yeah, nice, and you know, businesses are popping, blurching, you're not seeing graffiti everywhere all of a sudden. Yeah, you know, businesses are not boarded up or you know, barred up. Yeah, it's it's such a drastic di difference, literally, is once you cross that one street where the London drugs is. They close, they're closing that now, by the way. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, because it was now it's like I guess it's yeah, it just did not uh compliment their scenario, but yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:21

Well, to that effect, we you know, we really appreciate your time. Thank you again. Uh tremendous insight today. Um and uh maybe we'll do another one. I think you're round two. No. I'm done. One and done. One and done. Thanks again, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:36

Appreciate it, yeah. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:50

So that was a great conversation. Fantastic insight, absolutely yeah, lots that I had no idea, like I didn't even look at certain uh things in a certain perspective.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:01

Yeah, I guess I always like to kind of get the insight of the filmmaker because I think there's you never know. It it's cool to just get a sneak peek into his mind and how he thinks about things, and and obviously it was a crazy experience for him, and we're just viewers, but he's he's lived it. So that is where I find the most amount of interest is what is what what were his takeaways, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:15:26

And yeah, so I thought it was and especially his mindset going into it versus coming out, and now I guess tying it back into our world of real estate, you know, obviously we've seen the government and their policies with housing first, then make a pivot to involuntary care, and then to not creating enough middle income housing supply, right? Which at a time where you know we have our clients are getting priced out, um businesses obviously like commercial real estate in that those areas are down because obviously it's it's I don't mean for it to sound bad, but it's it technic like it in all reality it is an eyesore, yeah. Right, and it's a hard to it's it's a lot to definitely deal with without a doubt. And there's a much bigger problem there, but yeah, you know, it does affect it does affect the market overall in the surrounding areas, and that goes to it's not just the downtown east side, you know, wherever you see, I mean you got there's issues in Maple Ridge. Oh yeah, you know, I grew up in Wally, there's issues Langley City, exactly. You know, Langley City on its own, when you compare prices in Langley City compared to the township, just a little bit more north away. Yeah, a couple blocks away, even right, you're seeing differences of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:54

Without question, the township of Langley's pricing is very much different than Langley City.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:59

And and I think we know why, right? It's it's a different, uh, it's a different vibe in town.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:05

Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:06

And it's uh it's hard to like. I mean, for example, Wally had a lot of gentrification because I grew up here and before there was even a single tower here, and before Holland Park was Holland Park, it was a forest. Yeah, oh I remember that. Right? Absolutely. It was just a bit I mean, you know, there was a lot of people going in there and shooting up drugs and all that. So as much as it was hard to like, you know, tear down a bunch of trees, they had a reason to do it. And it pushes people out without a doubt, but the question is where are they going after the fact and do we have a grasp on it?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:42

Yeah. And are the policies that we are currently going to uh attempt are they just a regurgitation like a regurgitation of past failures or are they gonna make a difference?

SPEAKER_05 1:17:55

Correct. So like with Gregor Robertson being the housing minister and seeing what he did in Vancouver and not saying that, you know, he did a bad job. I mean, it's a hard situation to control without a doubt. But my question is, is he the right man for this particular job as the housing minister of Canada based off of his experiences of putting up homeless shelters versus and the main reason is because of the speed he did it at, which caught the attention. But I feel like there there needs to be a separate there those they're two very different things.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:33

They're absolutely different, and and it's because we're solving two different issues here. Um how are we gonna make it more affordable for the middle class family to have homes?

SPEAKER_05 1:18:44

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:45

How what does that Canadian dream look like now? Is it getting married, starting a family, having children, buying a home, building your career? Or is that home piece of the whole plan missing?

SPEAKER_05 1:19:00

Correct. I mean I believe that we need to sway away from government housing incentivize builders, as we discussed, to build more middle income more in middle income supporting homes and not treat this like treat this housing crisis as a homeless crisis. And with that being said, my fine like to just kind of end it off. The question that I have is are we just gonna repeat what happened like with the with the process that was used in Vancouver during Robertson's tenure? Is that now just being implemented at a grander scale?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:38

That's some questions I feel deserve answers.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:42

Absolutely, absolutely. And it's it's not just uh Gregor Robertson, it's anybody who's in that position. Yes. How are we gonna think outside the box and and solve the problem? And until that is addressed and until it's actually solved, I know right now it's a great time to buy, prices have come down, uh, but it's just this man's opinion that this is a very temporary flip. And at the end of the day, we still have uh a supply issue that is not being addressed and uh entire time before this prices come down. Yeah, whether that's in 2028, 2029, 2030, I don't know. I'm not God, but uh it's are we solving the affordability crisis by long? No, I don't believe so either.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:32

And it's just a matter of our like and I'm glad we should sat down here because also one thing I took away was you know, people are not homeless because they can't afford it comes down to addiction. So if we're trying to solve homelessness by creating more housing shelters, it's not solving a housing crisis. You're dismissing another problem that's still handling, right? So that's uh a lot of food to food to digest without a doubt. Uh yeah, great episode.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:04

Um again uh definitely uh grateful for your time uh uh before we post the link for just links to streets streets of plenty in case if you want to watch it.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:17

Absolutely. Yeah, and yeah, this is Reneck and Nick checking out Red Day pod.