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March to block condos from the 100-block and defend Downtown Eastside low-income communities against gentrification and displacement
March to block condos from the 100-block and defend Downtown Eastside low-income communities against gentrification and displacement
STOP PANTAGES CONDOS!
SOCIAL HOUSING NOT DISPLACEMENT!
SAY NO TO THE BC HOUSING BAILOUT OF SEQUEL 138 CONDOS!
Tuesday December 11
Rally & march meeting 2pm
In front of the Pantages demolition site at the blue wall
(About 138 E Hastings)
The developer who wants to build condos on the 100-block of E Hastings has recently announced a plan to start his sales. This project is part of a siege of the DTES by new condo projects that are driving up land prices and rents in hotels. Meanwhile, cops are clearing the streets and boutique shops are pushing out low-income serving stores and services.
The sales drive (whether imagined or a real threat) is backed by BC Housing dollars. A recent Province news article revealed that BC Housing bailed the Sequel 138 condos from the brink of foreclosure in the early summer with a low-interest $3.75M loan and promises $20M more to help with construction. Are Sequel 138 to be BC Housing’s first condos? (See more info below)
On Tuesday December 11 we will rally and march to demand social housing not expensive condos! People not profit! Stop gentrification! Community not displacement!
Organized by DTES Not for Developers Coalition
http://dtesnotfordevelopers.wordpress.com
–BACKGROUNDER–
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 6, 2012
BC HOUSING BAILS OUT CONDO DEVELOPER WHILE HOMELESSNESS CONTINUES
Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territory- Residents and organizations in the Downtown Eastside are outraged and alarmed at the recent news that BC Housing gave Sequel 138 condo developer Marc Williams a $3.75 million loan (at 1.29 percent interest) for pre-construction costs and may provide around $20 million to fund construction for condos at the Pantages site. According to news reports that interest rate is well below the going bank rate of 4 to 8 percent.
“About 850 people in the Downtown Eastside are homeless and another 3500 are surviving in totally inadequate hotel rooms,” said Beatrice Starr of the DTES Power of Women Group. “BC Housing’s mandate is to develop, manage and administer subsidized housing, yet it decides to subsidize a condo developer for a project that will provide only 9 units of welfare rate social housing, but 79 condos,” added Starr. “We have an urgent and critical need for at least 10,000 units of social housing annually in this province, yet BC Housing is instead offering corporate welfare and promoting the gentrification of the Downtown Eastside.”
“The BC Housing loan-subsidy saved Pantages developer Marc Williams from foreclosure and helped him meet the city order to clean up the demolition site that we demanded for over a year,” said Rick Alexander of Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU). “I live in the Brandiz hotel next to the Patanges site. Minister Coleman’s bailout of these condos could displace me and over 500 more low-income people like me who live in privately owned SRO hotels on this block. We could get renovicted because of gentrification. We want Coleman and BC Housing to do their job; end homelessness, don’t make it worse.”
Over the past year, an active campaign against condos on the Pantages sites has, thus far, delayed the Sequel 138 development. Over 40 organizations, housing providers, artists, and social workers have joined 2200 DTES residents in signing a Community Resolution opposing condos at the old Pantages Theatre site, stating, “We would not want to be complicit in a project that will further displace, impoverish, and police residents of the Downtown Eastside and make people feel more unwelcome in their own neighbourhood.”
Downtown Eastside residents are demanding a moratorium on all condo development in the Downtown Eastside until no one is homeless on the streets, in substandard SROs, or on shelter mats. They are also calling on Marc Williams to sell the Pantages parcel to the City at the 2010 assessed value and for the City to buy the site and work with BC Housing to develop it as 100% resident controlled social housing with low-income community space on the ground floor.
Mona Woodward, Executive Director of Aboriginal Front Door Society, is concerned about the impact of condos on the vital services in the 100-block for the low-income Aboriginal community; “The 100-block is near important services like AFD which represents off-reserve Aboriginal people. For us, the fight against gentrification is also against colonialism.”
Recent news suggests that Marc Williams will again be trying to ramp up his marketing strategy. The Downtown Eastside Not For Developers Coalition has called for a demonstration against the condo project and for 100% social housing, Tuesday December 11th at 2 pm at the Pantages site, 138 E. Hastings.
DTES Not for Developers Coalition
Contact: Ivan Drury 604 781 7346
DTES Block Party to Block Condos on the 100 BLOCK of Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES)
DTES BLOCK PARTY TO BLOCK CONDOS ON THE 100 BLOCK
Sat. Sep 17 at around 4 pm
Music, food, and the last bit of summer sun!
Marc Williams wants to build condos at the old Pantages Site in the Downtown Eastside. Condos in the heart of the neighbourhood will cause higher property values, higher rents in single-room occupancies, displacement of current residents, increased policing, and low-income residents feeling unwelcome in their own neighbourhood.
We are getting the neighbourhood and all our allies together to protect the site for 100% social housing for low-income residents. The DTES is not for developers to make millions, it is for our vibrant and vital low-income community!
For more info: http://dtesnotfordevelopers.wordpress.com/
HOW TO SUPPORT:
* If you are a group, endorse the DTES Community Resolution: http://dtesnotfordevelopers.wordpress.com/savepantages/
* If you are an individual, sign the online petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/nocondos/petition.html
* If you work in the DTES, sign the Boycott Statement:
http://dtesnotfordevelopers.wordpress.com/dtes-workers-boycott/
* If you are a social housing provider, don’t collaborate with Sequel 138:
http://dtesnotfordevelopers.wordpress.com/social-housing-provider-boycott/
Organized by Stop Pantages Condos Coalition: Aboriginal Front Door, Carnegie Community Action Project, Citywide Housing Coalition, DTES Neighbourhood Council, DTES Power of Women Group, Gallery Gachet, Streams of Justice, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users.
Community Dialogue on Thursday March 3 at St James Church in Vancouver Downtown Eastside
What are Community Benefits Agreements? Will they help our community?
Join us for a Community Dialogue on Thursday March 3 10 AM – 1 PM At St. James Church ( E. Cordova St @ Gore St )
Coffee, Tea and Snacks
Jean Swanson is the co-author of the Carnegie Community Action Project’s Vision for Change
Julian Gross has negotiation over a dozen community benefits agreements in California
Co-hosted by the DTES Neighbourhood Council and the Vancouver Urban Core Community Worker’s Association
And presented with the Building Leadership to Create Change Gathering
AHA MEDIA at Gentrification meeting of Vancouver Downtown Eastside hosted by CCAP – Carnegie Community Action Project
75 + people attended the Gentrification meeting of the Vancouver Downtown Eastside at Carnegie Centre hosted by CCAP – Carnegie Community Action Project
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AHA MEDIA at DNC – Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council AGM in Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES)
Ivan Drury, for the
Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council board of directors:
Today’s AGM was an important mark of how far we have come in a year of working together.
We discussed (and shared a slideshow about) the last year of working together. We talked about our successes, our challenges, and where we still have to work harder. One important example was the observation that we have done all we have without any paid staff. Doing all our work with volunteers means that we have not always been able to get all our detail work (like meeting minutes) done on time, but it also means that we have had to work on improving our capacities all together and through practice.
We also discussed our vision for the coming year, which was presented through a report from the Action Committee. The two main campaigns for the coming year are:
1) The FIGHT FOR 10 SITES Campaign will demand the city buy and secure 10 sites in the DTES for social housing before the next election in November 2011. This campaign has started with a focus on winning social housing above the new library on Hastings and Heatley.
2) The RESTAURANT JUSTICE campaign, which will demand and end to economic apartheid in the fancy restaurants that have set up shop in the DTES and which regularly discriminate against low-income residents through the prices of the food on their menus, the cultural climate in their spaces, by refusing low income residents access to their bathrooms, and by chasing low income residents off their blocks with the help of police and security forces.
To implement these plans, everyone is encouraged to come to the weekly DNC Action Committee meetings, 4:30 on Wednesdays at the Carnegie 3rd Floor (for now).In a brief presentation on our constitution and by-laws, two amendments were moved: to extend rights and respects to all members of our community regardless of their legal “citizenship” status; and to amend our “natural community” status application process to make non-resident members more accountable to the resident membership of the DNC. The constitution amendments were sent back to committee for revision and to be presented at a coming general meeting.
We also held an election for the new DNC Board of Directors. Seventy-five voting members attended, of which seventy-one people cast ballots. Dave Diewertt, organizer with the social justice group Streams of Justice, and Stacey Bishop, Strathcona resident and friend of the DNC, were elected as ballot counters.
As decided and explained in the DNC by-laws, our election was structured to be representative of our community through being organized by housing type:
The election was very close in all categories, so congratulations are in order for all those who stood for election. If you were not elected, at large positions are still to be decided, and there is a lot to be done outside of the Board!
For the SRO / HOTEL category, 8 people ran for election for a possible 5 seats. The five elected:
– Richard Cunningham
– Ron Kuhlke
– Paul Martin
– Dave Hamm
– Fraser StuartFor the SOCIAL HOUSING category, 10 people ran for a possible 5 seats. The fifth position was exactly tied by two candidates, so six will sit for the social housing category, taking one of the “at-large” positions. The six elected:
– Nathan Allen
– Ping Chan
– Earl Crow
– Harold Lavender
– Ann Livingston
– Wendy PedersenFor the MARKET HOUSING category, 3 people ran for a possible 3 seats. A motion was passed to accept the following three candidates as elected representatives:
– Vanessa Lowe
– Tami Starlight
– Ivan DruryFor the HOMELESSNESS category, 3 people ran for a possible 4 seats. A motion was passed to accept the following three candidates as elected representatives:
– Dave Murray
– Nicole Fidler
– Eileen PidgeonThe first meeting of the new board will be this Monday, 6pm, on the 3rd floor of the Carnegie. First on the agenda of the new board will be to discuss who to suggest to fill in the free HOMELESS seat, and who to suggest for the remaining 3 at-large seats that exist to help make the board more representative.
Congratulations to all DNC members who were present for such a productive and celebratory first Annual General Meeting, to those who won seats on the new board… a year of hard work awaits!
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