Project Civil City, Housing & Homelessness: The Sticking Points

The Vancouver Public Space Network invites you to an important event pertaining to Vancouver’s quality of life"

Entitled, Project Civil City, Housing & Homelessness: The Sticking Points, the event is part presentation, part workshop. Co-sponsored with the Vancouver Public Library, it promises to engage the community in a closer look at the city’s housing situation.

The event takes place at the following time and location:

Tuesday, November 13
7:00pm to 9:00pm
Alice MacKay Room, VPL Central Library,
350 West Georgia Street
Event Webpage: www.civilcity.ca

There is no cost and no pre-registration is required.

Everybody seems to agree that something needs to be done about Vancouver’s housing situation. The Mayor’s Project Civil City initiative includes a goal of reducing Homelessness by 50% in time for 2010. Our event poses the question: what’s stopping us from getting there?

The evening’s proceedings are structured as an engaging blend of capsule presentations and facilitated, idea-generating dialogue. It’s a collective brainstorm… with a twist.

For the first half of the evening we have convened a panel of experts, each of whom will be presenting a summary tutorial on one of the “sticking points” that is preventing more action from taking place on the housing front.

Joining us are:

• Maureen Bader, Canadian Taxpayers Federation
• David Eby, Pivot Legal Services
• Matthew Nugent, Urban Development Institute
• Greg Richmond, Triage Emergency Services & Care Society
• Jean Swanson, Carnegie Community Action Project

And to moderate their discussion we are pleased to welcome Monte Paulson, Investigative Editor with The Tyee.

The second half of the evening will turn the discussion over to those in attendance. Through a series of facilitated/guided discussions, participants will generate ideas on the ways and means with which we might tackle the sticking points. It will be a fast-paced, creative brainstorm whose outcomes will be compiled, circulated to all stakeholders, and presented to back to community so that further action can take place.

We would be delighted if you would join us as a guest and participant at this event. Your knowledge and expertise on the subject of housing would enrich the evening, and your presence would be a valuable contribution to the proceedings.

We would also be grateful if you could help to spread the word about this event so that we can ensure as broad an array of participants as possible. We encourage you to send news of Civil City and Housing to any groups, businesses, agencies and individuals that you feel might be interested in attending.

For more information, please visit our www.civilcity.ca website; or, feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the event. We can be reached by telephone at 778-239-7544, or by email at info@vancouverpublicspace.ca.

Andrew Pilliar & Andrew Pask,
Democratic Spaces Working Group,
Vancouver Public Space Network