Fire-Hot Aunt #11

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Since 2016, nearly 11,000 people have died across Canada from opioid overdoses, according to the most recent federal and provincial data. The majority of those deaths were from opioids such as fentanyl or its more deadly variants, but B.C. remains the epicentre for roughly a third of those deaths, 1,500 of them last year alone. The provincewide death rate in 2021 was 42.8 per 100,000 residents. Every health authority in B.C. experienced a record loss of lives. My mind drifted onto various movies I had seen, and one in particular jumped out. ( read on and see if at the end you can guess which movie?) Part of the plan decrees you can’t build condos on Hastings between Carrall Street in Gastown and Heatley Avenue in Strathcona, or in historic Japantown around Oppenheimer Park.

Then dinner was announced, and as We made way to our seating, the lad totally escaped my mind… till now.. The non-profit housing sector has been asking for this step for many years. Having ownership of the land will improve a non-profit’s ability to support better long-term planning and selfsufficiency. Owning the lands they operate on will also help non-profits secure the financing they need to be sustainable. The amount of taxpayer dollars spent in the area is staggering with little to show for the investment.

13.

The province recently made hotel rooms available for the homeless people occupying Oppenheimer Park, so things have calmed down somewhat. But the big question is what happens in a few months? Is government going to find permanent homes for them? There is already an air of permanence to the camp; the city has installed porta-potties, fresh drinking water and handwashing stations. Park rangers drop by a few times daily. The area is reasonably clean, but these are early days. I lifted up the girls gloved hand, palm up, and placed a penny onto it, keeping my hand on her palm.. While I knew I would enjoy wearing the pretty clothes, being a boy I knew I had to pretend that I would not like it. A few minutes later Sue (with whom I was quite close) came in and said that while she knew I would not like to wear the clothes it was the only thing to do, and she and Anne would not laugh at me or anything. Anne came in then and promised not to laugh or tell anyone. She said I should put the clothes on, as there was no one else around anyway. They both promised again not to tell anyone and then left me alone. Social housing should be spread throughout the city to provide a society of different financial means for common support - IMO.

I thoughtfully watched the young couple whisk of weaving amongst the crowd till they were lost from my sight, my mind half taking in once again the swishing of a most delightful gown as I mulled it all over while watching. For many years the archetype of the spinster aunt was a fixture in literature, like the irritable Aunt March in Little Women , Agatha Christie’s creaky, clever Miss Marple, Harry Potter’s vicious Aunt Marge. Often these characters have been written as a warning of what will happen to women who don’t marry—that they’ll become disliked and alienated, irrelevant in a culture most comfortable with women when they are ensconced in the nuclear family. Sometimes these aunts have been allowed to be fun—think Hilda and Zelda in Sabrina the Teenage Witch, or Auntie Mame, the character who spawned a book, a Broadway musical, and multiple movies with her slogan, “Life’s a banquet, and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death!”

His administration, which has pushed the issue non-stop since he was first elected, has recently exceeded previous efforts by jumping last month into paying for all the costs of converting a downtown Quality Inn to transitional housing, as well as all the costs of a new shelter nearby. Usually the province covers the majority of costs for both of those kinds of housing. I turned towards my mate, “you know, I really feel like a proper drink and not this watered down tosh. Lets say we take a stroll towards our hotel and try to find a nice friendly pub on the way?” A wall mural in the DTES poses a valid question, "how do we end the drug crisis"? A more basic question, how did we get here?