Why Should We Care
The first and most obvious reason to care is the fact that these are human beings and they are living well below the poverty line. These homeless people include all age groups, anything from children to seniors. Even if all you do is drive through the downtown east side you can see how horrible the living conditions are there and how dangerous it can be. To those who have not driven through this area I strongly advise you to do so and take a look at the standard of living. It is something you would expect to see in a 3rd world country and not on our own doorsteps.
Another major issue with homelessness is the image it gives the city. Vancouver is a city which has a large tourist business but this is being damaged by the areas that have large amounts of homeless people in them. If you do a search for vancouver tourists in google there are warnings on many of the websites about how there is a large amount of homeless people. This is obviously not a good image for any city to have and its one that can damage the tourist industry significantly.
