Letters for 58 West Hastings-Homes, not the streets; A bed, not the sidewalk; Understanding, not Ignorance

Dear Friends,

Please join us to oppose a significant proposal for Condo developments covering 6 lots at 58 W. Hastings in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.  We need HUNDREDS of Vancouver RESIDENTS to each write a letter AND sign up to speak at the Development Permit Hearing to make an impact.

It is ESSENTIAL that our letters are in Friday, May 17, in order for the Planning Department to reference them for the report that the Development Permit Board will use to make their decision.

We need your letters of concern to help ensure:
-that development in the DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE works for the people living in the Community Already!
-that Condominium development does not proceed without consultations with the Communities directly concerned
-that the City of Vancouver acknowledge and respect what Vancouver Residents have to say about what’s going on in the City.

Your letters do not have to be long or profound.  A few sentences objecting to the development as it stands will do just fine.  Add any information that is relevant to you and your reasons for rejecting the proposal; elaborate wherever you feel it is important.

Feel free to use the information below and use the information in CCAP’s letter posted at:  http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com.

Background:

The Concord Pacific development at 58 W. Hastings must be stopped.  The rapid gentrification of the Downtown Eastside (DTES) is overwhelming the low-income residents of this neighborhood, who make up 75% of its population.  The current rate of new development, in which new condos outstrip social housing 3 to 1, is a grave threat to the neighborhood. The feverish planning, approval and construction of market condos is a destructive force accompanied by massive aftershocks to this community.

Rising real estate prices are already resulting in increased rents, conversions and closures of residential hotels (SRO’s), creating a constant flow of displacement and evictions of low-income residents, and consequent homelessness. Condo construction will be accompanied by a flood of upscale amenities catering to the new residents of the area, which will further marginalize the low-income residents who have make this neighborhood home for many years.

Unlike people with significant resources, whose lives are marked by independence and mobility, people living in poverty form communities of interdependence, located in a specific geographical area, and embedded in neighborly networks of support and assistance. The community of low-income residents who currently call the DTES home should not be displaced from their neighborhood and relocated somewhere else for the sake of condo development. This is their home, and they should be able to live here.

Poverty is not grounds for displacement.

Condo construction in the DTES must be halted until a community vision is formulated, planned and implemented. Like putting up a tent in a windstorm, rooting and securing housing for low-income people in a community experiencing the hurricane of condo development and massive gentrification is impossible.
Residents need time to determine their own community vision and support the implementation of that vision, before the green light is given to condo developers. What is at stake is the existence of a vibrant, amazing community of people.

The cessation of condo development for the sake of this community can begin here and now, with the rejection of a development permit to Concord Pacific for the 58 West Hastings site.

We believe there is an opening at City Hall to support our position.  On Thursday, May 1 at the Planning and Environment counil meeting, Cameron Gray, Director of the City’s Housing Centre said the surge of condos in the DTES is “like a hurricane and is going twice as fast as predicted…[and] we need to address the rapidity of change in order to stay on track with the Downtown Eastside Housing Plan.”  He also said that a strong mechanism to control condo development “could signal to the Province that no market housing will be built and landowners/developers may be off to Victoria to get more housing here.”  And he said:  “its time to do a community visioning because groups are more united and able to do it and because of the rapidity of change.”  At the same meeting, Councilor Anton of the NPA stated “we have the horrendous challenge of 4000 more units” in terms of securing replacement housing in the area and that “as long as the SRO’s are in private hands, they are in jeopardy.”  Councilor Anton said she was “very encouraged by the [visioning] work in the DTES.”

Please write your letters by Friday, May 17 to:

Alison.higginson@vancouver.ca
The Chair, Development Permit Board
c/o Alison Higginson, Project Facilitator,
Development Services
453 West 12th Avenue
Vancouver BC
V5Y 1V4

Please bcc your email letter to:  wpedersen@look.ca or send us a quick note to let us know that you wrote a letter.

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To sign up to speak at the hearing on Monday June 23, call:

Lorna Harvey
Assistant to the Development Permit Board
Development Services
604. 873-7469

Sincerely,

Carnegie Community Action Project [CCAP]
Streams of Justice
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Wendy Pedersen
Carnegie Community Action Project
Carnegie Association
604. 839-0379
http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/

Robotic vigilante hits street as homemade ‘Bum Bot’ patrols in Atlanta

Greg Bluestein, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA – Cars passing O’Terrill’s pub screech to a halt at the sight of a 136 kilogram, waist-high robot marked “SECURITY” rolling through downtown long after dark.
The regulars hardly glance outside. They’ve seen bar owner Rufus Terrill’s invention on patrol before – its bright red lights and even brighter spot light blazing, infrared video camera filming and water cannon at the ready in the spinning turret on top.

“You’re trespassing. That’s private property,” Terrill scolds an older man through the robot’s loudspeaker. The man is sitting at the edge of the driveway to a child care centre down the street. “Go on.”

The man’s hands go up and he shuffles into the shadows. Almost immediately, a group of men behind him scatters too.

The Bum Bot’s reputation, it seems, has preceded it.

The electronic vigilante – on the beat since September – has enraged neighbourhood activists, who have threatened protests. Street people say it’s intimidating. And homeless advocates question the intentions of its inventor, who uses the Bum Bot as a marketing tool and a political prop.

BC’s Homeless Death Toll: 56 or More in Two Years

Darrell Mickasko burned to death in a Vancouver alley.

Tally of homeless deaths released to Tyee by chief coroner.

By Monte Paulsen and Tom Sandborn
Published: April 17, 2008

At least 56 homeless British Columbians died during 2006 and 2007, according to provincial statistics obtained by The Tyee.

B.C.’s homeless died at a rate that’s at least 19 per cent higher than the general population, according to the office of the chief coroner.

Read the Coroner’s report

The original three-page document tallying homeless deaths, done at the request of The Tyee, can be found here.

“These deaths were preventable,” said MLA David Chudnovsky, a New Democrat who serves as the opposition critic for homelessness. “These are people who would still be alive if they’d had someplace to live.”

The report tallies 31 homeless deaths in 2006 and another 25 in 2007. But housing advocates criticized the coroner for excluding the deaths of some formerly homeless people who died in hospital.

“Our governments are culpable for these preventable deaths,” said David Eby, an attorney at Pivot Legal Society. “People are literally dying in the streets.”

Overdoses, blunt injuries, hangings

The office of the chief coroner prepared this report in response to requests from The Tyee. Among its findings:

The death rates among homeless persons in 2007 was 21.3 per 10,000 people, while the rate among the general population in 2006 was 17.9 per 10,000. So using the coroner’s indirect comparison, B.C.’s homeless population is dying at a rate 19 per cent higher than the general population.

Two thirds of the homeless dead were living on the street, while the remaining third lived in a homeless shelter. Thus the (uncalculated) rate of death among street homeless is higher than 19 per cent above average.

Poisoning by drugs or alcohol was the leading cause of death, followed by blunt injuries (e.g., hit by a car), hangings and stabbings. One drowned and one died of smoke inhalation. Another nine deaths are either undetermined or still under investigation.

All of those counted were found in B.C.’s cities: 13 in Vancouver, 11 in Victoria, four in New Westminster, three each in North Vancouver and Surrey, and two each in Chilliwack, Kelowna and Nanaimo.

Young and Aboriginal

Aboriginals represented 14.3 per cent of the deaths in the coroner’s report, while comprising just 4.4 per cent of B.C.’s population.

Older Article-Vancouver backs out on Housing Committments

Vancouver Drops Olympics Housing Pledge

Promise was ‘non-binding’ NPA votes.

View full article and comments here http:///Bigstory/2007/06/29/NoHousing/

By Monte Paulsen

Published: June 29, 2007

TheTyee.ca

Mayor Sam Sullivan and the Non-Partisan Association have rejected pleas for more new social housing by 2010. Critics warn that Thursday night’s decision by Vancouver City Council assures that homeless Canadians will outnumber athletes at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

“Homelessness is going to get a lot worse in this city, and the NPA is fully responsible,” said City Councillor David Cadman, who represents the opposing Council of Progressive Electors (COPE).

In a series of 6-5 votes, the NPA strong-armed Vancouver City Council into approving a misleading report drafted in the office of Housing Minister Rich Coleman and approved by the organizers of the 2010 games (VANOC). The report, awkwardly titled the Joint Partner Response to the Inner-City Inclusive Commitments (ICI) Housing Table Report, asserts that the housing recommendations developed for VANOC are “not binding.”

NPA councillors Suzanne Anton, Elizabeth Ball, Kim Capri, Peter Ladner and B.C. Lee also voted in lock-step with Mayor Sam Sullivan to defeat motions introduced by Vision Vancouver and COPE requesting an emergency meeting with federal and provincial housing ministers.

‘Huge things’

“We don’t need this motion,” Sullivan said. “We are working on a lot of things … Huge things.” The mayor did not provide details.

“Sullivan hasn’t delivered anything,” responded Councillor Cadman. “He claims credit for social housing at Woodward’s in spite of the fact that he voted against it. He claims credit for social housing at Southeast False Creek in spite of the fact that his first action as mayor was to slash social housing at that site. He claims credit for the SRO rooms purchased by the province, even though Minister Coleman has plainly said the city had nothing to do with that purchase.”

The Non-Partisan Alliance’s party-line votes came after a half-day of passionate public testimony, in which Vancouver citizens implored council to reject VANOC’s draft report and invite senior governments to a sit-down. Mayor Sullivan rolled out of council chambers during the second speaker, and remained missing-in-action for the remaining four hours of public testimony.

One of the many presentations that Sullivan refused to hear was a plan presented by Pivot Legal Society under which new homeless housing could be paid for out of existing provincial, city and VANOC funds. Pivot and 2010 Watch released documents on Thursday that they say show the city will earn $64.5 million from development of the Olympic Village, which is now under construction at Southeast False Creek.

‘No time to walk away’

Sullivan and his obedient NPA vote also defied an editorial in The Vancouver Sun, which stated, “2010 housing promises must be honoured.”

The June 26 editorial was uncharacteristically blunt: “…this is no time for the Olympic partners to walk away from promises made. Many of the housing commitments were key to gaining community support for the Games, and they must be honoured.”

Vision Vancouver and COPE councillors warned that since it takes a minimum of two years to develop social housing, Thursday night’s vote was probably the last chance this council would get to address Olympic homelessness.

“In all likelihood there will be a strike,” Cadman said. “That will place a hiatus on everything. And that hiatus will effectively delay action on housing until the fall. At that point, it will simply be too late to develop, permit and build new social housing in time for the 2010 Olympics.”

“I don’t want to give up hope until the day before the opening ceremonies,” said David Eby, a housing activist and staff lawyer at Pivot Legal Society. “But I’m getting a sinking feeling that the streets of Vancouver are going to look a lot worse when the Olympics arrive.”

UN’s harsh view of Vancouver

Any doubt that the world is watching was erased by a top-of-page-one headline in Thursday’s The Vancouver Sun, which declared “Vancouver a scarred paradise.” The Sun report described Vancouver as “a city with staggering wealth and soul-crushing poverty.” The article cited a report by the United Nations Population Fund stating that the Downtown Eastside “is home to a hepatitis C (HCV) rate of just below 70 per cent and an HIV prevalence rate of an estimated 30 per cent — the same as Botswana’s.”

Another high-profile report issued this week seemed to predict the NPA’s failure to act. Shelter: Homelessness in a Growth Economy was written by Gordon Laird and published by the Alberta-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation. The report estimated that as many as 300,000 Canadians are already homeless, at a cost to taxpayers of between $4.5 and $6 billion every year.

“Canadian governments,” Laird wrote, “have focused more on short-term crisis management over long-term strategic investment. Their response to homelessness over the last decade has sometimes bordered on outright neglect. In practical terms, absenteeism on housing and homelessness has exacerbated efforts to reduce poverty in Canada.”

letter to Gary Mason (journalist who ripped into the UN homeless complaint)

Dear Mr. Mason,

 

I have been a fan of your journalism since first reading your articles in the Vancouver Sun. I am a physical education highschool teacher in the lower mainland, educated at UBC, and have played, and continue to play, a variety of sports at a very high amateur level. While I whole-heartedly support sports and other physical endeavours and recreational pursuits, my position towards the 2010 Olympics has changed drastically since learning of the effects the Games have and will continue to have on my Vancouver community. I celebrated the winning of the games when I first learned they were awarded to Vancouver; now, however, I am quite adamantly opposed to the Olympics because of the tragic and inhumane effect they are having and will continue to have on the most vulnerable members of our community.

 

Your article, “blaming olympics for housing ills is wrong”, is, unfortunately, one of your worst pieces to date. How a reputable investigative journalist like yourself failed to report on the reality behind the government rhetoric is deplorable. “I think any link between Vancouver’s housing problems and the coming Olympics is misguided if not dead wrong“; perhaps you should interview Am Johal or David Eby and find out what’s really happening on the ground. Perhaps your opinion would be swayed if you interviewed tenants residing in the downtown eastside and learned of their illegal eviction stories. Please read David Eby’s blog http://davideby.blogspot.com/ … he has pasted hyperlinks into your article that challenge everything you convey as being ‘factual’. In a true democracy, the press has a responsibility to inform the people at large of the TRUTH, and neglecting to do so (whether to sell papers or to promote Government/business interests) is unbecoming of a journalist and jeopardizes your integrity. As a respected journalist, you have lost integrity with this article; you have the ability to win it back by writing a legitimate and informative article. Please do your research.

 

 

The situation for many residing in the downtown Eastside is very visibly dire. The complaint sent to the United Nations by UBC student Mike Powar makes a very strong case that Canada is violating fundamental human rights with regards to housing in the downtown eastside, and I hope that through ‘embarrassment’ and ‘shame’ the government will finally take affirmative action to improve the lives of our society’s most vulnerable. There’s no place like home…. In a country as prosperous as Canada, there’s no place for homelessness.

As much as I support the Tibetans and the ongoing struggle for human rights protections in China, it would be hypocritical of me to ignore the human rights violations taking place in our own back yard. The government can and should do more to ensure that adequate social housing is available to all Canadians, regardless of one’s socio-economic situation. As homelessness in our city as well as the rest of the GVRD increases, the situation is much more than embarrassing, it is tragic, and our government should feel ashamed of their inadequate ‘solutions’ to this issue.

To claim that “The Olympics may end up being the best thing that ever happened to the poor and homeless in this city” is outright outrageous. Mr. Mason: I expect better from you.

 

Official Downtown Eastside United Nations complaint webpage

If you’d like to learn more about the Downtown Eastside issue, check out the link to the official web page that provides details of the ‘No Place Like Home’ complaint that will be sent to the United Nations today. You can view the actual complaint in PDF format from the website.

http://www.noplacelikehomevancouver.org

Downtown eastside information/links/blogs

Here’s a link to the blog  which covers a variety of issues in the dtes and elsewhere. It’s the one which was instrumental in the barring of homeless man and Carnegie director, William Simpson. There’s a posting on a CCAP rally on February 29th, and you may have to scroll around a bit to get other homeless posts.
http://www.downtowneastsideenquirer.blogspot.com 

This one is for the Sun article on William Simpson.

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=9a0f844c-28d3-4b54-912a-130079fe3f80&p=2

I was at a little gathering today at the old Storyeum in Gastown which shut down in November ‘06 and has been empty since. There are some proposals coming in from the community for a new use for the space, one of which is a fitness facility. The group today is trying to promote it’s use as a homeless shelter, community centre and support services. It’s headed by a woman and Carnegie member named Audrey Laferriere. She has a petition going with about 3000 signatures but is not well-supported, especially by CCAP, who have a different perspective. Her site is:

http://storyeum.googlepages.com/

Another activist slightly outside the mainstream (she is against the present head of DERA, and I think she may be at odds with David Eby as well), but a really nice person, well-spoken, passionate and knowledgeable about the history of the dtes. I met her today in person at the “rally”. This is her blog: www.downtowneastside.blogspot.com

Here’s a story in The Tyee about the Backpackers Inn on Hastings, which is owned by the same group of six friends who own the SRO next to me I was telling you about. Interesting background if you haven’t read it already.
http://thetyee.ca/News/2008/03/20/Backpackers/

Vancouver DTES Hotel Closures Picking Up

David Eby’s Blog:

http://davideby.blogspot.com/ 

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Hotel closures picking up

The Downtown Eastside is turning inside out, with record numbers of hotels and low-rent buildings kicking all of their tenants out.

Recent closures include:

- Star Beach Haven, 19 rooms at 658 Alexander Street (today evicting all tenants as precondition of sale);

- Backpacker’s Inn, 42 rooms at 7 West Hastings at Carrall (closed today by owners as precondition of sale, power and gas shut off, same owners as Star Beach Haven);

- 334 Carrall Street, 30 apartments (closed in February by owner Robert Wilson for renovations);

- Marie Gomez Place, 76 apartments at 590 Alexander Street (closed in January by the province, condemned due to mold);

- Dominion Hotel, 67 rooms at 210 Abbott Street (closed in January for renovations);

- Columbia Hotel, 69 rooms at 303 Columbia Street (Carnegie discovered it was illegally converted to tourist accommodation in December, reported to City of Vancouver, no apparent response);

- Phoenix Apartments 18 units at 514 Alexander Street (closed as precondition of sale in February); and,

- Colonial Residence, 144 units at 122 Water Street (54 rooms empty since at least March 20, unknown why management is emptying the hotel).

Total lost since December 2007 (last 4 months): 375 units in 8 buildings.

Holy crap.

Letter to Eddie Vedder to be given tonight at solo show

Dear Mr. Eddie Vedder,

I’d like to commend you for your efforts in living and promoting the messages and ideals of LOVE, peace, hope, human community, environmental stewardship and spiritual awareness. Collectively we need more cultural icons devoting energy to these worthy causes, and I’d like to thank you for staying true to your principles and not compromising your integrity, even as you have undergone both incredible scrutiny and success both in your career and personal life.

As you are well aware, our planet is facing many serious political, social and environmental issues. It is becoming more and more apparent that the coproratocracy – the alliance of corporations, governments and military- are leading us down a very dangerous path. It is also becoming more apparent that a non-partisan spiritual revolution/re-awakening is necessary now more than ever. The messages of LOVE and peace are universal and throughout the ages have been modeled by prophets and spiritually inclined wise men and women of all ethnicities. Every living organism is capable of experiencing the beauty and energy of an existence that is steeply rooted in love, and for those that still doubt the power and authenticity of love’s potential quantum mechanics is providing us with verifiable, scientific evidence that the power of the heart and mind are much greater than many of us have given them credit for.

Now’s your chance to help us out!

Dear all you fellow fungi,

The Fungus is doing a project on homelessness in Vancouver…. and here’s your chance to help out some good ol’ fashioned grass roots democracy! Our mission requires us to sift through some data – You Tube video clips and old media archives will help us convey the story of the Downtown Eastside – and we have a request! We would like concerned citizens to contribute stories, video footage, media archive reports/articles, and anything else, directly to us at TheFungus. Please send your material (or a link to access it) to us via a submitted comment to this post.

Thanks for your support!

Peace, The Fungus