We just watched the movie Streets of Plenty - a documentary about a coddled College kid who attempts to live in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for 30 days in order to experience homelessness. Given that I’d worked with a bunch of active intravenous drug users through a women’s services clinic in that same area, I was intrigued.

Once I realized the student was approaching the experiment with a “homelessness is laziness” hypothesis, I was bummed out. Obviously, after trying crack and heroin, getting a stomach virus, and sleeping outdoors under a cardboard box, the kid learns that homelessness is not easy. However, despite the sympathetic epiphany, I still can’t get over the fact that he used social services and took a warm shelter bed when someone else could have used it. After all, it was mid-December in Canada.

At least when Dan Ackroyd and Eddie Murphy Trade Places no one loses their spot at the Salvation Army.

I realize I’ve spoiled a great deal of this movie for you, but if you’re interested in seeing the very un-Olympic side of Vancouver (and this doesn’t even touch on the issue of Vancouver’s sex trade) - the film’s 7 parts are available here.

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