500 Metres of Art:

Outdoor Gallery Opening for Affordable Housing

Vancouver- More than 50 pieces of art created by professional and amateur artists will go on exhibit starting Monday, December 15, at the Little Mountain Housing complex. The paintings are mounted on the boarded-up windows of vacant apartments slated for demolition during the next few months.

The artists include professionals like Tiko Kerr as well as current and former residents of the complex and their children. Kerr has contributed silhouette representations of former tenants forced to displace other families on BC Housing’s 14,000-name wait list.

Monday’s event will include an opportunity to interview artists, a tour of the paintings on display, opportunities to see the interiors of the homes of the some of the 19 families who remain on site, and the appearance of Santa Claus above one of the boarded-up doorways.

The artists’ goal is a reopening of the 15-acre site to ease Vancouver’s housing crisis. B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman intends to demolish the 224 low-income homes within the next few months. At the earliest, redevelopment would start in 2011 and perhaps much later, yet the homes could be refurbished at a modest cost to house at least 700 of the thousands of people living on the streets and others in desperate need of affordable housing. The refurbishing could begin immediately and the homes kept open until new construction is ready to begin.

The provincial government has pledged to replace the lost social housing units, but not to increase their numbers. CALM wants the entire site to be used for affordable housing for people with low and modest incomes.