‘Stop Gap Housing’ Idea Could Make Big Dent in Homelessness

A plan to house Vancouver’s homeless is taking shape on the drawing board of a local architect. It calls for the rapid erection of temporary villages assembled from the same type of modular units that mining companies provide for remote workers.

“Stop Gap Housing” is what architect Gregory Henriquez calls it.

“All of us in this community have long been advocates for permanent housing,” he said. “But we’ve gotten to the point where the numbers of homeless are so staggering that I’m left wondering if we will ever catch up doing it that way. I don’t think we can. I think there has to be a stop-gap measure. And that’s what this is.”

Henriquez, whose Woodward’s includes 200 units of social housing built to last hundreds of years, stressed that Stop Gap Housing would never replace permanent homes.

“It’s portable dwellings. It’s not meant to be a permanent fixture on the landscape. But it could serve for several years until we complete the construction of permanent housing,” he said. “I think it’s better than leaving people homeless.”

It’s also cheaper.

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
====================
Wendy Pedersen
Carnegie Community Action Project
Carnegie Association
604. 839-0379
http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/

The Ditch done fucked up!

Incomplete Olympic oval in Richmond, B.C., needs repair

Last Updated: Thursday, April 17, 2008 | 9:42 PM ET

The Canadian Press

The speed skating oval in Richmond, B.C., that is still under construction for the 2010 Winter Olympics already needs some of its roof membrane replaced.

The $178-million project — already triple the cost first projected — needs to have the portion of the roof membrane replaced that covers the wood panels making up the main roof, city officials said.

Over the past two months, tests have determined that some fungi and algae have developed on the bottom of one of the two insulation layers covering the roof, said Greg Scott, director of major projects for the City of Richmond.

The main roof structure was completed in January and consisted of hundreds of panels of B.C. wood that were lifted into place and secured like a checkerboard. Two layers of insulation were placed over the wood roof and a protective membrane placed over the two insulation layers.

Scott said fungi and algae were discovered at the bottom of the first layer of insulation, next to the wood roof.

“We’ve got to take the membrane off to get at the lower piece of insulation,” he said.

About 70 per cent of the roof area insulation needs to be replaced, he said, and the top protective membrane must be removed as well as the top layer of insulation to get at the bottom insulation layer.

“Then we do an inspection to see if there is fungi or algae growing on it and if there is, throw it away and put a new piece of insulation down and continue.”

Replacement costs are covered by Richmond, the oval’s owner, and are estimated at between $2 million to $2.2 million, Scott said.

The city is looking at recovering the replacement costs from the contractor that installed the insulation, including taking legal action if necessary.

City spokesman Ted Townsend said the wood roof was not affected by the fungi damage.

The oval, the largest building constructed for the 2010 Winter Olympics, is scheduled to open this autumn.