Homeless, and Marching

A member of the Citywide Housing Coalition, Laura Stannard, send this around regarding the definition of "homelessness" which I think is very helpful in thinking about the issue.

It used to be that the definition below, adapted from the Shelter UK website, www.england.shelter.org.uk , was the accepted definition of homeless for BC Housing. Then they got involved with the homeless count and solved some of their waitlist problems by not prioritizing the people living in the situations below (to my knowledge, they never did include the last point, but they did include everyone in a DTES hotel) and only recognizing shelterless people as homeless.

Homelessness:
Homelessness means not having a home. Even if you have a roof over your head you can still be homeless. This is because you may not have any rights to stay where you live or your home might be unsuitable for you. You don't have to be sleeping on the streets to be classed as homeless. You might also be homeless if you are:

* temporarily staying with friends or family
* staying in a hostel or bed and breakfast
* living in very overcrowded conditions
* at risk of violence or abuse in your home
* living in poor conditions that affect your health
* living somewhere that you have no legal right to stay in (eg. a squat)
* living somewhere that you can't afford to pay for without depriving yourself of basic essentials
* forced to live apart from your family, or someone you would normally live with, because your accommodation isn't suitable.

Imagine if we were able to count the numbers of these people! Everyone in DTES hotels would be included, plus thousands of other people meeting the old definition.

Far more people fit into this understanding of homelessness than what was registered in the homeless count last March. It is incredible that while thousands are shelterless and many more thousands are homeless (by this definition), condos are being built at a rapid pace that far outstrips the construction of safe, stable housing accessible to people living around or below the poverty line.

This is most visible, and disturbing, in the Downtown Eastside, where poverty, homelessness and ill-health dominate the experience of the majority of the residents yet condo developments are being easily approved by the city and construction is moving ahead quickly. This has all kinds of effects that result in the displacement of people from their community and supports, the increase in homelessness, and the transformation of the neighborhood into a place for those who can pay for these "affordable" (by the city's definition) units of housing (ranging from $300,000 - $500,000).

There is something remarkably perverse about this, yet it is so normalized within the system of private property acquisition and the rights of the wealthy to have their way in the "free market" economy. Hundreds and hundreds of minimal units of housing (the SROs) are being lost in this area while land is consumed by mega-developers and promoted by city officials who see this "revitalization" of the neighborhood as essential. What they don't see is that there is an already existing extremely "vital" community of people; this is an area that the rest of the city has much to learn from in terms of what constitutes a real community.

This is why we are participating in the march and rally this Saturday, July 5th @ 2:00 pm beginning at Pigeon Park (corner of Carrall St. and Hastings St.). It is a wake, to grieve the loss of housing, land, amenities and human lives in this community's struggle against economic and bureaucratic power that want to "clean" it up through processes of development and enforcement. But to grieve is to announce that something is very wrong; it is to raise a cry of suffering that calls for justice. It is, in this sense, an act of communal resistance, vision and hope.

As a group explicitly aligned with the poor and their struggle for justice, we need to take this opportunity to stand with this community in solidarity, to lament with them and to add our voices to their cry for justice.

I know it is summer and there are many other things going on in your lives, but if you could devote a couple of hours this Saturday to participate in this event, it would mean a lot to those with whom we stand and together we can make our voices heard to those in power (think of the Whos in Whoville, in the story of Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who).

Condo project would fuel 'class hatred,' activists say

Fearing it would hurt the poor, demonstrators want proposed development quashed
WENDY STUECK
The Globe and Mail
June 24, 2008

VANCOUVER -- Housing activists made a last-ditch effort to derail a Downtown Eastside condominium project at a city hall hearing yesterday, claiming the development would fuel "class hatred" and make it more difficult for low-income people who live in the neighbourhood to obtain decent housing and services.

"We need some indication that there is a future for poor people in this neighbourhood - otherwise these condos are a slap in the face," Carnegie Community Action Project spokeswoman Wendy Pedersen said yesterday at a development permit board meeting.

Ms. Pedersen and other activists attended the meeting to register their objections to the 160-unit Greenwich condominium project, which developer Concord Pacific has proposed for a downtown site at 58 West Hastings St.

Read the rest here
See also Downtown Eastside condo plan needs social housing, opponents say

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

Condo project targeted by activists

Concord Pacific building at Hastings and Carrall stalled by Carnegie Community Action Project
Frances Bula, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, April 24, 2008

VANCOUVER - A Concord Pacific project in the booming Downtown Eastside has become the first to be targeted by local activists who are gearing for an anti-condo war.

The 154-unit Greenwich condo project -- which is being built near Hastings and Carrall in the middle of what has been the city's drug market, scavenging centre and residential-hotel enclave -- has found itself temporarily stalled as area advocates protest a technical glitch in the approval process.

But those advocates say they're willing to try to make a test case out of the project to highlight concerns about the onslaught of condos in a neighbourhood that has been traditionally the home for the region's poorest.

Read the rest here

B.C. developer sets sights on Downtown Eastside

The purchase of a half-block of properties in Canada's poorest urban area could lead to further strain on the city's homeless, critics say

MONTE PAULSEN
Globe and Mail
July 30, 2007

VANCOUVER -- Vancouver's largest developer has quietly assembled a half-block-long chunk of real estate in the heart of the Downtown Eastside.

The Concord Pacific Group's acquisition of a pivotal property at the heart of Canada's poorest urban postal code is a dramatic illustration of the potential gentrification of Vancouver's most rough-and-tumble neighbourhood.

Concord Pacific has purchased seven lots at the heart of the West Hastings Street block between Abbott and Carrall streets.

"Right now all we've done is assembled some properties," said Peter Webb, a vice-president at Concord Pacific, which is developing a forest of condo towers on the former Expo 86 lands along False Creek, as well as the 44-acre CityPlace development in downtown Toronto.

"We are still in the infancy of early design and development," Mr. Webb said. "We are interested in having a discussion with the city about the opportunity to create non-market or subsidized housing, as part of a commercial and residential development."

David Eby, a lawyer and housing activist at Pivot Legal Society, warned that unless Concord's plans include a substantial volume of low-income housing, its Hastings Street project could wind up compounding Vancouver's homeless crisis.

"Concord Pacific has an opportunity here to show they care about people and not just profits," Mr. Eby said.

Read the rest here.