In Plain Sight: Reflections on Life in Downtown Eastside Vancouver

Ann Turner is the financial and budget manager of the University of
British Columbia Library.

This book originated in the Health & Home Research Project conducted in
the Vancouver downtown eastside in 2001 and 2002. The project examined
housing and health issues as perceived by women who lived there in
Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhood. Its resident and transient
populations are stigmatized by the media as being drug users, sex-trade
workers, criminals, indigent victims of physical and mental illness, and
homeless street people. Through taped interviews and conversations, the
Project examined not only the participants’ current day-to-day lives
but also how they came to be in the area. Seven of the women chose to
participate in the production of this book to show that the caricatures
portrayed in the media are not the real people of the downtown eastside.
They have histories, friends, and families, and live out their everyday
lives in plain sight like anyone else, but the stereotypes are all that
outsiders see. The stories were transcribed from the project tapes and
edited with the women’s permission and assistance. They provide a
unique insight into the difficulties of inner-city life.