March 2010
Hi there,
A huge thank you from the Carnegie Community Action Project to everyone who volunteered, spoke at city hall and who came out to press conferences and actions over the last few months. It sure was a hectic time but together we succeeded in keeping the issue of homelessness, the need for housing, raising incomes and stopping gentrification front and centre in the local, national and international media. Below, are some updates on projects CCAP worked on in the last few months:
Historic Area Height Review
Poverty Olympics
Province’s propaganda kiosk
Last phase of the tent village on the Concord condo site on Hastings Street
CCAP’s vision for the DTES
We’ll send out a report on our anti-gentrification work separately later. Special regards to the DTES women who worked so hard to make the 19th Annual Women’s Memorial March on Feb 14th happen. The eagles flew overhead instead of helicopters, thankfully, that day.
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Historic Area Height Review
The city’s review of heights and zoning in the historic area of the Downtown Eastside lasted for 1.5 years and culminated in a city council meeting and decision in January. CCAP’s position to hold off on condos until the tenure of the low-income community is secured was heard loud and clear. Unfortunately, council approved two 15 story towers and may approve five more in Chinatown South. This is definitely better than sixteen 30-40 story towers like originally proposed, but will likely lead to displacement of low-income people as property values continue to rise. We did win a few things. CCAP and others called for a social impact study related to market development and displacement and for a local area planning process – both were approved by council.
Click here for CCAP’s full update on the results.
Click here for a summary from the planning department on City Council’s decision.
Read some of the speeches at city hall – here.
Read about DTES displacement facts here.
Click here for information about the city’s study on the impact of Woodward’s.
To find out which city councillors voted in favour of the towers and studies click here.
*if you have trouble opening these links, please let me know.
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Poverty Olympics – Exciting news…
No mad rush to raise welfare and minimum wage in the latest provincial budget (in fact some cuts were just made to supports that disabled people who are sick and the homeless rely on), but the Poverty Olympics was successful as we took up a lot of space with our point of view that the money spent on the Olympics could have been enough to virtually end homelessness and severely reduce poverty, and we had a lot of fun doing it. Plus here’s the exciting news….ha ha:
You tube contacted us about making money about this PO video!
We’re in touch with London activists about passing on the poverty torch for their games!
And, the Vancouver Museum took some of our Poverty Olympics props for their collection!
Read the article: “Poverty Olympics a big hit locally and internationally” and Robert’s speech.
Our little wrestlers:
http://www.creativetechnology.org/video/the-poverty-olympics-wrestling
On the Downtown Eastside anti-olympic actions in general, watch this overview on Democracy Now, created by Dr Gabor Mate’s son, Aaron Mate.
Listen to super informative program on CBC’s Ideas about why Olympics, really, are not a good idea.
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BC Housing propaganda kiosk
Just before the Olympics began, CCAP and other groups called a press conference to protest a new government office at Woodward’s that was set up to do some spin doctoring to foreign media during the Olympics. We talked about the facts that this office was keeping from the public, plus passed out some great flyers.
Check out this very useful Citywide Housing Coalition flyer called “Welcome Visitor” that was handed out to 1000’s during the Olympics. It could be adapted for post-olympic use for sure.
Photos of the press conference.
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Tent Village
81 homeless people were housed because they camped on a condo site in the DTES. Full report, including media articles, pictures and poetry here.
Recap on the last days of the tent village and the effectiveness of this strategy in this article on the CCAP blog. If shelters close April 30th, homeless people living outside and in shelters may find themselves working together again to pressure for more homes.
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CCAP’s vision for the DTES
For the last 2 years CCAP has been visioning, mapping and planning with low income DTES residents to figure out what they want for their community. The final vision is almost complete. Watch for it on our blog next month. Meanwhile we presented a power point on our vision and the actions necessary to improve the DTES from a residents’ perspective to a team of city staff who work on DTES issues. The meeting went quite well. We got some pointers and hopefully helped them understand more fully that the DTES is a real community with many important assets (see our power point presentation here). We’re hoping our newly formed Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council, with its strong basis of unity and unique elected representation and structure, will work to implement this vision.
More thank you’s
Lastly, we’d like to thank some of the groups who give us inspiration to keep going. Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, DTES Neighbourhood Council (DNC), Power of Women of the DTES Women’s Centre, Streams of Justice, DTES Neighbourhood House, Citywide Housing Coalition, Walk for Justice, VanAct, COSCO, Raise the Rates to name a few. Thanks to individuals, unions and to Vancity Savings, who continue to invest in us to achieve our goals to get more social housing, better incomes and stop gentrification in our neighbourhood. Also, thank you to the Blackbird for his photos, Murray Bush for designing CCAP reports, Gena Thompson for working on our blog and Rolf Auer for keeping us up to date with the news. And thanks to many many more individuals who work for justice with CCAP. To the 60 or so Downtown Eastside residents who make it to the CCAP meetings on Fridays despite living outside, in shelters or in the crappiest housing in Canada, my love and respect goes out to you. Conditions are bad here and it often feels like we’re living in a disaster zone, made worse by knowing the people with life-rafts aren’t handing them out. So, in such a time of frustration and loss, why do we keep going and in some cases seem disproportionately buoyant? Perhaps there is a sense that the dominos start to fall when we work hard, that learning and being together is important and that it’s OK to just do the best we can. And we’re joyfully stubborn here too. While the naysayers stand by wheezing and huffing about how “you’re all lazy bums”, “this will never work” or “be practical, we have to compromise with the developers”, I see again and again my passionate neighbours finding ways to dig their heels in the ground and never give up on their visions.
Wendy Pedersen
Carnegie Community Action Project
604-839-0379
wendyccap@gmail.com
www.ccapvancouver.wordpress.com
