Homelessness: Newsmaker of the Year for 2007

Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier
Published: Friday, December 21, 2007
Huddled under a staircase on West Seventh Avenue during a heavy rainfall.

Covered in flattened pieces of cardboard under the Granville Bridge as the temperature dips below zero.

Manoeuvring a cart full of junk through a putrid alley in the Downtown Eastside on a bright, summer day.

These are images of homelessness-almost clichés in a city that has seen the downtrodden, the hardscrabble, the poor become part of the city's landscape.

They are images the public sees, walks by and calls the cops about. They're also what governments continue to debate and what anti-poverty groups won't let go of.
At least 2,000 people are homeless in Vancouver. They include the homeless who find refuge in shelters for a night, or on a friend's couch, or in hospital or in jail. Many of the homeless suffer from mental illness or a combination that includes drug addiction.

"Clearly something has broken, as we did not have this level of homelessness in Vancouver even 10 years ago," reports the city's homeless action plan. "The causes are complex but many relate to decisions made by governments, businesses, the public and individuals."

This year, homelessness was at the forefront of issues and people making news-more than the civic strike, Jim Chu becoming police chief and Willie Pickton's conviction on six counts of second degree murder of women from the Downtown Eastside. For the Courier, initiating its first Newsmaker of the Year issue this month, homelessness was an overwhelming but deeply troubling inaugural choice.

Read the rest here.

Church shelter for homeless OK, for a while

Plan aims to 'bridge the gap'
Glenda Luymes, The Province
Published: Sunday, December 23, 2007
A controversial plan to turn Tri-Cities churches into homeless shelters after dark has been given the green light -- at least for a few months.

Since Dec. 1, Northside Foursquare Church in Port Coquitlam has provided food and shelter for about 250 homeless people. Early next month, a Coquitlam church will take a turn, opening its doors to the same people, who are bused in from neighbourhoods across the Tri-Cities.

Five churches are involved in the plan, which has been met with strong opposition from neighbours.

"I did not expect people to be so upset," said Rob Thiessen, director of the Hope for Freedom Society.

"People were portraying it like we were herding cattle. We really had to fight to humanize the issue."

But Thiessen said a positive aspect of the heated debate is the awareness it brought to the homelessness problem.

The Tri-Cities do not have a permanent homeless shelter, although the cities plan to work on a long-term solution. In the meantime, the two-year church plan is intended to "bridge the gap." Each of the five churches will host the program for one month until March.

Thiessen said he was disappointed the City of Coquitlam approved a one-year zoning amendment to allow three Coquitlam churches to participate, instead of the two-year amendment the group was seeking.

"I think they gave in to a group of shrill, fearful people," he said.

But Coquitlam resident Colin Tisshaw disagreed. Also disappointed by council's decision, he would have liked to see council vote "no" altogether.

"Obviously there was a NIMBY [not in my backyard] component to our opposition," he said.

"But there was a lot more. We did our research and when we looked at the model being proposed, we found that it was not good enough."

Tisshaw said he doesn't foresee the city coming up with a permanent plan within two years, and feels council "dropped the ball" on its obligations to the community.

"You shouldn't just have a homeless shelter that people go to eat and sleep and that's it. You need counsellors and social programs. Without that, it can have a really negative impact on the community," he said.

Zoning changes will allow Northside Foursquare in Port Coquitlam and three Coquitlam churches to participate. A public hearing for one church in Port Moody will be held Jan. 22.

Link to article

Four Pillars plan totters on two: harm reduction and police

Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, December 21, 2007
Among the many problems with Vancouver's failing Four Pillars approach to the grotesque addiction problems in the Downtown Eastside is that it has spawned the Not-in-Anybody's-Backyard movement.

It now seems impossible for municipalities like Richmond, Coquitlam, Gibsons, or Keremeos to even consider proposals for abstinence-based treatment centres without NIABY proponents raising red herrings such as Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan's support for providing free heroin to addicts or Senator Larry Campbell's support for reforming drug laws.

They even question the fact addiction is a disease, not a choice.

Small wonder.

The Four Pillars plan totters on only two -- harm reduction (which includes the safe injection site, the ever growing distribution of free needles, methadone and possibly free heroin) and the best enforcement Vancouver police can muster without completely abandoning the rest of the city.

It hasn't made a dent in the nightmarish scene at Main and Hastings or the lives of the hundreds of addicts who congregate there.

Read the rest here

Housing is 'real' 2010 legacy

Twelve-site housing project is underway
Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, December 21, 2007
VANCOUVER - It took more than 15 years to assemble the property and three nights of public forums to let everyone have their say, but council finally passed a motion this week to create 1,200 social and supportive housing units on 12 city-owned properties.

"It really is a miracle to have development get underway on all 12 of these sites at the same time," Mayor Sam Sullivan said.

The City of Vancouver has stepped up with $50 million worth of land and forged a partnership with the provincial housing authority to fast-track design and construction of the buildings.

Half of the buildings could be completed before Vancouver hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics and nearly all will be under construction by then.

"I think this project is going to be the real legacy of the 2010 Olympics," said Sullivan, who's made homelessness one of his top priorities since becoming mayor two years ago.

"I have told the federal and provincial governments that Vancouver is going to represent the country [in 2010] and I don't think you want the world to see what we've got right now."

The mayor's civil city project to reduce public disorder set a goal of reducing homelessness by 50 per cent before 2010. In 2005, the city's homeless action plan set a goal of creating 3,600 supportive and transitional housing units over 10 years.

The most recent figures on homelessness estimate over 2,000 live on the streets of Vancouver.

Read the rest here

See also City approves as many as 1,200 units of social housing from The Province

Homeless Count 2008

Friends:

In March 2008 there will be another 24-hour homeless count in the GVRD. The last one was done in 2005, which registered a 95% increase in regional homelessness. It will be interesting to see what this next count reveals.

There is an opportunity to be involved in this event as a volunteer. They are looking for 400 volunteers to go out in pairs. This would mean some training sessions just prior to the count (scheduled for March 10, 2008). It is an action that some from our group might be interested in joining. Below is a fuller description of what's involved. Give it some thought, and we can discuss it further in January.

thanks ... Dave Diewert

Are you up for the count?

The 2008 Metro Vancouver Homeless Count is scheduled to take place during a 24-hour period on the night of Monday March 10th and the daytime of Tuesday, March 11th 2008. Funding for this critical initiative is being provided by the Homelessness Partnership Initiative
and the United Way of the Lower Mainland. You may remember the 2002 and 2005 homeless counts which measured homelessness in the region at a point in time - one 24 hour period, providing information on the size and nature of the region’s homeless population. The purpose of the 2008 Homeless Count is to produce an updated estimate of the street and sheltered homeless, a demographic profile of this population, and identify trends in relation to previous counts. This information is then used to aid in service planning and inform policy development.

We need you!

We are contacting local homeless committees, organizations and service providers throughout the region to help spread the word and to assist us in the planning phase of the project. We estimate that approximately 400 volunteers, working in teams of two, will be needed across Metro Vancouver to conduct interviews for the count.

We hope you will be able to help us to recruit volunteers from your community, and ask you to pass this message on to your networks. If you are interested in volunteering for the Homeless Count, please contact Catrina Chisholm at 604-718-7751or homelesscount@sparc.bc.ca. A training session for the volunteers will be held 1 to 2 weeks prior to the count. One of our team members may also be contacting you to request your participation in planning for the count, or to obtain your input on likely locations to find homeless people in your area.

Who is leading the count?

The Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness (RSCH) has hired SPARC BC (Social Planning and Research Council of BC) as the research consultant and volunteer coordinator for the Count. SPARC BC and their team of consultants coordinated the 2002 and 2005 Homeless Counts. A Homelessness Count Coordinating Committee (a task group of the RSCH) has been established and includes representation from municipal, regional, and provincial governments and community organizations providing homeless outreach services.

Individual team members have been assigned to the following sub-regional areas:

Vancouver - Judy Graves
North Shore, Bowen Island – Robyn Newton
Richmond - Kari Huhtala
Burnaby; New Westminster; North East Sector (Tri Cities); Maple Ridge
and Pitt Meadows; and the Langleys - Jim Woodward
Surrey; Delta; and White Rock – Kevin Campbell
Aboriginal Organizations - Infocus Consulting: Dave Baspaly, Dave
Pranteau and Lee Faurot
Overnight Shelter Count; UBC - Margaret Eberle

What does the count involve?

The 2008 count will build on the approach and methodology used in previous counts. The 24-hour snapshot includes a one-night survey of emergency shelters, transition houses for women fleeing abuse, and other locations that provide temporary accommodation. The day-time count includes homeless people who did not use a shelter on the previous night. Daytime interviews will take place at locations where homeless people are likely to congregate such as drop in centres, bottle depots, and meal programs, as well as parks, streets and ravines, and other places they may be staying. We hope with your help that we will be able to reach as many homeless people as possible on the day of the count.

We hope that we can count on your assistance to make the 2008 Homeless Count a success!

More information on the Count will be sent out over the next few months.
If you have questions or require further information please call:

Judy Roberts, Metro Vancouver Homelessness Secretariat 604-451-6065 or
Robyn Newton, SPARC BC Project Manager 604-718-7757

Donation offers blanket protection for the homeless

IAN BAILEY
The Globe and Mail
December 19, 2007
VANCOUVER -- It's a single blanket with two key functions. Rights Blankets handed out to the homeless yesterday are supposed to protect their owners from rain and cold as well as wrongful arrest or harassment.

At a community centre in the poverty-stricken Downtown Eastside yesterday, members of the Pivot Legal Society were handing out waterproof nylon blankets produced by Mountain Equipment Co-op as part of a unique charitable effort that has been in the works for more than a year.

The green blankets are designed to shield against the wet chill that's a rainy routine in Vancouver these days. But there's also a printed list of rights for the homeless on issues that include dealing with the police, security guards, health care, welfare officials and "rights in relation to panhandling."

"People who are homeless all too often are illegally moved along by security, by police, by property owners who don't want to see the homeless problem," Pivot lawyer David Eby told a news conference.

"Too often, their rights are violated by any number of people. Our goal is to educate homeless people around what their rights are so they feel they do have a place, that they are citizens in our society."

Mr. Eby acknowledged that many of the homeless who might wrap up in the blankets are illiterate, mentally ill or speak languages other than English, among reasons for not being able to comprehend the text. But he hoped others might explain the words, leading to discussions about rights.

Five hundred blankets have been produced, with 200 to be handed out yesterday. Pivot is urging the public to donate $50 to cover the $30 cost of producing new blankets. The $20 difference is to go into programs to help combat homelessness, such as protecting single-room-occupancy dwellings in the Eastside and lobbying for more government attention to homelessness.

Developing the blankets - a tactic inspired by a program in France that produced tents for the homeless - brought those involved up against some hard realities.

There was some thought to producing them in red or yellow so the users would be more visible. "But the feedback we received is people would be less likely to use them if it was a bright colour and drew attention to themselves for fear of being moved along by security or by police or by other private-property owners," Mr. Eby said.

"So the idea was to have it a colour that would blend in with the background to some extent, and provide that level of security to them."

Mr. Eby and supporters took blankets into the Christmas party at the LifeSkills Community Centre, gently interrupting clients working their way through plates of turkey with the trimmings. They explained what the undertaking was all about, suggesting the blankets would help users stay alive and protect their rights.

Former Toronto resident Donald Williams snapped one up, but noted he would pass it on to a friend. Mr. Williams, 48, said he was on social assistance and had a room.

Link to article

See also Blankets given to Vancouver homeless offer legal advice (CBC)

and

Blankets with message handed out to Vancouver homeless (Vancouver Sun)

There are benefits to changing neighbourhoods

If addicts and the mentally ill fare better in mixed-income communities, the Downtown Eastside should welcome development
TIMOTHY TAYLOR
The Globe and Mail
December 17, 2007
Vancouverites are very aware of the homeless people in their city. Best estimates put the number at 2,300, so it's impossible not to notice. Unsurprisingly, 25 per cent of Vancouverites responding to a survey earlier this year said they thought solving the problem should be a top priority for the city.

As a result, you might have expected the recent agreement between the city and the province to develop 1,200 units of subsidized housing by 2010 - aimed specifically at getting people off the streets - to meet with unmitigated enthusiasm.

But no. At the special city council meeting held last Wednesday to hear public input on the matter, only one speaker I heard - Darrell Burnham of the Coast Mental Health Foundation - thanked the city and noted that moving more than 1,000 homeless people off the streets would make a big difference. Among the rest, the mood rarely rose above guarded skepticism.

To backtrack, the agreement calls for the province to fund construction of 1,200 units of social and supportive housing by 2010. The units are to be built on 12 sites across the city, from Dunbar at 16th Avenue to the 600 block of East Broadway, and are intended in significant part for people with drug addictions or mental illness.

Interestingly, the knee-jerk, not-in-my-backyard response was not on display Wednesday night. I spoke with a strata council president who lives across the street from one of the proposed projects. He has significant concerns about concentrating people with addiction and mental health issues in one facility, up to 35 people in that case, but not with the principle of social housing in various parts of the city, even his own.

Where dissatisfaction reliably arose instead was with the perceived inadequacy of the city's response. Speaker after speaker berated the council for not building 3,200 units, a number identified as a priority in the city's own Homeless Action Plan of June, 2005.

The criticism has merit. We have the fiscal surpluses allowing us to make certain investments now. Education tops my list. But if 3,200 new social housing units was a good target 2½ years ago, then with more money and more homeless people we can hardly justify a lower target today.

But a thornier issue was raised with another common criticism. This relates to the preservation of the existing subsidized single room occupancy (SRO) hotels on the Downtown Eastside. There are currently 6,000 of these rooms in 136 buildings downtown, a stock protected by law and considered vital in containing homelessness. That said, many of the buildings are over 100 years old and in terrible condition. The city considers them "insecure and inadequate," a point on which many residents would agree.

Nevertheless, the city's plan to replace them - in part through renovation, in part by moving social housing elsewhere in the city and allowing redevelopment of the increasingly valuable real estate in the area - is the source of much dispute.

Even the city's commitment to replacing the SROs one-to-one with better social housing does not convince many activists and residents, who argue that there is a unique community spirit on the Downtown Eastside that must be preserved. It's a place where people know and support each other. It's a place that some people genuinely do not want to leave.

I'm sympathetic to an argument from the standpoint of community. And clearly there are people with special needs on the Downtown Eastside who can only be helped in their own neighbourhood.

But if developers are thought to be "poised on the periphery of the neighbourhood with their bulldozers and chequebooks," as one speaker had it, and if "bringing in the rich" will only disperse poverty through the city "like a cancer," as someone else put it, then those arguing on behalf of the Downtown Eastside would appear to see no possible benefit from letting the neighbourhood change its profile at all. And here I strongly disagree.

One of the consistent themes that arises in discussions about housing people with addictions and mental illnesses is that they tend to do better in situations where the population is of mixed income. That's the rationale for moving these housing projects out into neighbourhoods like Dunbar in the first place.

As Mr. Burnham said to me in a separate conversation: "People who have lived on the streets respect and value housing so much, that when they finally get into a safe and decent place, they work very hard to keep it."

He's describing the positive effect he has seen among his membership as they have moved away from the Downtown Eastside and into more mixed-income environments. But a reverse phenomenon is also possible. New interest in the downtown among new groups - artists and small businesses, restaurants and, yes, even developers - could provide for a managed increase in the income mix there and throw off similar benefits.

Looked at that way, you could say that the Downtown Eastside needs change and investment for the same reason that the West Side needs to pony up and take its share of social housing.

Because Vancouver does better as a whole when we all step out of our respective ghettos and take ownership of the city more broadly.

Vancouver's World-Class Woes

Commentary

Pickton killings a sign of Vancouver 's world-class woes
Commentary By Charlie Smith
Publish Date: December 13, 2007

Now that Robert Pickton has been sentenced to jail for life for murdering six women in the sex trade, it's time for our business and political elites to revisit their priorities.

For as long as women have been going missing on the Downtown Eastside, various mayors, media personalities, and business leaders have had a fetish for turning Vancouver into a world-class city.

Big extravaganzas, often connected to sports or megaprojects, became more important than the welfare of our poorest citizens.

More than two decades ago, this world-class virus led to the creation of money-losing BC Place, which was built to host a Major League Baseball team.

Then there was Expo 86, which cemented the world-class ideology.

And several years ago, our exalted leaders went to great lengths to attract an NBA franchise. For them, this was also a sign of becoming a world-class city.

An even greater effort was devoted to bringing the Olympics to Vancouver –yet another world-class endeavour.

It didn't faze our corporate and political elites that hosting the Games would impose monumental costs on taxpayers for cross-country skiing facilities, a speed-skating oval, and, most of all, security.

These elites, who can often be spotted at Vancouver Board of Trade luncheons, also concluded that we needed a world-class transit system.

So billions were spent on the Canada Line and the Millennium Line, even though there wasn't the population density to provide the necessary ridership. To hell with riding the bus. That's not world-class.

It was only natural for them to then ask why Vancouver didn't have a world-class convention centre. Who cared if it would end up costing a billion bucks? So what if rising oil prices would inevitably make conventions a sunset industry.

As our elites showered billions on these megaprojects–coupled with massive tax cuts–we quickly became a world-class city in ways that they didn't anticipate.

We started developing world-class food banks, and the highest child-poverty rate in the country. Much to our shame, we discovered that our slums could compete with the best in Rio de Janeiro or Mumbai.

Our provincial government took steps to ensure that we wouldn't lose that leadership position.

Premier Gordon Campbell passed legislation to make B.C. the only jurisdiction in North America to prevent welfare recipients from making any extra money on the side through part-time work.

In world-class British Columbia , every penny of earnings would be deducted dollar for dollar from social-assistance cheques.

Our world-class welfare system also applied on Native reserves because the federal government, which has constitutional responsibility for First Nations, harmonized its rates with the province.

Single mothers with two children over three years old who were "expected to work" received $296 less per month than disabled parents in the same situation–whether or not they lived on reserves.

It was a great incentive for aboriginal people to come to Vancouver . That, of course, contributed to our world-class homelessness problem.

Once they settled here, they learned that our world-class provincial and federal governments had spurned a proposal for a new recreational and spiritual facility for Native youths in East Vancouver .

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Premier Campbell couldn't find the money, despite piling up record budgetary surpluses, leaving aboriginal kids in the lurch.

Our world-class premier makes a big deal out of his new relationship with elected chiefs living on reserves.

However, his government has spent precious little money improving the lives of urban aboriginal people, even though they outnumber the population on reserves in this region by about 20 or 30 times.

Many years ago, our elites also decided that we needed a world-class airport.

In their eyes, the fastest way was to eliminate any political accountability.

Make the CEO answerable to a board of directors chosen by those same elites, and run it like a business.

We also separated ourselves from a pack of other provinces by making sure that a former RCMP superintendent, rather than a person with medical expertise, was put in charge of the coroners service.

That way, our police would know that if they killed anyone on the job, one of their former colleagues was in charge of the organization that would conduct an inquest.

Is it any coincidence that the RCMP's world-class use of Tasers at the airport is now recognized across the planet?

We also demonstrated world-class police incompetence by ignoring the advice of Kim Rossmo, the Vancouver police department's only officer who had earned a PhD studying serial killers.

During the 1990s, our world-class police board refused to post a reward for information leading to the arrest of any serial killer because the mayor of the day didn't want to fund what he called a prostitute "location service".

That probably put a smile on the face of our world-class serial killer, Robert Pickton.

Haven't we had enough of being a world-class city?

Panel raps B.C.'s 'social condition'

Number of poor 'most troubling indicator' to premier's advisers
Jonathan Fowlie, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, December 14, 2007

VICTORIA - B.C. is lagging behind in economic growth, crime-fighting and caring for the province's most vulnerable citizens, a group of Premier Gordon Campbell's handpicked advisers warned Thursday.

In a report released Thursday, the B.C. Progress Board -- 18 business executives and academic leaders -- for the second year in a row named B.C. the second-worst province in the country on a number of social indicators.

Read the rest here

Public wants more housing, meeting hears

1,200 new units is, at best, a small first step, overflow crowd says
Christina Montgomery, The Province
Published: Thursday, December 13, 2007

They want the 1,200 new units of social housing the city has promised.

They just don't want the city's plan to end there, and they don't want other cheap housing to disappear in the meantime.

That was the message from an overflow crowd that jammed Vancouver City Hall last night to caution councillors that the city's plan to hand over 12 sites for social housing was, at best, a small first step.

Under the plan, the city would lease 12 sites it now owns, for 60 years, to non-profit groups to oversee 1,200 small units of social and supportive housing. Seven of the sites are in the Downtown Eastside.

The province has promised money to fast-track development costs and planning for the sites, and to build the units, starting with six of them next year -- although the provincial government has yet to actually set aside the construction money.

The tiny suites would be offered to a mix of singles, many of them with addictions or mental-health problems and in need of support.

The plan also says non-profits would pay no property taxes and the city would pay for environmental cleanup on the sites.

The first of 100 planned speakers launched a broadside on the plan last night with criticisms ranging from the need for more units and family friendly suites to the need for smoke-free buildings and a full moratorium on conversion of the city's present cheap hotel rooms.

Wendy Pedersen of the Carnegie Community Action Project told council that despite its promises for a social-housing plan, it appeared the real intention was the "bulldozer plan."

"You seem to want to upscale our neighbourhood," Pedersen said, adding that the "faulty numbers" the city used to represent the

number of units being planned is "insulting."

The public hearing continues tonight, with another booked tentatively for next week to accommodate remaining speakers.

Link to article

Housing plan too little, too late, critics say

Chantal Eustace, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, December 13, 2007

VANCOUVER - A proposal aimed at building housing for Vancouver's poor is too little too late, several speakers told a special Vancouver city council meeting Wednesday night.

"I would really encourage you to move sooner and further than you have today," said Linda Thomas, director of housing services for Vancouver Coastal Health, who was among more than 100 people who signed up to speak.

The proposal would create 1,100 to 1,200 new homes over the next five years. The city would lease 12 sites -- valued at about $50 million -- to non-profit sponsors of social and supportive housing for 60 years.

BC Housing would cover the approximate $300 million cost of building the housing units, said Vancouver's housing manager Cameron Gray.

"Twelve hundred units is better than nothing," said NDP MLA Jenny Kwan. But she said as these new homes are created, other low-cost options like Downtown Eastside hotels, are closing. She criticized the city's "one-to-one" replacement strategy, calling it outdated in light of increased homelessness.

Andrew Pillar, a spokesman for Vancouver Public Space Network, an advocacy group on public space, said the plan is "going in the right direction. The concern is that it doesn't go far enough."

Seven of the 12 locations are downtown while five are spread out around the city -- including Dunbar, Kitsilano and East Broadway.

Gray acknowledged some people in neighbourhoods like Kitsilano -- where a third of the 80 units planned for three lots on 1607 West Seventh would be occupied by the mentally ill -- have voiced concern. "That's the site that's generated the most concern." Gray said.

The meeting on the proposal will continue tonight, and another will be scheduled if necessary. For more about the plan, along with minutes from Wednesday's meeting, go to www.vancouver.ca.

Link to article

Greetings from the street

One guest unfolds a grubby scrap from his pocket, a list of addresses. Others have lost touch, maybe lost everything
KIM THOMPSON
December 12, 2007, Globe and Mail

I am up to my elbows in paper scraps, armed with a smoking-hot glue gun.

This is my Monday ritual during the holiday season, assembling Christmas cards for homeless guests of a Toronto church's Out of the Cold program to send to loved ones.

As other volunteers dish up soup, lasagna and cake, upstairs we spread out boxed cards donated by a greeting card company, and craft materials for special orders.

The customers dribble in, shy and content at first with the familiar, commercial cards. I can understand why. I design and produce high-end corporate invitations and find the fancy materials intimidating - beautiful Japanese papers, expensive ribbons from France, delicate pearlized cardstock.

We cajole and coax until eventually more people gather to check out our goods. I get to work assembling handmade cards for the special people in their lives.

The pressure is intense when the orders start coming in. Our customers are surprisingly demanding - more silver paper, less gold, nothing religious, could I add a star? One wants an image of skaters, another a metallic cat with a band of sequins. It's important to them that each card portray something significant - winter, family, nature, the city, colour, love. They're totally into the details.

A man in his 20s asks for three cards to send home to Poland, to his aunts and his mother, who is recovering from breast cancer. He's impressed when I choose dark green paper. Green is his mom's favourite colour.

He worries about what to write. We tell him to write from the heart, tell her that he loves her and misses her. He prints beautifully.

Read the rest here.

Recovery house plan riles local residents

Christian organization seeks green light from city
Cheryl Rossi, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, November 21, 2007
With a methadone clinic in their neighbourhood and a recently opened 30-bed mental health and addiction treatment facility at 41st and Fraser, residents and business owners near 49th and Fraser say their community is doing more than its share for such services. They don't want a 10-bed recovery house to open at 655 East 49th Ave.

"Vancouver and the Lower Mainland is a huge, huge place, they should at least let us see the effects of the one facility, Triage," said Kelly Gill, a local resident and former Fraser Street business owner. "Why keep on picking just one neighbourhood? We are very, very upset."

The Place of Refuge Society, a Christian organization sponsored by five area Mennonite churches, is applying to provide transitional living accommodations to 10 men recovering from alcohol and drug addiction. The Hope for Freedom Society, also a Christian organization, would run the facility. It already runs a facility for men and another for women in Port Coquitlam.

Jenny Chin Peterson, an elementary school principal who lives on the same block as the proposed facility, said the area has suffered during the 10 years she's lived there with crimes and problems caused by people living in the area's rooming houses. However, two of them sold recently and things were looking up with more owner-occupied properties in the area.

She believes addiction programs are needed, but should be spread across the city and not concentrated in her neighbourhood. "The community is just starting to turn around and now we're looking at a 10-bed treatment centre, which has a 90-day-to-nine-month stay so we're having people constantly coming and going who have no vested interest in the community," she said. "They have zero tolerance, which sounds great. However, when they get kicked out, where are they going? Who's transporting them back to their neighbourhood community?"

Read the rest here.

Temporary shelters gain preliminary approval

John Kurucz, Coquitlam NOW
Published: Wednesday, December 05, 2007
At yet another emotionally charged meeting Monday night, Coquitlam council unanimously approved second and third readings of a bylaw amendment that paves the way for three churches to temporarily open their doors to the homeless.

Last weekend's snowstorm proved to be the deciding factor for some councillors, though virtually all council members indicated they would only entertain a permanent shelter system next year.

Monday's vote came in response to Coquitlam's involvement in the Tri-Cities cold wet weather mat program, a region-wide effort jointly administered by the Hope For Freedom Society and the Tri-Cities Homelessness Task Group.

Three churches -- Coquitlam Alliance Church, Eagle Ridge Bible Fellowship and Calvary Baptist Church -- will take part in the temporary program, which will provide overnight shelter on a rotating basis for one month at a time.

Read the rest here.

DTES Women Hold Remembrance Vigil on National Day of Action on Violence Against Women

Vigil and March
Wed December 5th
6 pm
DTES Women Centre (302 Columbia Street)

December 4th, Vancouver- Women in the DTES in the Power of Women Group are organizing a vigil and march to honour women and remember the missing and murdered women in the Downtown Eastside (DTES).

As the jury deliberates on the fate of Robert Pickton, charged with murdering six women from the DTES and pending an additional 20 charges on a second trial, women in the DTES continue to face violence, poverty, homelessness, and mental and physical health problems.

Bee, a native woman and long-time resident of the DTES who has several family members who have been murdered or are missing states “It is important for everyone to honour and remember the lives of these women. They were someone’s mother, child, aunt, niece, or daughter. Over the past twenty years, more than five hundred Indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing, yet nothing is being done about it.”

According to Madeline A, a member of the Power of Women Group at DEWC, states “There are an increasing number of women who are facing homelessness and poverty. Government statistics themselves show that there has been an increase of 60% in the number of homeless women in the past year in Vancouver. Being forced to live on the streets- which are incredibly dangerous- and to live in poverty is also a form of violence against women.”

According to Sylvie Poirier, “Many women are forced to stay in abusive and violent domestic relationships for fear of homelessness or lack of adequate shelter, poverty, child apprehension, or deportation. Our government at all levels is making the lives of women less safe through its policies such as lack of affordable housing, cuts to welfare and social assistance, child apprehension policies, cuts to women centres and legal aid, and recent crime bills that will target poor women.”

Some statistics:

• At least 50% of all women in Canada have been a victim of either a sexual or physical assault. (Stats Canada)

• Indigenous women are five times more likely than other women to die as the result of violence. (Amnesty International Report, 2003)

• With the new 2002 social assistance and disability regulations, approximately 16,000 women have been removed from social assistance in BC. (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)

• One-third of BC welfare recipients are single-parent families, 88% headed by single mothers. (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)
  

• The rate of rapid gentrification leading to the Olympics will triple the number of homeless in Vancouver (Pivot Legal Society, 2006)
  

Child Poverty Report Card - Letter Writing Campaign

As a follow-up to this post, here is a letter template you can use to remind your local politicians of the challenge.

You can identify your local Federal MP here, and your provincial MLA here.

Download the template letter here (.doc file)

Streams of Justice presents:

"Trouble in Paradise: Being Poor in a World Class City"

December 8th @ 7:30 PM

Grandview Calvary Baptist Church
1803 E. 1st Avenue, Vancouver, BC

Please join us if you are able for this multi-media event, and pass on the word of invitation to others in your community who might be interested in seeing it. This will be an informative and engaging way to learn more about the situation of poverty and homelessness in our region, and to be challenged again with the call to life-giving justice.

NDP 'shocked' at homelessness numbers across B.C.

By Stuart Hunter, The Province
Published: Saturday, December 01, 2007
The provincial NDP say they're "shocked" and "embarrassed" by a new poll showing there are 10,580 homeless people in B.C.

Party leader Carole James and homelessness critic David Chudnovsky held a news conference on Friday where they announced the poll figures, as well as the creation of a province-wide consultation on the issue called Finding Our Way Home: A Consultation on the Homelessness Crisis in B.C.

"The figure for the province is 10,580 and that is a very, very conservative number," Chudnovsky told The Province. "Shocking is a perfect word to use and embarrassing is a word to use, too."

Chudnovsky, MLA for Vancouver-Kensington, said two things surprised him about homelessness in B.C.

"There were two surprises," Chudnovsky said. "The first is the staggering size of the number, it's shocking. The second surprise is that in B.C. it is a provincial problem - too many people think it is a Downtown Eastside problem."

Chudnovsky said the poll suggests there are about 2,300 homeless living in the Downtown Eastside - about 300 people more than a recent poll done by the city.

Read the rest here

Confronting Class

Renaissance activist takes it to the streets
BY Jeff Nield
Photography by Frank Vena
THIS Magazine
Thirty-seven years ago, first-year Simon Fraser University student Michael Barnholden dropped out of school. The social historian, poverty activist and poet says it was a political statement of a kind that still guides his work. “The fact is that I’m a white, middle-class male and I’m of a demographic that has all kinds of privilege,” says the now 56-year-old Barnholden. “I can’t deny those things, but I can refuse them.”

His latest book project, a collaboration with his wife Nancy Newman and photographer Lindsay Mearns, is Street Stories: 100 Years of Homelessness in Vancouver.

Due out in November, the book illustrates how the demographics of homelessness have shifted to affect the most vulnerable in society—women, Aboriginals, the elderly and children. “There was homelessness in the ’80s, but it’s taken on a different character now,” he says. “It’s become institutionalized. I’ve come to the unfortunate conclusion that as long as we have neo-liberal regimes in power we’re going to have homelessness. It’s part of that agenda.”

Read the rest here

Young, Poor and Nowhere to Live

Downtown shelter turns away as many youths as it serves, as the ranks of the destitute grow
Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, December 01, 2007

Aaron and Mary struck gold on Monday night. A discarded mattress in a dry out-of-the-way alcove of a West End apartment building gave the pair a place to sleep for six luxurious hours. At least until they were jolted awake by angry threats from a building resident -- or possibly the landlady, Aaron isn't sure -- at 8 a.m.

"My girlfriend and I were looking for a spot to sleep last night and we found a place by the parking lot of an apartment," he said. "It was dry and there was a mattress; it wasn't even old."

The pair stacked their packs and other belongings up around them. The trick to sleeping outdoors is to avoid being seen and a pile of garbage is less likely to be rousted by a cop or a security guard than a human being. It worked for a while.

"The mattress was great, because usually you have to use cardboard to keep warm," he said.

"We wake up this morning and this woman was just ranting, 'You get out of here, I'm calling the police,' " he said. "But it was a relatively good sleep."

Aaron Carr-MacKay and Mary Pierre, both 22, are sleeping outdoors this week after earning a seven-day suspension from the youth shelter at Covenant House for an alleged liquor infraction. He denies it, not that it matters. They are out.

Read the rest here

The Guru and the Kitchen in the Downtown Eastside

Young Sikhs connect with their religious roots by providing food for the homeless
By Meera Bains, CBC News | November 29, 2007
A group of Sikh youths are spending the week cooking and serving free meals to the homeless in Vancouver's drug-ridden Downtown Eastside for two reasons – to commemorate the birth of Sikhism's founder, Guru Nanak, and to celebrate the concept of langar, a free communal kitchen.

But the event is even more unique because it's part of a trend in which an increasing number of second-generation Sikh youths are taking part in religious events that allow them to practice their religion in their own way, says one of the organizers, Indy Singh Panchi, 35.

"I think more and more young people are coming forward now than they used to," says Panchi. "This is an event that mostly youngsters are involved in, and have so much energy. They can relate to different communities and so forth."

Five Lower Mainland Sikh temples are involved in the six-day campaign, called "Guru Nanak's Free Kitchen for the Homeless," which runs from Nov. 26 to Dec. 1 at the Life Skills Centre on East Cordova Street. More than 400 years ago, Guru Nanak spread the message of peace and equality through selfless religious service and sharing meals together in Northern India and Pakistan. Sikhs revere him as a revolutionary spiritual teacher who openly criticized the caste system – a system of social classes aimed at keeping people of different ethnicities and economic status from mixing to promote purity of the privileged.

An expert on youth and religion at the University of Ottawa says the open kitchen idea in Vancouver shows how the children of immigrants are keeping their faith alive.

Professor Peter Beyer says the children of Sikh and Muslim immigrants are embracing their faith in larger numbers compared to faiths of other immigrant groups. But he adds, "they are doing it differently" than their parents.

"They will make a rather consistent distinction between culture and religion and will go for what they deem to be the authentic pure religion," Beyer says.

Read the rest here