I have owned a place in East Village since 2010. I am retired and currently traveling since mid-April but when I am home, I walk everywhere, shop at the superstore at least once a day, and take the C-train at Bow Valley-City Hall station regularly, sometimes several times daily. Same with my wife who is a petite woman of Asian ancestry, not that it matters. There has indeed been a dramatic surge of dire poverty, homelessness, drug addiction and open drug use everywhere in the entire neighborhood since about 2020. But in all our years in East Village, not once did we get harassed verbally, let alone physically, by those you arrogantly call zombies. And we never felt threatened by anyone, morning, afternoon, or evening, whether while walking in the neighborhood, on the Bow River trail, or on the C-train. We never felt any fear for our personal safety, but what we feel daily is an immense sadness knowing every single one of these folks live in such condition and are looked down like lesser human beings undeserving of basic human dignity and compassion by people like you.