Trouble in Paradise

being poor in a world class city

a production by Streams of Justice

23 February 2008 @ 7:30pm
Fairview Baptist Church
1708 W. 16th Avenue
Vancouver, BC

Admission Free
(Download pdf flyer here)

We live in an extremely wealthy and privileged place. According to a BC Ministry of Finance News Release (July 11, 2007), the provincial government ended the fiscal year 2006-7 with a $4.1 billion surplus, and in the first quarter of 2007-2008, it announced a surplus of $1.6 billion. The Federal government recorded a budgetary surplus of $6.4 billion for the first quarter of the 2007-2008 fiscal year, after taking in a surplus of over $14 billion for 2006-2007. Vancouver is consistently recognized as one of the best cities to live, and as host of the 2010 Olympics, its designation as a world class city is reinforced.

There is another side to this picture. Homelessness doubled in Vancouver and the surrounding municipalities between 2002 and 2005, and current estimates for Vancouver set the number of homeless individuals over 1,500, with hundreds more sleeping in shelters and couch surfing. A recent provincial tally put the homeless population in BC at 10,500.

In Vancouver, this is due to the lack of affordable rental housing for people with low-incomes (current vacancy rates are between 0 and .5 percent), government unwillingness to build new social housing over the past decade (federally since 1993), insufficient income for those on income assistance (currently 25% lower than in 1995 once inflation is factored in) or working at minimum wage, and escalating housing costs due to redevelopment, speculation and gentrification.

Trouble in Paradise creatively exposes the reality of poverty in this world class city, revealing the human suffering behind the glossy images of prosperity and the systemic causes that generate such misery. Woven into this presentation is a gospel account of liberation that has both personal and political import.

Please join us for this dramatic and challenging presentation.