Action: Piccadilly Hotel Eviction

DTES Housing and Homelessness Action: Piccadilly Hotel Eviction - write a letter

Bad news. The Piccadilly Hotel will evict its tenants this coming Wednesday, February 28, 2007. City inspectors say it's not up to code and it needs to shut down because the owner is not fixing it up. This is the perfect time for the City to use its bylaws to protect the last housing before homelessness.

Please email city councilors and ask them to do the repairs. Council voted to look for a test case for the Standards of Maintenance Bylaw in February 2007 that lets them pay for hotel repairs and bill the owner. The City could also buy this hotel. In 2005, Council voted unanimously to support the DTES Housing Plan which says the City will buy 1 hotel a year. Sam Sullivan and Peter Ladner voted for this plan then. In February 2007, council agreed to look for a hotel to buy. So far, not one hotel has been purchased. At the February meeting, council blamed the Province for causing homelessness by not increasing Welfare rates. Council minimized their own power to help. But small actions to save existing housing will make a big difference. Buy hotels, fix them up and stop creating homelessness. We must continue to hold them to account.

5 minutes to write a quick letter with your name and address signed. This pressure works! We delivered 100 letters to mayor and councilors in February for the SRA (SRO) Bylaw meeting. CCAP and other community groups pressured them relentlessly with action, extensive media coverage and presence at council meetings. We won the promise of city councilors not to allow conversion or demolition of SROs. Let's keep the pressure on.

sam.sullivan@vancouver.ca
clranton@vancouver.ca
clrlander@vancouver.ca
clrdeal@vancouver.ca
clrlouie@vancouver.ca
clrlee@vancouver.ca
clrcadman@vancouver.ca
clrball@vancouver.ca
clrchow@vancouver.ca
clrstevenson@vancouver.ca
clrcapri@vancouver.ca

See the original press release from Pivot here.
(Via our friends at CCAP)