Course talk:POLI380SEPT2010Cutler/Survey/DTES

Testing KelseyCroft 21:38, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Hello kiddies, I thought I'd get the ball rolling because I am almost computer illiterate and will need sufficient time to figure out what's going on here. I've been thinking about the DTES and there are a few important topics I think need to be covered in the survey. In some way or another I think we should touch on the issues of drug addiction, poverty, prostitution and mental health. I know there's another group dedicated to Aboriginal affairs so maybe we should stay out of that. I'm not sure exactly how we should approach these questions, any ideas? DanielleWoolsey 17:05, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

So I think this topic is definitely one of the more interesting ones. Going off of one of the areas of focus suggested, I think an example of a question could be: Are psychological/mental heatlh issues directly correlated with drug use/addiction? Or I guess you could insert poverty/homelessness in place of drug use. Either way I think it's a long shot to say Y could cause X - so we're good. Another option: Does poverty increase the amount of females involved in prostitution? Let me know what you all think since I'm really not exactly sure what we are supposed to be doing :) -Lauren Stevens

Sounds good. I already threw some general type questions up so take a look and edit if you please. I feel we should probably just get started and then go from there, so people throw up some questions either in our discussion or on our page. Also maybe it might be good idea to coordinate a time when we're all on ubc wiki so we can edit and finalize our question and start our survey which I do believe is due at the end of this week? - Guilherme Rosales

21:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC) I am not up to speed on the current situation regarding use and availability of contraceptives for escorts on the DTES. If anyone is in the know, please share - formulating a question of this nature is of interest to me, but if the situation is in relatively good standing then the question will be uninteresting and redundant. I think it would be decent question because it could be focused on policy. An example might be:

Do you think that the government should provide escorts with free contraceptives?

I know there are unresolved tweaks to be made such as what level of government would/should be concerned, but this is really more of a heuristic. Also: I am pretty well available any time after 630 pm every day if we want to get a group discussion going as Guilherme suggested. -Adam George 21:23, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I would be okay with coordinating a time to finalize our questions. I am free essentially anytime after 5:00pm. Here's a really good site the proposes controversial ideas in tackling the issues of the DTES (http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/). The Carnegie Community Action Project is a progressive group that proposes non-conventional approaches in regards to the DTES. - TimothyChu 00:10, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I found the CCAP articles to be very useful. I'm particularly interested in the topic area of gentrification. Although the government is implementing social housing it is not enough to keep up with the rapidly increasing rents of hotels in the area that are driving out and displacing alot of residents. Also, I found an article that discusses recent businesses that are opening up in the area which are increasing the income disparity in DTES, here is the link:http://www.vancourier.com/Advocate+says+sign+rapid+gentrification+Vancouver+Downtown+Eastside/3535884/story.html. -Elaine Chan

Tim CCAP is unbelievable, I think asking about some of their ideas would be really good since the kinds of action they promote are taken for granted in many communities, so we'd be asking if they deserve the same. E.g. Do you think DTES residents should be consulted before large-scale building projects are undertaken in that neighbourhood? I think we should also have some kind of basic question like "I think people that are below the poverty line and/or homeless are there as a result of their own actions" or something like that, just to gauge general attitudes towards the DTES.

For discussion I'm available today 2 to 3:30 or tomorrow after 4 and Thursday after 5. I live on campus so I'm pretty flexible.KelseyCroft 17:48, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

So lets keep in mind we're looking for the attitudes of people about the downtown eastside. Remembering this will help coordinate and focus our questions. Also escorts are different than prostitutes. Prostitution is illegal, while hiring an escort is legal. So maybe the question should go something like, to be general and simple, "Should the government provide free contraceptives to sex trade worker, or prostitutes on the DTES?" Or maybe, "Should the government provide free contraceptives to those engaging in both paided for and unpaided for sex in the downtown eastside?" The question should be altered to clarify what we are inquiring. And maybe on thursday we could all meet in the late afternoon? Anyways we have class tomorrow so we can talk before or after that and try and figure some things out. - Guilherme

Adding to the various topics of the DTES, there is a documentary in the late 90s (Through A Blue Lens) and a recent documentary currently airing on CTV called (The Beat) which focuses on a Vancouver Police Squad dealing with the problems in the DTES. In short, in one episode I have watched, two female officers regularly had to walk home a resident of the DTES to her home every night for fear of physical assault from her ex-boyfriend. In one of the following days, VPD members had a code 3 (emergency call) to her residence from neighbors about her ex boyfriend breaking and entering her residence and assaulting her. The ex boyfriend was apprehended and sent to jail. Within weeks he was granted bail and free to roam the DTES. In the documentary, one of the constables whom regularly walked home the victim displayed her frustration with the lack of support from the court system and judges in sentencing chronic offenders such as the ex boyfriend. With this story in mind, we could propose questions having to do with the vulnerability of DTES residents in correlation with the absence of a effective legal system to protect them. We could measure the attitudes of people in regards to DTES residents' safety and asking if they think the legal system is effective in protecting their safety. - Jordan

I think it's a really good idea to focus on how people FEEL about the dt east side (obviously public opinion greatly impacts government involvement etc.) How about simply asking a question such as "How do you feel when passing through/spending time in the downtown east side?" (1 - very uncomfortable [with surroundings], 2 - uncomfortable, 3 - indifferent, 4 - comfortable, 5 - very comfortable, 0 - unapplicable). I do realize that some people may not answer this question honestly, and it may initially appear too blunt or simplistic, but I still think it is a good step towards measuring people's attitudes regarding dt east side, and can lead to other valuable conclusions. It would be interesting to see which characteristics the various groups share (what the "very comfortables" have in common, etc.) I think that understanding the populations' sentiments and reactions towards the area is the foundation for formulating solutions. - Mollie Deyong

I agree with Mollie on focusing on public opinion, since most (not all) Vancouver citizens have little no no idea about what really goes on. We should also narrow our focus maybe? Lets say for instance we do 'sex-trade in the DTES', we can focus on awareness and public opinion on that topic. Also if prostitution is the focus then we have to note that the general population we are dealing with are female sex workers- the male sex workers of Vancouver generally work in an area called "Boys Town" which is close to Yaletown and the problems there are usually largely ignored since most of the focus has been on the sex-trade workers in the DTES. There are actually quite a lot of non-profit organizations that operate in the DTES especially focused on providing services for women who work in the area, such as WISH http://www.wish-vancouver.net. WISH works with the VPD. I think it would be interesting to know how people feel about services/organizations like this. Tatiana P.

Hey guys, great ideas so far. I added some basic questions about legalizing prostitution and increased police presence that I think are important to gauge the public's basic views before we get into more specific and complicated matters. I really like the question someone gave about whether people are homeless/on DTES as a result of their own actions. I think these types of questions will help to get a general idea of peoples ideological and political leanings and it could be interesting to assess whether peoples' responses are consistent with one ideological leaning or whether they're more sporadic. DanielleWoolsey 04:04, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

In terms of the "escort," "prostitute," and "sex trade worker" thing, I feel like we should go with "sex trade worker." "Escort" seems to euphemize the situation and "prostitute" seems to demonize it. I agree that we should attempt to prod at hypocrisies and inconsistencies in public opinion. A really good issue may be the issue of housing -- like the general sentiment of more social housing but "not in my backyard." I think we are slowly narrowing our list of questions which is great. I propose we have a question for each of these issues: housing, prostitution, drug addiction, police enforcement, and the whole "bootstrapping," "just-world hypothesis," "it's their fault" stuff. Thoughts? - TimothyChu 22:38, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Heya, I just wanna make a quick comment about the issue of "housing", i think this is a really good issue to tackle in the survey regarding DTES. I remember reading something about this issue which suggested that providing housing to the homeless people in DTES is kinda self-defeating in a way because if such housing is of considerable distance (far away) from DTES, those homeless people choose to rather stay in DTES. WHY? i can provide few speculations i.e Drug business in the area, prostitution, etc. have been the core source of livelihood for these people... Again this is just a speculation / theory since i got nothing to back this up. Perhaps we can set up survey questions concerning some of the people living in DTES to gain better understanding regarding this issue. --AnthonySantelices 06:06, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure if someone already posted similar link, but here is a link for the development plans of the government in Vancouver with some focus on DTES [1] --AnthonySantelices 06:15, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I like the question about how people would feel if a housing development were to go up in their area. I prefer simple "sex worker" to "sex trade worker" even though there is not a huge difference. I think that "sex trade worker" seems to validate prostitution as a legitimate profession, and as currently our government does not really recognize it as one, I think "sex worker" is the least offensive and most appropriate term (I know it's just semantics). I think the suggested sub-headings for questioning are good, we should definitely remember to keep a focus on general public opinion. - Mollie Deyong

Yeah I agree Mollie, BUT i would even extend that question to the DTES people themselves, those who are homeless, like asking them a question of preference location for the housing that they'll be provided. I think this type of question also will tell us a lot if, for example, being in DTES is a choice or not. Cus some people might prefer staying there despite not having a place to live because of the drug industry for example. --AnthonySantelices 06:19, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Also, I'm free during the afternoons from 11-3, or after 5pm on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tatiana

Hey, while the Ontario case is interesting I don't know that we have room in our 5 questions on the DTES to be asking about that. I didn't want to delete it from the question page but I don't think it's one we should go with. KelseyCroft 21:25, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

hey guys, awesome ideas so far! I've definetley been inspired by many of your questions. I especially liked the one about looking at the root causes of homelessness, because it made me think about the government's solutions to many of the problems in the DTES and how they are almost all short term. So in other words, they are focusing on stop-gap/ band-aid solutions, and creating sub-par fixes to problems as they arise. I think they have been doing this for a while now, and have yet to put time and effort into figuring out how homelessness, drug addiction, prostitution, etc can be prevented in the future. So I was thinking it would be interesting to see whether people would rather see the DTES being dealt with immediately, or have more effort going into programs dealing with root causes of these problems and see a more concrete fix to the situation in the future. so yeah, let me know your thoughts! - Anne-Mari Nano

I agree with Mollie and Tatiana. Survey questions focusing on public opinion of the DTES may not find completely honest answers but it will get some idea of the public's perception of the DTES. I watched a few documentaries on the DTES in the past. Another one I watched was a graduate from UBC whom spent some time living in the DTES; fully experiencing what a DTES residence goes through. Through his ordeal, he discovered that homeless people have available resources (food, shelter, and clothing) for them. Upon interviewing a few homeless guys, they told him they preferred to refuse to use the available resources because they make more money panhandling wearing worn and torn out clothing than they would wearing decent clothing. Getting back on point, those who work within the DTES community are aware of this. Generally, I don't think the public is aware of the available resources for these DTES residences and their deliberately not taking advantage of it. I think questions regarding public opinion on the problems in the DTES is important to demonstrate what the public knows/understands of the ongoing problems/solutions. --JordanWong 04:38, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

Hey Jordan, I like the point you made regarding the UBC who spent some time living in DTES, the point you made here kinda relates to the one i was saying above concerning housing. Though i do not think we can use the examples you mentioned here as evidence to develop a conclusion regarding the people living in DTES, since we got no data to back em up, but perhaps we can ask questions that would enable us to understand the point you raised: regarding awareness of the public regarding the availability of resources for the DTES people. BUt i think before asking a question regarding awareness, i think a preceding knowledge that there are really availability of resources in DTES should be addressed first. I think it would be pointless to ask people if they are aware of the availability of some resources in DTES without knowing ourselves that there are indeed resources available. Such question i think would require some in-depth research. --AnthonySantelices 06:31, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

To Anne- Mari I completely agree with you on locating the root problems of the frightening situation in the DTES. That is why I suggested a mental health question (please edit in any way that you think might better benefit the survey)as I find it is often a leading but largely ignored, cause of homeless in the DTES. Figuring out whether people want a "clean up" or a long term strategy will be crucial in understanding what people are willing to do for this issue... thoughts back? [Paulina Kisielewska] October 7th

Hey guys, I think we have a lot of really good questions here, I especially like the mental health ones, and the question regarding comfort level in being in the DTES (I having a feeling everyone asked will say low...). At this point is it up to us to limit these to just 5, or do we leave it to Cutler? KelseyCroft 03:41, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we pick the questions, but maybe we could narrow it down? I assume the point of this survey would be to assess public opinion to determine government action? Therefore I think that broad questions are more relevant. Even though I know we generally want to be simple and specific, this topic has too many relevant sub-headings to focus on every aspect. For example, I think the Question about the olympics effecting the DTES is definitely a good and interesting question, but I'm not sure if it is broad enough for our purposes. We want to establish a comprehensive view, so as Timothy suggested, this may be a good time to categorize and focus on the major, over-arching concepts. - Mollie Deyong

I've gone through all the questions and discussions so far, I think we got a comprehensive view of DTES. So maybe we can categorize our questions into three sections, like "attitudes towards DTES", "cognition about DTES policies" and "attitududes towards DTES policies" and then choose those we think are most interesting? Or maybe we can categorize our questions into different topics (like "homelessness", "prostitution", "drug addiction", etc.) and we vote for the most interesting topic so that we can narrow our topic down? Yet I think it's better for us to stick to people's awareness of those problems DTES are facing and let go of the attitudes towards those policies because I think if we want to know the real effects of the policies, we should act like that UBC graduate mentioned by JordanWong and send out questionnaires (or ask questions face to face) directly to those extremely poor people (if we really want to do that, we can ask the UBC Learning Exchange programme for help, because they can probably provide some help to us because they can contact DTES poors). Because if we choose to ask questions through landlines or cellphones, we would probably make that mistake called 'measurement bias', for we should miss out all those poors who cannot even afford a landline or a cellphone.--ChuanyeOUYANG 05:30, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I have to disagree with the last comment here--I really think we should focus on people's attitudes toward the DTES and not on knowledge of policies or strictly attitudes of residents of the DTES. I think what we're trying to do here is gauge the opinions of the general population in order to compare them to other topics studied...if we only focus on knowledge of policies or focus our sample specifically on residents of the DTES I think we're cutting out a lot of important information we could be accumulating. I think we should try to keep our sample broad and our questions accessible in order to avoid measuring something too specific and risk losing the ability to apply our findings generally. DanielleWoolsey 20:31, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree with Danielle. - Mollie Deyong

To Danielle and Mollie: actually what I mean is to identify the effects of the DTES policies is too hard for us in only five questions, so it's better for us to try to collect public opinions towards DTES, which is your point actually.--ChuanyeOUYANG 04:16, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that we should focus on attitudes/opinions rather than knowledge of policies, 5 questions doesn't allow us to cover too much ground. I like the idea of asking about attitudes/perceptions of the causes for homelessness (especially the mental health question) and gauging people's attitudes about housing, I think it would be interesting to also ask if anyone would favor 'getting rid of them' by relocating them elsewhere, although that would of course be a thorny policy issue, I'd be interested to see how many people say yes. I expect a lot of people will support housing of some kind, but resent or object to such housing being in proximity to their own homes, so if we follow up those questions with the rather ambiguous; "would you support relocating them outside vancouver", we might get some interesting results. - Mich Ryan-Aylward

I also agree that we should focus on attitudes and opinions, however, i think we should be really critical of what type of questions we should ask to elicit an opinion. What i mean is that some questions, though may indeed give us an idea of possible opinions or attitudes regarding DTES, may end up lacking-in-substance. For example, asking broad questions which give opinOion such as "...people that are below the poverty line and/or homeless are there as a result of their own actions" as posted above, may only generate attitudes that reflect lack of knowledge, information or even just being plain arrogant and inconsiderate on the part that is being surveyed. I may be wrong, but i do not see how such type of questions will be of any help in tackling issues regarding DTES. --AnthonySantelices 00:10, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Anthony (above) because simple attitude questions can really make our survey surface. I'm still curious to find out how much people understand about the issues occuring in the DTES and how much people are willing to do to change it "do you feel that the social programs in place are adequate in helping fight homelessness?" "have you ever volunteered in a homeless shelter?" "have you ever donated money to a homeless shelter?" (may be a touchy question though) (Paulina Kisielewska) October 11th

I do agree that questions such as the "own actions based poverty" question will most likely reflect arrogance, lack of knowledge, and possibly denial. However, I think these findings are relevant in their own right. If we ask a question like that, and 70% of the people show an alarming act of sympathy, though not necessarily ethical, based upon theories of democracy and utilitarianism, maybe the government should not be allocating increased taxes to such issues. (I am not saying that is MY feeling, I just think it's something to consider. Sometimes its hard to approach things like this without emotion. But if the majority of the population just doesn't care, should their money go towards solving the issues of the dtes? From a purely government-based perspective?) Realistically, a government should be acting morally, but it also acts in its own interests (re-election, etc). It is not going to want to make choices that are against the sentiments of the general public. I guess it kind of depends on the context you are relating to this survey. - Mollie Deyong

You guys are right, to ask questions which evoke personal issues of morality the public opinion expressed in the survey will have a certain bias because we will be framing the questions with specific sentiments in mind. Since we have so many questions up at the moment I think that the above suggested ‘broad outlook’ is the best way to go about this, and we must also use questions that are as neutral as possible and do not show, as much as this is possible, our own biases. Therefore we could choose ‘non-emotive’ questions which dicuss the main problems in the DTES- the police/govnt role, prostitution, drug addiction, mental health to get a more ‘overall feeling’ towards the DTES. Tatiana.

Remember it is not yet our goal to "help in tackling issues regarding the DTES." If some of us should want to do this after this survey then power to us. We can create a more comprehensive survey on the downtown eastside. But for now lets stay with the question, which focuses solely on attitudes. I suggest we pick, or whittle it down, to the simplest questions and questions that will reveal attitudes of Vancouverites about the DTES. We could all try meet up at a time and place to get all of our questions down to, ohh say only 10 questions. We could also try this online here where we each pick 5-10 questions we each really like and then go from there, but that might not work as well as in person. I don't know what do ya'll think? - Oh also I think we have enough questions to work with and edit? I'd say so. -- Guilherme R

Also maybe we could all put our names or initials on the questions we've poised? This might be a good ideaaaa... - GR

So, I'm going to boldly take a stab at narrowing down the questions based on the discussion so far, the existing questions and, obviously, my opinions. I have six questions covering six different issues, all of which guage people's attitudes towards the DTES. All the questions try to prod at potential inconsistencies with the dominate discourse on attitudes towards the DTES. For example, the question on housing kind of pokes at the tension between NIMBY-ism (where certain groups want to keep the drug addicts in the DTES) and gentrification (where they try to push out those groups from that neighbourhod). Feel free to tear it apart.

1. Housing-- Do you think social housing projects for drug addicts should be concentrated in the Downtown Eastside or scattered throughout the city? (1) = concentrated in the DTES (2) = scattered throughout the city (3) = don't know

2. Prostitution-- Do you think the legalization of bawdy-houses will promote the safety of sex workers? (1) = yes (2) = no (3) = don’t know

3. Addiction-- How effective do you feel the supervised safe injection site is towards the rehabilitation of drug addicts? (1) = not effective at all (2) = somewhat effective (3) = very effective (0) = don’t know

4. Police Enforcement-- Do you feel the police should focus more or less of their time on petty crime in the Downtown Eastside? (Petty crimes such as vandalism, theft and public intoxication.) (1) = more of their time (2) = less of their time (3) = same as currently (0) = don’t know

5. Individual Responsibility-- Who do you think is to blame for the poverty in the Downtown Eastside? (an open ended question where we rank the respondents’ response based on a continuum from being someone else’s fault to being the individual’s fault.)

6. Other-- How comfortable do you feel when walking in the neighbourhood of the Downtown Eastside? (1) = very uncomfortable (2) = somewhat uncomfortable (3) = indifferent (4) = somewhat comfortable (5) = very comfortable

If you want me to explain anything, let me know. -- TimothyChu 00:56, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Timothy I think those are very good, comprehensive questions. Is "bawdy-house" the correct term? (I have no idea, I've just never heard it before) - Mollie Deyong

I think we should replace the word "rehabilitation" with "safety" in question 2. I think this would more accurately reflect the intention of the safe injection site. Good job on narrowing the questions down--it definitely had to be done. DanielleWoolsey 02:31, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Whoops, commenting again. I'm not sure why but I'm not too keen on the police enforcement question. I think it might be the word "petty"; this word might discourage people from answering "more of their time" because the word seems to imply that those crimes are insignificant. I also think we might want to measure something a bit more general about people's attitudes toward police enforcement on the DTES. A question simply asking whether respondents approve or disapprove of an increased police presence on the DTES might be a good idea. Please feel free to disagree of course. DanielleWoolsey 02:51, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

"Bawdy-house" seems to be the term used in the mainstream media. But yeah, I feel like not a lot of people might not understand that term. I guess it's also hard to determine what the purpose of Insite is because upstairs is called "Onsite" and it's a rehabilitation centre. Oh, also, I got the name wrong for Insite. It's not supervised safe injection site, it's technically referred to as the supervised injection site by Vancouver Coastal Health. It'd be good to remove the "safe" from it, especially if we change the question wording from rehabilitation to safety. I'm also not too keen on the police enforcement question but I thought I'd include it in there because that seemed to be a topic of interest. TimothyChu 21:55, 14 October 2010

So those questions really narrows it down, great. Maybe we could kinda tinker with them a little, and maybe we should think about making the coding process easier in terms of uniform answers amongst all the questions. Just something to think about; but I saw lets go with 5 of these questions. Thanks for narrowing it down. - Guilherme

Definitely agree about making a uniform coding system. If we do choose only to go with 5 questions, I would suggest possibly eliminating the prostitution question. It is relevant, but it's also specific, and I think the other questions provide broader information - - we could also somehow alter the "police enforcement" question to encompass prostitution? - Mollie

How about "I think people that are below the poverty line and/or homeless are there as a result of their own actions. 1) Strongly Agree 2) Agree 3)Disagree 4)Strongly Disagree" for Individual responsibility instead of it being open-ended? And yeah not a fan of the "bawdy-house" terminology for the question, maybe just say "legalization of prostitution"? KelseyCroft 21:40, 20 October 2010 (UTC)Kelsey