babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Vancouver Housing Movement
December 15, 2008 - 5:02am
For those who do not know, there has been a growing housing movement in Vancouver over the last little while. This thread is for information and news related to, and discussion of, said housing movement.
The largest organisation in the Vancouver housing movement is the Citywide Housing Coalition (CHC). They are organising a Grand March for Housing for April 4th, 2009. They are holding monthly public meetings to oganize this housing march. There have been two such meetings to date, one on 16th november, and one on the 10th of December. I have attended both meetings, as I believe this is an important issue to be active on. However, there seems to be some serious flaws in the organizing of the housing march.
The CHC has not formed a genuine coalition to organize the Grand March for Housing. The housing march remains a project of the CHC, which is not a real coalition, despite what it's name suggests. The coordnating committee for the march is made up entirely of CHC members. Certain members of the coordinating committee, notably Mel Lehan, have close connections to Gregor Robertson, and there appears to be a definite attempt to ensure that the march will not be oppositional to Vision Vancouver's plan to end homelessness by 2015 (at the moment, this plan reads like little more than a rebranding of the same cold, wet weather strategy that Vancouver City Hall has pursued for the last 15 years).
There has been no discussion of the politics of the march. When the issue was raised at the last meeting, the response from Mel Lehan was "vive la difference"). There has also been no discussion of speakers for the march, or whether there will even be a rally with speakers at the end of the march. I suspect that if speakers are discussed, it will not be until the last meeting before the march, a list of speakers will be proposed by the coordinating committee, and any opposition to said list will be seen as sectarian Trotskyist ultraleftism.
The CHC is aiming to get 20,000 people to attend the housing march. To this end, they are focusing much of the meeting time towards outreach, rather than planning the nuts and bolts of the march, none of which have been decided upon yet.
There does seem to be a left wing to the housing movement in Vancouver, some members of which have been in attendance at the housing march organizing meetings. I consider myself to be a member of this left wing. I'm a member of a group called Vancouver Socialist Forum, which has 18 members, and 5 of our members have attended either one or both of the housing march organizing meetings so far. Streams of Justice, another group on the left of the Vancouver housing movement, has had a few members in attendance at the meetings. It remains to be seen whether those of us on the left wing of the housing movement will sit back and tolerate the apolitical direction in which the housing march appears to be headed.
On Tuesday, December 16th, Vancouver Socialist Forum (vsf), had an educational discussion on "Housing in a Vision Vancouver", to which we invited a number of leading activists on the left of the Vancouver housing movement. There was close to 20 people at the discussion, about half of which were not vsf members.
I drew a number of things from this discussion:
1. From Vision Vancouver's election platform, it is clear that Vision only plans to end "street homelessness" by 2015, not all homelessness, which also includes many other types of homeless people besides street homeless. What this means is that Vision's plan to end homelessness by 2015 can be accomplished without building any units of social housing. It is also clear that Vision's plan only includes more shelter beds, and private initiatives, and that there is no social housing on offer. There was broad agreement at the meeting that the market has proven to be a total failure in solving homelessness, and that only social housing can solve the homeless crisis.
2. Homelessness is not just a downtown eastside problem, or a Vancouver problem, but is increasingly a significant problem in other parts of Greater Vancouver. As police increasingly crack down on homelessness in the downtown eastside, and the rest of Vancouver, the homeless are increasingly being pushed into other commnities in Greater Vancouver, in particular New Westminster and Surrey.
3. A significant portion of the homeless population in Vancouver is indiginous, and many Vancouver homeless, especially many of the indiginous homeless, are originally residents from elsewhere in Canada. They come to Vancouver because the mild winters in Vancouver are easier to survive than the winters elsewhere in the country. These people deserve social housing in the communities from which they came, and we must demand a return of the federal social housing program, in order to solve this issue.
4. There is disagreement among the left of the Vancouver housing movement about the nature of the "coalition" that Citywide Housing Coalition (CHC) has created to plan the Grand March for Housing on April 4th, and about what can be achieved within this coalition. Some people, like myself, believe that the group attending the housing march organizing meetings does not constitute a real coalition (due to the coordinating committee being made up entirely of CHC members, and not being elected at the first meeting); that the coordinating committee is manipulating the agendas of the meetings to avoid discussing the politics of the housing march; and that the opportunity for advancing concrete demands in the organizing meetings is very limited. Others at the meeting were more optomistic about what can be achieved in the housing march organizing meetings.
Wendy Pedersen of the Carnegie Action Project (who was invited to this discussion, but was unable to attend), has stated that she thinks a good demand for the housing march would be 3,000 units of social housing per year. I am skeptical as to whether there will be any opportunity to discuss this demand at the housing march organizing meetings, as the right wing of the housing movement seems reluctant to demand anything not contained in Vision Vancouver's homeless action plan.
All in all I think it was a very successful meeting.
Richmond is somewhat involved as we are participating in the weekly STANDs and we have attended a number of the STAND coordinating meetings. I personally have attended only one regional meeting at the beginning of summer, but I came away with the impression that affordable housing is a key goal. This is also confirmed by what is on the Citywide website
" We believe this is achievable if the majority of Vancouver voters can be convinced that the responsibility for ensuring an adequate supply of affordable housing —not only for homeless people, but for our children, our parents and grandparents—lies with all levels of government, rather than with the private sector."
One of the reasons I avoid going to meetings in Vancouver is that internal Vancouver politics always has to take center stage. As you correctly noted affordable housing is a regional (if not provincial/national issue). While I applaud the recent spending by the Liberals even if it was too little and too late, it is very distressing to see most of the housing money going to Vancouver. Meanwhile in Richmond, we have some of the highest indicators of poverty, but are recieving little funding.
By making the issue a Vanouver or Downtown East Side issue we do it a great disservice. It gives the people and politicians of the surrounding communities an easy out. It is a more costly solution than addressing the issues in the communities of origin. If we are to build a consensus we need to make every community understand that affordable housing issues are everyones concern, that every community needs to ensure that they are providing adequate housing for the entire community.
There's a difference between the overall goals of the Citywide Housing Coalition, and what specific demands are articulated at the Grand March for Housing. At the moment, I'm not convinced that there will be any demands articulated at Grand March for Housing, that are not part of Vision Vancouver's homeless plan. I perceive Mel Lehan to be acting like a bully in this regard. I see no evidence that other members of the coordinating committee are standing up to him; and I am not convinced that members at large can stand up to him at the general meetings, due to the nature of these meetings.
I have not seen any information on specific goals for the Grand March. This tends to support your premise, but it is still early. The march is being built on the STAND organization and that is clearly about building the housing continium (our banner simply says "HOMES FOR ALL").
I will make sure the question is asked from our participants.
Seen this advertisement?
http://www.bchousing.org/programs/RAP
Or better yet who hasn't seen these advertisements from BC Housing and its wholesome looking families its housing. Or is it? Because Housing is obviously confused as the facts speak for themselves as the report card comes out and you have to wonder who BC Housing is providing supplements and rental assistance to because reports say differently as they talk of the dire conditions for single, working families and their plight with rents, high cost of living and lets not forget the killer carbon tax as Carol Taylor (http://dgivista.org/labels/Poverty.html) puts many a burden on the backs on BC babes.
http://www.campaign2000.ca/rc/rc08/BC_ReportCard08-colour.pdf
Affordable Housing Agencies have been busily reducing their subsidy rents as tenants relocate or die? All very interesting stuff considering Government says differently as they spread the news with advertisement, after advertisement around the city and in every bus shack, newspaper, sky train stations, magazines, you name it they have advertisements there. Funny with all this very expensive advertising for such a poor lot of people makes you wonder where Governments are getting the money from for all this promotional dribble. Oh thats right must be the housing money as its certainly not going to providing housing its going to advertising agencies and local newspapers, tv stations, and radio and the like as they give the Liberal the thumbs up for all those advertising bucks they are so handsomely rewarded with. And the Liberals plan for the homeless is certainly a tragedy as many die frozen or sick from the cold and despite getting rid of many of its homeless it certainly not a very humanitarian way to go about it as homes instead of death would be more humane.
It looks good doesn't it those posters everywhere as to make out they are looking after families. A single mom working as a retail clerk just applied a couple of weeks ago and got her notice back on the wind fall she and her little one would be receiving from housing. It was $70 dollars on their $1200 rent which had just gone up. She works in retail making less than a $2000 month after her take home pay and also pays transportation and daycare. Whats left well nothing to feed the babe and her for the month after expenses. I bet they spend more on advertising than they do on helping mom's and kids from being on the streets and I'm rarely wrong. As clearly its not important as Liberal's have a law during hard economic times that says mom has to have a job for two years before reapplying even if babe and her are forced to live of the streets as many are turned away or dumped to the streets as daycare funding impossible to get as many are still waiting months later.
No changes to that law though but Liberals sure are busy changing the law that said they would be held accountable if budget in deficit. But no accountability there for sure as they are busy today changing that very law as no way these guys are going to be accountable for anything. White man running with your cash is more like it as wee ones go without. And they have another law for the disabled and their children which the Liberals put in place as that say the disabled and their children must be punished and humilated and forced to stand in long line-ups and be hurt as left feeling worthless when they are crippled and blind as told they need to budget or be administered as can not be asking for supplements that are in place. Its clearly a human rights complaint and someone needs to bring it forward and maybe a class action againist the province. I'll get back to you on that as just looking into it as fits all the criteria of human rights abuses as clearly it is their intent to cause hardship. And despite not having enough to live on and god they are only giving this poor women $20 for the month when government spends billions on pizza and coffee its inhuman treatment for sure. Its does kinda stop people for asking for the $20 crisis supplement for the month for food as the degredation of it all but its hard when babies are crying when they are hungry and they don't know where else to go. And you can see them as they force the blind and the crippled to the worst parts of town because they were unable to budget when living 50% below the poverty line and are hungry as long line-ups are there for all to see except the blind who dared ask for more food. They also send the sucidal to St James Crack Shack as named by addicts as they have been know to purchase crack from workers inhouse as to speed things up as they do the cruelest things to make people comply as its all the Liberal rage first we dehumanize, then we demoralize and then its oh so easy as the sucidal are encouraged to do themselves in with the cruel and unusual treatment.
Apparently what goes around doesn't come around when it comes to the Liberals but I'm thinking life is going to have something in store for the Liberals because its Karma and its a bitch and nobody is exempt as it is the law of the Universe. Well of course children should never pay but it sure we be karma say if they joined the NDP party. Maybe a little more thought is the most one could hope for when governments are making decisions for the masses like the Golden Rule is a good place to start.
http://www.jcu.edu/philosophy/gensler/goldrule.htm
Who are the homeless?
The low income.
Those on assistance for sure as they only receive token amounts for food and shelter as families left without enough to survive. And of course those taken off assistance and placed to the streets when there are no jobs and little hope. So those numbers for sure as many are either homeless or on the brink of it are in the hundreds of thousands is more the truth as do the math if rents don't even cover half the expense of a dump where are they living or better yet how are they living? Did you see that blind lady on the news with all those bed bug bites from her wonderful little cockroach infested cubicle supplied by housing because she sure couldn't. Can you just imagine her on a poster saying come to the number one city its beauty is worth millions. A million bed bug bites to her that is. And have you seen the festering of cancer sores that can't heal because of the bites? And you are right no real plans are put into place and 2015 is not a housing plan but a death sentence for the poor. And Vision can not do anything as it has no money to move ahead on anything as clearly money needs to come from province and feds but thats not happening is it?
And we don't need bunch of poor houses around the city that strip everyone of their dignity especially the children who are ridiculed for living in the poor house from their peers along with the contempt of their neighbors. And building right now would put BC in the poor house as the expense is so high better to check with Federal Landlord Associations and the like to see what they also have in stock as subsidies and the like may come into play along with picking up properties for a dime and then renovate. Which makes me suspect of the Liberals recent purchase as to the cost and who exactly owned the properties province picked up out of the blue because you don't starve a child at one end and then tell me your trying to house it at the other. Also would eliminate the prejudice and ill treatment many receive from BC government employees who have no problem letting the poor know the contempt they feel for their plight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivpZb54uOIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r59Q1vcE4_A&
Inside a Coquitlam apartment building.
Century Place is literally a block away from the constituency office of NDP Housing Critic Diane Thorne. Even from the outside, it is clearly a hideous slum that could collapse any day.
The poor souls who live there can pay over $900 rent.
Unfortunately, Thorne and the BCNDP are more concerned with rigging the NDP nomination process with politically correct BS than dealing with crimes like this.
Did anyone else join the province wide Grand Marches. 55 of us marched in Richmond. Here is our declaration:
Homes for All Declaration
Across British Columbia today people are marching for affordable housing. From all over province we are calling for:
In Richmond we march to draw attention to Richmond affordable housing crisis:
We call on governments at all levels to take action across the spectrum of housing needs:
We have heard promises and more promises. We now call on our community leaders to step up to the plate and follow up on their promises. The time for action is now.