The Homeless Hub

A link to The Homeless Hub can now be found on the sidebar under Homelessness.

The Homeless Hub is an innovative research library and information center focusing on homelessness issues in Canada. Building on the success of the Canadian Conference on Homelessness, held at York University (2005), the Homeless Hub represents a new approach to sharing information and research on homelssness. We strongly believe that evidence-based research can and should have an impact on decision-making and solutions to homelessness, through helping to educate the public, and to inform policy and practice at all levels of government and in the social, health care and housing sectors

Bill C-50 is a serious threat to immigrant rights

Bill C-50 is a prime example of a post-colonial state giving with one hand what it takes away with the other. Globally, the hyper-rich countries like Canada create the conditions for mass displacement and immigration within and away from the Third World.
by Nathan Crompton
May 12, 2008
rabble news

Harper's Conservatives are in the midst of an attempt to change Canadian immigration policy. Significant amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act are being added to a budget motion, Bill C-50.

The changes are debatable in the way that all legislation is debatable, since, of course, the bill is open to parliamentary deliberation. The changes are also debatable in a second meaning, more as a matter of judgment: the bill is questionable, problematic, perfectly reactionary, and so on. Yet it seems that precisely on account of its twice-debatable nature, the bill will not be debated independently in Parliament. The government has found a way to pass the debatable changes without debate.

Instead of being debated as a separate bill, changes to the Immigration Act are tucked into budget bill C-50. Opposition MPs can vote against Bill C-50 only if they wish to cause a federal election, since a no-confidence vote on a budget bill would dissolve the government.

The Liberals have refused to join the NDP in defeating the bill, which they explain with the now familiar apology that they don't want to trigger an election. But in fact the Liberals were given the opportunity to support an NDP motion to split the budget bill into two different bills, which could have allowed Parliament to vote against the immigration changes without precipitating an election. The Liberals rejected that option. It appears they will support Bill C-50 in spite of, or rather, because of the fact that the Conservatives are seeking to pass anti-immigrant laws in a fundamentally undemocratic way.

Read the rest here

No One Is Illegal-Vancouver & neworldtheatre present: The Displacement & Storytelling Project

The Displacement & Migration Storytelling Project is part of an exciting year-long collaboration between No One is Illegal and neworldtheatre, through which we hope to jointly contribute to bridging the gap between art and activism by developing tools of artistic resistance that are less individualistic and professionalized, and more deeply rooted in community social movements.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

No One is Illegal-Vancouver is a grassroots anti-colonial migrant justice group taking action on combating racism, colonialism, deportations, detentions, wage-slave conditions, and security measures in the context of the so-called "War on Terrorism."

neworldtheatre is a Vancouver-based theatre company which creates, develops, produces and tours politically and culturally charged plays that investigate intersections between communities and peoples.

Drawing from NOII's ongoing work, the Displacement & Migration Storytelling Project aims to create the space for participants to explore and bring their stories of displacement and migration creatively into the community. This project draws upon the deeply rooted and central role of culture, creative expression, and storytelling as key components of resistance movements by providing a connection between personal narratives and global understandings.

The project will consist of three major elements:

1) 8, 3-hour Weekly Workshops, during which participants will explore lived experiences, develop theatrical skills, and create one (or more) stories based on their experiences. Weekly workshops will run every Tuesday starting May 27th. The workshops will be co-facilitated by Marcus Yussef, Co-Artistic Producer of neworldtheatre, and Carmen Aguirre a Vancouver-based theatre artist, playwright and educator who has worked extensively in North and South America.

2) A minimum of 4 participant-driven performances that will be brought into the community, showcasing the stories that participants have developed. The first performance will happen the weekend of July 18th.

3) A minimum of 4, 3-hour Organizing Meetings dedicated to community outreach and performance planning. These meetings will happen separate from the Weekly Workshops. These meetings will be held every second Sunday starting June 1st.

GOALS

The goals of the project are to:
- Share experiences
- Empower people to tell their stories
- Develop basic theatre and performance skills
- Provide a space that bridges the gap between art and activism by developing tools of creative resistance that are less individualistic and professionalized and more deeply rooted in community
- Engage in a participant-driven and collective process
- Culminate with a minimum of 4 Community Performances
- Establish dialogue and community building around shared but unique experiences
- Provide the space to build connections between individual lived experiences and broader systemic forces at play including how racism, colonization, and the structuring of the global political economy exacerbate the process of displacement and migration

INTERESTED? HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

- No prior experience is necessary at all! This is a learning process!

- This project is open to People of Colour only. People of Colour is defined here as those who self-identify as having a lived experience of racism personally/in their community and include those of African/Black, Latina/Hispanic, Asian, First Nations/ Indigenous, South Asian, Arab/Persian/Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, Biracial/Multiracial background

- To reiterate this project focuses on a broad understanding of displacement and migration which is inclusive of experiences of displacement that have affected Indigenous/black/racialized communities, both historically and on an ongoing basis.

- Participants will be expected to attend and participate during in all 3 aspects of the program as outlined above (Weekly Workshops, Organizing Meetings, and Community Performances). As this is a cumulative process with the aim of bringing what is created into the community in a series of participant-driven performances and/or presentations, please ensure that you are able to make a decision about your commitment beforehand.

- This project will require that participants be willing to explore and engage their personal, familial, or communities' experiences around displacement both within and/or across borders. For example, displacement/migration due to the need to escape unsafe situations, oppression, marginalized identities, colonization, racism, war and occupation, poverty etc.

- All participants must have a basic understanding and acceptance of the principles that guide No One Is Illegal's work such as anti-oppression principles, anti-colonial and anti-capitalist values, autonomy from government and corporate bodies, and non-hierarchical and collaborative working environments.

- While the workshops will take place in English, there will be lots of room for participants to work in languages other than English throughout the process. There is also room for translators to be present, however these will have to be arranged by participants who may desire a translator with them.

- In appreciation of the work, time, and effort this Project requires, participants will receive $200 total each as an honorarium. Bus tickets, childcare subsidies, and dinner will be provided at each workshop.

TO PARTICIPATE

Unfortunately participation is limited to 10 people due to resource constraints. In order to be considered for participation, please write or provide a verbal response to the following questions (1-2 sentences are sufficient):

1) Why do you want to be a part of this project?
2) Have you had similar opportunities in the past? If not what obstacles have prevented you from participating in similar projects
3)What identities shape your experience of the world?
4) What communities do you connect to and in what ways?
5) How do you see this project fitting into other community-based work you might be involved in?
6) Are you are available:
a) every Tuesday from May 27th – July 15th for the workshops?
b) every second Wednesday starting June 1st for Organizing Meetings?
c) July 18th for the first Community Performance?
d) to commit to participating in a minimum of 3 other Community Performances from July – September 2008.
7) Is there anything you want us to know that might affect your participation?

*** To arrange to submit your responses over the phone or in person please contact Alex at 604.727.7838 NO LATER THAN May 15th.

*** Responses being submitted by email can be sent to noii-van@resist.ca NO LATER THAN Saturday May 17th. People selected to participate in the project will be contacted by May 23rd.

*** Selection will be based on the goal of creating a multiracial, multiethnic, intergenerational group, that includes gender and queer balance.


FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT US at:
604.727.7838/noii-van@resist.ca

Letters Not Condos

Please join with us to oppose a significant proposal for condos covering 6 lots at 58 W. Hastings in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. We literally need hundreds of Vancouver residents to write a letter AND sign up to speak at the Development Permit Hearing to make an impact. The hearing is on June 23. It is essential that our letters are in by Friday, May 17 so the Planning Department can reference them in the report that will be submitted to the DP Board who will make the decision. Your letter does not have to be long or profound. A few sentences to object will do just fine. Elaborating is good too. Feel free to use the information below and use the information in CCAP's letter posted at: http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com.

Background:

The Concord Pacific development at 58 W. Hastings must be stopped. The rapid gentrification of the Downtown Eastside (DTES) is overwhelming the low-income residents of this neighborhood, who make up 75% of its population. The current rate of development, in which new condos outstrip social housing 3 to 1, is a grave threat to the neighborhood. The feverish planning, approval and construction of market condos in the DTES is a destructive force setting off massive shocks in this community. Rising real estate prices are already resulting in increased rents, conversions and closures of residential hotels (SRO’s), creating a constant flow of displacement and evictions of low-income residents, and consequent homelessness. Condo construction will be accompanied by a flood of upscale amenities catering to the new residents of the area, which will further marginalize the low-income residents who have made this neighborhood home for many years.

Unlike people with significant resources, whose lives are marked by independence and mobility, people living in poverty form communities of interdependence, located in a specific geographical area, and embedded in neighborly networks of support and assistance. The community of low-income residents who currently call the DTES home should not be displaced from their neighborhood and relocated somewhere else for the sake of condo development. This is their home, and they should be able to live here. Poverty is not grounds for displacement.

Condo construction in the DTES must be halted until a community vision is formulated, planned and implemented. Like putting up a tent in a windstorm, rooting and securing housing for low-income people in a community experiencing the hurricane of condo development and massive gentrification is impossible. Residents need time to determine their own community vision and they need support for the implementation of that vision, before the green light is
given to condo developers. What is at stake is the existence of a vibrant, amazing community of people.

The cessation of condo development for the sake of this community can begin here and now, with the rejection of a development permit to Concord Pacific for the 58 West Hastings site.

We believe there is an opening at City Hall to support our position. On Thursday, May 1 at the Planning and Environment counil meeting, Cameron Gray, Director of the City's Housing Centre said the surge of condos in the DTES is “like a hurricane and is going twice as fast as predicted…[and] we need to address the rapidity of change in order to stay on track with the Downtown Eastside Housing Plan." He also said that a strong mechanism to control condo development “could signal to the Province that no market housing will be built and landowners/developers may be off to Victoria to get more housing here.” And he said: “its time to do a community visioning because groups are more united and able to do it and because of the rapidity of change.” At the same meeting, Councilor Anton of the NPA stated “we have the horrendous challenge of 4000 more units” in terms of securing replacement housing in the area and that “as long as the SRO’s are in private hands, they are in jeopardy.” Councilor Anton said she was “very encouraged by the [visioning] work in the DTES.”

Please write your letters by Friday, May 17 to:

Alison.higginson@vancouver.ca
The Chair, Development Permit Board
c/o Alison Higginson, Project Facilitator,
Development Services
453 West 12th Avenue
Vancouver BC
V5Y 1V4
Please bcc your email letter to: wpedersen@look.ca or send us a quick note to let us know that you wrote a letter.

To sign up to speak at the hearing on Monday June 23, call:

Lorna Harvey
Assistant to the Development Permit Board
Development Services
604. 873-7469

Sincerely,

Carnegie Community Action Project [CCAP

End Homeless Now - Forum

The number of people experiencing homeless in Vancouver is on the rise

What has happened and what is next?

Join other citizens and business leaders to discover how we can end homelessness in Vancouver

Free public forum
Thursday May 22
7:00 pm
(Doors open at 6:30)

St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Burrard & Nelson
Vancouver
(Free underground parking)

Speakers Include:

Steve Snyder
President & CEO, Translta Corporation
Chair, Alberta Secretariat for Action on Homelessness

Tim Richter
President & CEO, Calgary Homeless Foundation

For more information call: 604-683-4574

www.endhomelessnessnow.ca

Finding a home, a new life

City's Streets to Home wins over critics, gains credibility among homeless by helping more than 1,750 people get a roof over their heads since early 2005
May 07, 2008 04:30 AM
Daniel Girard
Urban Affairs Reporter

When outreach workers began asking homeless people if they could put a roof over their head, the answer was typically: "Yeah, right."

Three years later, the staff at the Streets to Homes program (S2H) are getting a much better reception on Toronto streets – and at city hall. The $8.7 million program is poised for a huge funding boost – $2.5 million more this year, $4.9 million next – opening the door to expanded services to help find jobs and more permanent housing to those who live in shelters or other housing but spend their days panhandling, especially downtown.

The executive committee's call is a ringing endorsement for the program launched by city council in 2005 with the aim of ending street homelessness. While a look down any downtown block confirms that goal has yet to be attained, the fact that it has helped more than 1,750 people find homes – nearly 90 per cent of them still housed – has won over critics.

"Nine out of 10 homeless people want permanent housing," said program manager Iain De Jong, referring to a survey conducted a couple of years ago. "They aren't `hard to house' or `service resistant.' It's that we haven't found the service or the right housing for them."

The program, which works with 29 non-profit groups ranging from street outreach and missions to employment and mental health services, uses a housing-first approach.

Read the rest

City council scraps social housing plan

Businessman balked at '20 per cent' requirement
Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Businessman Toby Barazzuol wants to make it perfectly clear that he is not opposed to more social housing built in the Downtown Eastside.

But Barazzuol, owner of Eclipse Awards International, does not think small businesses such as his should also have to be in the social housing business.

That was the situation he faced four years ago when he wanted to add a second storey to his business at Heatley and Alexander streets. He discovered that a city requirement under the Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District plan dictated that 20 per cent of the addition had to be devoted to social housing.

He said the requirement effectively would make him a landlord with tenants. The thought of needing to hire a non-profit to operate the units or managing it himself led him to scrap expansion plans.

Read the rest

Condo towers on the march in Downtown Eastside

TREVOR BODDY
tboddy@globeandmail.com
The Globe and Mail
Friday, May 2, 2008

Accompanying a hundred or so housing protesters marching through the grimmest blocks of East Hastings last week, I found myself thinking of the 1964 movie Cheyenne Autumn. It was director John Ford's last Western, a grand epic of the homeless and destitute Cheyenne as they sought a place, and way, to live after being displaced by white settlements in the 1870s, a cruel tragedy that went unnoticed in polite salons back east.

This is Cheyenne Autumn for affordable housing on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. In all my years of writing about the cities of the world, I have never seen a neighbourhood so stressed, facing so huge a range of external forces and difficult internal choices as the Downtown Eastside right now.

The rate of change here is cinematic, with every week a hoarding springing up to announce a new private housing project, while down most blocks, we are reminded that our provincial government has bought 650 "single resident occupancy" (SRO) hotel rooms for renewal as housing for the poorest of the poor.

Government press releases for this welcome initiative do not mention that this figure represents barely 15 per cent of the welfare-level accommodation in the neighbourhood, according to Wendy Pederson, one of the organizers of last week's march (which was triggered by a new Concord Pacific plan to build nearly 200 condo units at 58 West Hastings).

Ms. Pedersen says 250 SRO rooms closed permanently last year, and 900 more have been priced out of reach, because the area is now attracting students, seniors and so-called cultural creatives, without low-cost housing options elsewhere in the city.

Thus it is not only condo purchasers but also low-income Vancouverites who are now competing with the homeless for housing in this single, 20-block area. The bottom line, according to the Carnegie Centre Community Action Project, is that 1,300 out of 2,900 rooms in the Downtown Eastside will soon be "inaccessible to people on welfare."

The April 22 protesters convened at the premises of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, where boxes of bananas were being given out to hungry addicts, streetwalkers, unemployed teenagers and indigent seniors. Watching the demonstrators brought home to me another reminder of Cheyenne Autumn: how the ratio of aboriginal and Métis people among Downtown Eastside residents increases yearly.

The concentration of poverty in the Downtown Eastside is the result of more than a century of established public policy. For example, from 1900 through 1975, it was virtually the only area of the city where bar, tavern and beer parlour licences were issued. Injured and laid-off workers from the natural resources industry were parked there to drink away their lives, thanks to multiple bylaws passed by multiple city councils.

Vancouverites now have the temerity to feign surprise about "problems getting out of hand down there," and prescribe condos-as-cure. There is nothing like the Downtown Eastside anywhere else on this continent for a simple reason: it is an artificial slum - the direct result of failed public policy united with a long-standing civic tradition of hiding our problems, rather than confronting them.

Rage about all this was in the air during the April 22 march, amid fear from residents and activists that their concerns about the Concord Pacific development plan would not be heard.

Area planner Rick Michaels and Vancouver director of planning Brent Toderian offered soothing words, but Mr. Toderian says he is nonetheless "inclined to support" the Concord Pacific application when it returns to the Development Permit Board in several weeks.

Mr. Toderian offered his assurances on responsible Downtown Eastside development in a recent interview. "We do not practice 'form follows finance' in my department," he told me.

The Concord Pacific project is mid-rise, and sympathetic to the late 19th-century heritage district context.

But a few blocks away on Pender Street, developer Rob Macdonald is pushing for the first high-rise condo tower in the Downtown Eastside, 90 or perhaps 120 metres high, according to some media reports.

Mr. Toderian says that, in his view, "the door is still open" for condo tower applications in the heart of Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside. I think this a huge mistake, and our chief planner concedes that this openness has created a rush of developers and real estate agents expecting permission for the tower format to march eastward.

It is City Council, not planners, who will determine the fate of towers amid the city's largest concentration of heritage buildings.

According to Mr. Toderian, "If developers have paid too much for land here, that's their problem."

And his, especially in an election year.

Like the Cheyenne in the John Ford movie, a line in the sand has been set by community and heritage advocates. Stay tuned.

Solutions for homelessness offered to City

Three young authors had plenty of advice to offer the City of Vancouver on how to address the growing issues of a lack of affordable housing and a growing homelessness crisis yesterday.

The authors were winners of an essay contest held by Pivot Legal Society that challenged entrants to think outside the box on how to solve one of the most pressing issues facing the City of Vancouver: the future of housing in the Downtown Eastside.

“These essays represent real and pragmatic solutions to homelessness and the future of the Downtown Eastside,” said David Eby, who heads Pivot Legal Society’s Housing Campaign. “But more importantly they represent the possibility that creative thinking and collaboration could help Vancouver solve some pretty challenging problems.”

A panel of high-profile judges, including Cameron Gray of the City of Vancouver Housing Department, Nick Blomley, Professor of Urban Geography at SFU, and developer Robert Brown, evaluated the entries for creative thinking, the practicality of the recommendations, and whether or not the proposals drew from successful models in other jurisdictions.Key proposals from the essays included:

• A “master lease” program, modeled on a program in San Francisco, where the city pays the capital cost for half of a new build of social housing units, and leases the remaining units from a developer funded by private capital, capital secured by the half of the units paid for by the city. In the alternative, the City could lease existing operating SRO buildings from operators to ensure continued access to those most vulnerable to homelessness. Rents could help offset City costs.

• A “homeless connect” program, modeled on another San Francisco program, where government and non-government organizations gather in a single location to help homeless people get basic services like replacement identification, eyeglasses and medical care.

• Employing the recently homeless in building social housing to help build skills and self-esteem.

• Incorporating economic rights, like a right to housing and a living wage, into our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

• Considering the issuing of a special development bond by the City for the benefit of the DTES, where individuals could invest in ensuring socially sustainable and mixed income construction, instead of forcing the City to rely on private investment and developers for revitalization of the area.

Click here to download the report

Big win in TO with panhandler plan

Toronto City Council's powerful Executive Committee has unanimously adopted a detailed panhandling strategy that bucks the terrible trend throughout North America to criminalize activities associated with homelessness, housing insecurity and poverty. The plan recognizes that there are socio-economic and health issues that drive people to beg for change on the city's streets and, therefore, the best response is not to arrest and ticket panhandlers, but to ensure that they have access to housing, supports and income.

It was particularly heartening to see representatives from Toronto's business, tourism and entertainment all stand in support of this plan - along with the Wellesley Institute. Even Toronto Police Services spoke against criminalizing panhandling and in favour of the approach that tackles the fundamental concerns. Just one year ago, many business groups and others were clamouring for a police-led crackdown on panhandling.

The TO plan, which still needs the approval of City Council later this month, calls for a "housing first" approach to dealing with panhandling. It recognizes that growing poverty and housing insecurity are driving most people to beg on the streets, and that a significant number also suffer from physical and mental health concerns, including substance use. But instead of condemning the poor for being poor, the Toronto plan commits about $5 million to help panhandlers find affordable homes, an adequate income and the supports that they need.

The Wellesley Institute, in our submission to the committee, noted that the Statistics Canada data released last Thursday confirms the dire trend in growing income inequality in Toronto. We also pointed out that many cities - including New York City - have tried to criminalize activities associated with homelessness (including panhandling), only to find that this costs more and doesn't actually reduce the number of homeless people. And we called on the city to re-double its efforts to ensure that there is adequate housing and services for those who need it.

We've noted in our municipal budget submission that Toronto needs to ramp up its spending on housing and services, needs to re-double its efforts to convince senior levels of government to renew critical investments in housing and other social infrastructure and, until a comprehensive housing and anti-poverty strategy is adopted and funded by senior levels of government, needs to ensure that the city's emergency relief system - including homeless shelters - are properly funded.

One key factor that swayed many councillors was a simple message: The cost of doing nothing far outweights the cost of an effective and practical solution. That's the core message from the Wellesley Institute's Blueprint to End Homelessness, which was released in 2006, and city councillors and city officials quoted our Blueprint in support of sensible and humane plan to address the real needs of panhandlers.

* * *

Michael Shapcott
Director of Community Engagement
The Wellesley Institute