Archive
Downtown Eastsiders to take a mock SRO to Pt. Grey for High Tea in Vancouver
Media Advisory
Downtown Eastsiders to take a mock SRO to Pt. Grey for High Tea
Downtown Eastside residents and supporters plan to invade Point Grey with a mock SRO and two not-so-beloved creatures, Itchy the Bedbug and Creepy the Cockroach. They then plan to serve High Tea at a mystery location. The action, sponsored by Raise the Rates, will contrast living conditions for the poor and rich and point out that extreme income inequality actually shortens the lives of people who are poor and that unequal countries have more social problems than more equal countries.
The media was invited to:
· See Downtown Eastside residents protest extreme wealth in the midst of poverty;
· Learn facts about the impact of inequality;
· Learn how inequality could be reduced.
Raise the Rates is a coalition of BC groups that want governments to reduce poverty and inequality.
To the owner of 4707 Belmont Drive
We are a gathering of individuals, members of community groups, and representatives from various organizations concerned with the levels of poverty and homelessness in BC, and the increasing degree of inequality in our province. Some of us struggle with poverty every day, others know poverty and homelessness through friends and family who are affected by these realities, and all are committed advocates for social justice. What unites us is our understanding that rampant inequality generates significant harm to individuals and communities, and undermines social health and well-being.
As the owner of one of the most expensive homes in Vancouver, you occupy the opposite end of the economic spectrum from us. Those on income assistance receive $375 for monthly rent, and the Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel rooms available at that rate are mostly unfit for healthy human habitation (10’x10’ rooms without washrooms or kitchens and infested with bedbugs, cockroaches and mice). By contrast, your $31 million home has extravagant space (45,000 sq ft) and luxurious amenities (swimming pool, squash courts, etc.) for you and your family, far beyond what most families in the city or province would consider reasonable, adequate housing.
We are here today to highlight this immense inequality, and to call on you to publicly support the demands we have put forward. These demands call on the provincial and federal governments to raise welfare rates, end the barriers to receiving income assistance, increase minimum wage, build 2000 units of social housing per year in BC, replace the SRO housing stock in the Downtown Eastside with new units of social housing, and increase taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals. We ask you to contact the provincial and federal ministers of finance, housing and income assistance to assert your support of these demands.
Implementing such policies would significantly reduce poverty and homelessness in our province, and improve the lives of those most afflicted by the deprivation of basic necessities; it would also make our communities stronger and healthier for all. As recent studies have shown, rampant economic inequality has widespread negative social impacts. Life expectancy, homicide rates, drug abuse, child well-being, levels of trust, involvement in community life, mental illness, teenage birth rates, children’s math and literacy scores, the proportion of the population in prison, prevalence of racism, sexism and homophobia, and voter turnout are all worse in countries with greater inequality than those with more equality.
We invite you to add your voice and energy to this call for greater economic equality and the elimination of poverty and homelessness in our province. We do not seek charity but true justice in the political, social and economic structures of our collective lives.
AHA MEDIA congrads First United Church for being the winning finalist of 25K from Pepsi Refresh Challenge for the Storage Facility in Vancouver Downtown Eastside!!!
One by one we together make the difference. Sincere thanks to all who helped us end in 1st place & win $25k. Please take a moment to read the detailed thank you at : http://bit.ly/cNGySp
Ric Matthews writes You should know how much we appreciate your support!
This morning at 9am in Vancouver we saw the visible confirmation on the web that we had finished first and qualified for $25,000 in the refresheverything competition. One by one and day by day hundreds of people from all across the world took time to make a difference. Each vote each day by each individual added futher impetus to an irresistable momentum. Each email, each facebook message, each simple face-to-face conversation that encouraged a friend or family member to vote propelled us onwards. You did this. We did this. Individually and together we clicked on computers and brought a community to life. We became a community – a community that included people who are homeless in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside, and people who live in suburban homes on each of five continents; a community of all ages, genders, races, physical abilities, sexual orientation, and social circumstance. Together, one by one, we took the dream we supported and became it. We supported a vision and discovered we were living what we were reaching for.
You helped make it happen – you are what happened. Thank you!
We did far more than win a grant of $25,000. The momentum evoked other contributions: $35,000 from organisations like Face the World Foundation, the Hiros Foundation and the Schein Foundation; and $17,000 from individual donors. But more than providing capital in dollars it delivered social capital. An investment of people of themselves. The 24 hours in which the world watched in awe as 33 miners were freed from the dark to the light (each unknown and previously un-noticed man becoming a name and a personal story), left us all more human, more alive. The 2 months in which you and many others joined in a common vision and commitment (determined to save a storage facility for people who most of us do not know) leave us different, alive to possibililty and to Hope. The strangers we sought to support, became a part of our daily life. We stood (or sat at Computers) side by side with those we did not know and likely will never meet. We embraced each other’s needs and celebrated each other’s contribution. Each of us knew “I cannot make a difference in this outcome without many others also having the same dedication to vote regularly – On my own I cannot make this happen”. We also each knew that “My vote is a critical piece of the whole – if all the ‘I’s” stop voting we will not save the storage facility”. We knew we needed each other – and we knew ‘they need me’. We did this amazing thing because all the “you’s” and the “I’s” became a “We”. We knew deeply and profoundly that as we committed to others being able to be more human, we became more human. We knew that “my humanity is fundamentally dependent on your humanity”. We touched and were touched by what Desmond Tutu calls “Ubuntu”.
Now our challenge lies in what we do with this momentum; how to direct and free the Hope to which we have given life. I am sure that what we have done together will continue to inspire us personally. I know it will spill into the lives of people who live in our homes and neighbourhoods. I dream that it will also draw us even more deeply into the community life at First United. Regardless of where you live, you have become part of this community – a member of this ridiculously hopeful family.
If you are not already on the mailing list, please consider sending us your contact details. (You can contactnina.matthews@firstunited.ca – And I hasten to add, its your heart we need, not your money).
If you live within an hour of 320 East Hastings, please consider joining us on a Wednesday evening over supper (5.45pm to 7pm) or for the meals on Christmas day.
And whatever else you do, please forward this message to all those you asked to also vote over the past 2 months. You like they, have made a difference! You should know that one by one together, we want to thank you – just you! And especially you!
HOMELESSNESS AND GENTRIFICATION Walking Tour with CCAP – Carnegie Community Action Project for 7th Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival in Vancouver on Saturday Oct 30, 2010
Walking Tour
HOMELESSNESS AND GENTRIFICATION with CCAP
Saturday October 30, 11:30am–1pm
Meet at steps of Carnegie Community Centre, 401 Main
Learn for yourself how gentrification causes homelessness in the Downtown Eastside. Led by Wendy Pedersen and volunteers from the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP), this walking tour will go past new market housing that is pushing up land values and rents in 100 year old hotels. Learn how low-income residents are organizing to slow gentrification and preserve the good things about their community while working for more social housing. CCAP is building consensus within the community for a vision of the Downtown Eastside that hopefully the city will adopt. Visioning reports and information on gentrification can be found on their blog: www.ccapvancouver.wordpress.com. $10 for non-residents, pay what you can for local residents
Below is a video of Terry Hunter at Homelessness and Gentrification Walking Tour for Heart of the City Festival 2010
Below is a video of Wendy Pedersen at Homelessness and Gentrification Walking Tour for Heart of the City Festival 2010
AHA MEDIA is very proud to help provide social media coverage of the 7th Annual Downtown Eastside Heart of the City Festival in Vancouver from Pre festival events starting Wed Oct 20, 2010 through to the Main Festival during Wed Oct 27 – Sun Nov 7, 2010
http://www.heartofthecityfestival.com
AHA MEDIA is about exploring mobile media production through New Media cameras. For a better quality version of video or for additional footage, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter or Facebook.com/AprilFilms
Please follow AHA MEDIA on Twitter , Facebook, Youtube and Qik
http://www.twitter.com/AHAMEDIA
http://www.facebook.com/AHAMEDIA
DTES Neighbourhood Council, Streams of Justice, VANDU and Vanact! Homeless Action at Terminal City Club in Vancouver
Media release -- October 22, 2010 DTES residents make surprise appearance at Mayor Robertson's Terminal City Club City budget consultation "Our priority is housing." Slogan from the October 22 surprise action for housing. On Friday a group of DTES residents and housing activists rallied at the 100-year-old clubhouse of Vancouver big-business real estate to demand housing be built above the new Hastings Street Library. Surprise action organizer Tami Starlight, elected Steering Committee member of the DTES Neighbourhood Council said, "It's incredible that city council can pretend that building social housing or not is a technical issue. This is the same council that brags about having the lowest property tax rate in all the G8 countries, and the mayor is holding a budget consultation with big business at the Terminal City Club? Of course we're here to raise the issue of social housing. The solution is simple: raise taxes on business and the rich. We want the city to buy or designate 10 sites for social housing in our neighbourhood before the next election. They can start with putting social housing above our new library." On October 7th, many from the same group had visited city hall to oppose a recommendation from City Staff that the new library at 720 E. Hastings be built as a stand-alone, without social housing as part of the infrastructure. While council voted to send the recommendation back to the city manager to see if funding could be found, they placed harsh restrictions on their request -- that any housing addition must not disrupt the timeline of the library's construction. Tami Starlight continued, "City hall is playing political dodge-ball with people's lives. This is a great opportunity to build two critical resources for our community -- housing and a library. Council is squandering this opportunity through political favoritism to a handful of property owners who discriminate against poor people." Richard Cunningham, board member of VANDU and elected steering committee member of the DTES Neighbourhood Council said, "I am tired of promises, promises, promises. I’m tired of being treated like a 3rd class citizen in a 3rd world country. There’s all this money at Olympic village. I don’t care about the politics of it but I do care about my brothers and my sisters. You are spending money of frivolous things but hey, we are human beings, so treat us with respect.” About city council's claim that the promised 14 sites of housing will solve the so-called "street homelessness" problem in Vancouver, Dave Diewert of Streams of Justice said, "There were only 280 actual new social housing units built in BC in the last 5 years, when you look through the smoke and mirrors of announcements and there is not much there. The DTES is the place and the priority to purchase land for housing. When mayor Robertson says that he will solve the problem of 'street homelessness,' we know he means 'visible' homelessness. We need enough social housing to end all homelessness.” Nathan Compton, a member of VANACT!, speaking about the surprise action and hinting at more to come, said, "We should have no faith in the future when the city can’t guard and protect existing units. Council gave a token 6 units at the American hotel, approving the eviction of the tenants and the profiteering flip of the building. Council has no plan for after 2013 even though they know it takes 4,5,6 years to bring more housing on line. We're making our own plans for more actions to fight for housing.” Finally, Dave Murray, CCAP volunteer and DNC member wrapped up the intent of the surprise action by unveiling the full list of ten sites DNC is demanding the city buy for housing before the next election. Murray said, “I have been homeless, lived in hotels, I’ve slept in a few doorways and parks and some laneways in Strathcona. This is really a no brainer. We want you to buy 5 properties a year for social housing and you don’t even have to buy the library site. This would be 1 down and 9 more to go." The other DTES sites Dave Murray unveiled for the city to buy or designate as 100% social housing were: 1) Library on Hastings City owned 2) Buddhist Temple Prov owned empty building 3) Pigeon Park Savings Prov owned empty lot 4) 58 W. Hastings Empty lot 5) 549 and 553 E Cordova Empty lots 6) Pantageous Theatre Empty buildings 7) 148 E Cordova Empty lot 8 Stadium Hotel on Cambie SRO for sale 9) 334 Carrall Empty building 10) 780 Main Empty lot -30- For more information, contact: Dave Murray, Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council, (778) 320-5823 Nathan Crompton, VanAct! (778) 628-6252 Tami Starlight, Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council (604) 790-9943
Below is a video of the Homeless Action at Terminal City Club in Vancouver
Below is a video of the View of Police protecting Mayor’s guests at Terminal City Club in Vancouver
Below is a video of Richard Cunningham speaking for Social Housing at Terminal City Club in Vancouver
Below is a video of Ivan Drury and Richard Cunningham on Homeless Action at Terminal City Club in Vancouver
Red Tent Day of Action at Victory Square in Vancouver DTES on Tuesday Oct 19, 2010
Vancouver – Rally in Victory Square
When: Tuesday, October 19th noon until 1pm
Where: Victory Square (Hastings and Cambie)
Who: Everyone who believes housing is a right
From Halifax to Victoria, tents will be popping open on October 19th for the Red Tents Campaign Canada Day of Action on Housing and Homelessness.
Connect with local anti-poverty and housing activists to demonstrate address the need for a federal housing strategy and hold the federal government accountable to international human rights.
100 Red Tents will be present at Parliament Hill and the Human Rights Monument in Ottawa, Ontario. Community groups in Victoria, Vancouver, Surrey, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, London, Toronto, Ottawa and Halifax will be holding solidarity actions.
Supported by:
Pivot Legal Society
Below is a photo of Am Johal, Jean Swanson, Wendy Pedersen and Paul of VANDU
Below is a photo of Wendy Pedersen and David Murray speaking
Follow Us!
AHA Media 