You're Invited to a Streams of Justice Afternoon Nap

Promised Legacy. Broken Promises.

Countdown… 3200 homes by 2010: This Olympic clock has been re-christened a countdown to end homelessness clock. We ask that you join us in creating an affordable housing legacy we can all be proud of – homes available to all.

Please join us in solidarity for a peaceful critical mass to kick-off Homelessness Action Week 2007, October 15th – 21st –
www.stophomelessness.ca

What: Afternoon Nap & Picture Taking

When: 3:00pm, Sunday, October 14, 2007

Where: The Olympic clock, North-Side of the Art Gallery
(Facebook Event listing here.)

Why: We want to fill the square with hundreds more people, and take another picture, to show our elected officials in the three levels of government, and the Vancouver Olympic committee that we are holding them accountable to their promise of leaving a “legacy of affordable housing” in the wake of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

• Current estimates put the homeless population in Vancouver at 1500 – 2000, with hundreds more in shelters, transition houses and couch surfing. This number is expected to rise up until the Olympics.
• The rental housing vacancy rates in all of Vancouver is below 1%, with wait lists for social housing 5 -7 years long. Vacancy rates for Single Room Occupancies, the last bastion of low-income housing for the poor in the city, are estimated to be functionally 0%, with many of SRO'snot meeting acceptable standard living conditions.
• The City of Vancouver is currently enacting "Project Civil City" which includes, among other initiatives, a no sitting, no sleeping on sidewalks bylaw, affecting the homeless who have no other alternatives than to sleep outside.
• In January of 1999, the self-identified “big-city mayors” in Canada, including the mayor of Vancouver declared homelessness a national disaster. There was no federal or provincial response to this declaration, and homelessness has continued to rise. Canada is one, if not the only, developed nation without a national housing strategy.
  

We endorse the Inner-City Inclusivity Report whose 5 key recommendations are:

1. Build (no less than) 3200 units of social housing by 2010
2. Acquire 800 units of low-income rental housing in Vancouver by 2010
3. Convert, after the Games, 200 units in the Vancouver Athletes’ Village to low-income housing
4. Raise welfare rates by 50% from the March 2007 levels so recipients can afford rent
5. Remove the barriers that block access to welfare, such as the 3- week waiting period.

Full report available at www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/housing/pdf/icihousingtablemar07.pdf

See also the 2005 Homeless Action Plan Solutions: "Income, Housing, Support" at www.stophomelessness.ca/pdf/HAP05jun.pdf

In support of and part of the City Wide Housing Coalition –
www.citywidehousingcoalition.org