Sarah de Vries, a true friend, who is believed to have been murdered by Robert Pickton vanished off the streets of the Downtown Eastside April 13, 1998. The last time I saw Sarah, she had called on that day wanting to come over and get some clothes and have some clothes and have something to eat.
I picked her up at the infamous Beacon Hotel and drove home. She bagged some of her clothes from her closet and then had something to eat, it was Fruit Loops, wow, she loved those. We talked for a while as she was getting ready to go out on the streets to work. I asked her if she need something money and she said yes and I gave her all I had on me which was $27.00. That would help her she said. As I drove her back and left her off at the Beacon, I said be cool my friend, she said I'll call you, and that was the last I ever saw of her. She went missing sometime in the early morning hours of April 14, 1998. And now Robert Pickton is charged with 1st degree murder in her case. I miss her and I love her and she will always be in my heart.
Wayne
PHS to operative renovated Downtown Eastside Hotel
By Cheryl Chan, The Province, September 14, 2009
The Downtown Eastside’s most notorious hotel re-opened for business Monday with a new mandate: providing safe, clean rooms for 40 homeless people.
The Backpackers Inn on 7 Wes
t Hastings Street — a crime and drug haven singled out by Vancouver Police as the worst-run SRO in the city — was purchased by the provincial government in January for approximately $3-million.
“I wasn’t sure this one could actually get done,” said housing minister Rich Coleman, referring to the deplorable conditions the hotel was in before renovations began.
“I’m just thrilled and impressed at how it’s turned out.”
The former owner completed renovations on the three-storey brick building as part of the sale conditions before the province took possession in July and put in fire and safety upgrades.
Re-christened the Beacon Hotel, the building will be operated by the PHS Community Services Society, which is also set to provide support to the new tenants — many of them from the New Fountain shelter a block away who often struggle with drug addiction and mental illness.
PHS operates the New Fountain as well as a string of other DTES hotels, the Insite supervised injection site and a lifeskills centre.
The society will operate housing in the new Woodward's development and is set to renovate a heritage building it owns at Carrall and Hastings - the old Merchant Bank building at Pigeon Park.
PHS recently opened the renovated Pennsylvania Hotel at Carrall and Hastings and will operate the $21.6-million Station Street supportive-housing development.
The Beacon Hotel is the latest SRO to be unveiled out of the 23 hotels purchased and renovated by the province at a cost of $138-million.
Other recent openings include the 25-unit Savoy and the 63-room Dominion Hotel. Renovations at two more buildings — the 40-room Orwell Hotel and the 138-room Marble Arch — are expected to be completed in late fall.
Michael Shadbolt, who had been homeless in the Downtown Eastside for two years, said he’s happy to finally have a roof over his head.
“It’s a complete
Coleman said safeguards such as 24/7 staffing, secure entrances, surveillance cameras and a police liaison officer have been put in place to make sure the building doesn’t revert back to its former state.
The Search for Sarah
Life on the Street - By Sarah de Vries
Missing People Net - Downtown Eastside missing women's website: 1999 - 2009
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