The Album Leaf — melody speaks louder than words

THE WESTENDER
January 29, 2009

Turning 30 is weird. It’s the year when your flames of youthful debauchery are supposed to suddenly transform into a solid mass of lukewarm maturity that would have been foreign to your 20-something self.

For Jimmy LaValle, however, being 30 is merely an extension of the person he’s been improving upon for the last 10 years, during which time he’s enjoyed a decade of quiet success as brainchild of the Album Leaf, a San Diego-based outfit he started as a solo project in 1998. Since then, the atmospheric, instrumental rock band has recorded four albums, opened for Sigur Ros on its first U.S. tour, and enjoyed the touring company of friends like the late, lamented American Analog Set.

Now, LaValle and his band members are getting ready to spend three weeks at Bear Creek Studios, a converted barn in Washington, D.C., to record their fifth album, preceded by four West Coast live dates (with lucky Vancouver as the sole Canadian stop). Before hunkering down, WE caught up with LaValle over the phone from his San Diego home.

You started the Album Leaf when you were only 20. In the early days of the band, how did you balance making music and making a living?
It was three jobs for four months, and then I would quit those three jobs and go out and tour for three or four months. Then I’d come back and start the cycle again. I did sound at a venue here [in San Diego] for many years, called the Casbah, and I was a manager at a restaurant delivery service. I haven’t worked another job for probably the last five or six years. At first, it was purely by choice, just deciding to live on the road and live by touring a lot. In the last three or four years, I’ve actually made a living.

You also had a full-time stint producing jingles for TV commercials. What was that like?
At first, it was really exciting, because I thought, “Wow, I’ve got a job, a 9-to-5 job, doing music all day.” But it was kind of a pain in the ass, because... you had to be creative to what the client wanted. So many commercials are obviously ripped off of another band. I had to do that a lot — like, blatantly rip off Foo Fighters. It wasn’t hard to do, but it was miserable. But I did record One Day I’ll Be On Time [the Album Leaf’s 2001 sophomore album] during that time, so I guess something came out of it.

Is the instrumental quality of your music able to say more than vocally-driven outfits?
I always think so. Lyrics have kind of an obvious meaning. With instrumental [music], there’s really no ground or no rules for what is being expressed. There’s obvious meanings to me for my songs, but that isn’t what necessarily should be interpreted by other people.

How do you feel about your music being played on TV shows like The OC?
It’s something I’ve gotten a lot of grief about, but in this day and age, and the way that the world works, you have to make a living. Money has to come from somewhere, and I don’t make money touring. When [my music is] used [in TV shows], it’s background, it’s a mood-setter, and it usually gets what they want to have done. (laughs) It’s a cheesy show, I know.

What are your plans for the upcoming album?
My intentions for it is to have it be more like a band vibe than a one-guy vibe. I think [my albums] have had a one-guy vibe before, but when I listen, I think, “Whoa, that’s me times 10!” I’m trying to create something new and different than what was done before, and keep the interest going.

Renters at Risk refutes criminal charges

THE WESTENDER
January 29, 2009

A Vancouver-based advocacy group supporting renters’ rights has been ordered by Elections BC to register as an official advertising sponsor or face a $10,000 fine, a one-year jail sentence, or both — despite the assertion by members that the group is non-partisan.

The three-year-old Renters at Risk consists of approximately 12 core volunteers and operates the website RentersAtRisk.ca. The group formed when tenants began sharing information about mass evictions in the West End, following controversial changes to the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) in 2004. Members have since been blogging about their experiences and collecting related news stories on the Renters at Risk website, with the aim of providing education and advocacy for other renters.

The website raised the ire of Elections BC following a Renters at Risk-organized rally held in the West End on October 25 of last year, days before the October 29 provincial by-election in Vancouver-Burrard and Vancouver-Fairview. The rally featured speeches from several political candidates, including the BC Liberals’ Arthur Griffiths, Drina Read of the Green Party, and the NDP’s Spencer Herbert, who won the election.

In an e-mail dated November 4, 2008, electoral finance reviewer Greg Macdonald wrote that an Elections BC review of the Renters at Risk website “identified several instances of messaging that appeared to be election advertising... based on materials on [the] website that describe past and current issues and legislation, associates them with registered political parties, and directly or indirectly takes a promotional or oppositional position.”

Renters at Risk members had until Tuesday (January 27) to either register as an election advertising sponsor or face financial and/or criminal penalty. They had yet to announce their decision by press time.

While the issue is regarded as censorship by many Renters at Risk volunteers, Elections BC spokesperson Kenn Faris maintains that the organization is doing nothing of the kind. “We’re not the election-advertising police... We don’t actively scour and monitor for election advertising,” he says, adding that Renters at Risk was brought to the attention of Elections BC by an unspecified outside party. “It’s not censorship. We, as administrators of the Election Act, are bringing the legislation to the attention of Renters at Risk and helping them to understand the legislation and how they can comply with it.”

Renters at Risk members have published and distributed a flyer which, according to Faris and Elections BC, “is the piece that qualifies as election advertising.” The flyer, produced last fall, is downloadable from the website and includes passages such as “...the BC Liberal Government has rewritten the Residential Tenancy Act to favour landlords, allowing mass evictions of people like you from your home,” and “Send the government a message! Vote!” The flyer lists dates for the Oct. 29 by-election and the Nov. 15 municipal election, as well as the Renters at Risk website address. “When it comes to that kind of active positioning on any particular candidate or party, and they’re distributing it beyond their membership... that qualifies for advertising,” says Faris.

“It is so Draconian, it is so bizarre, and it is so intrusive,” says Stephen Hammond, a lawyer and three-year Renters at Risk volunteer. “It’s very clear what our message is: helping those who are facing any kind of evictions or anything close to that, and then also calling for the government, or encouraging people to call the government... to say, ‘Change this legislation.’ If it takes a change in government in order for this to happen, then great. But that’s not being partisan to say, ‘We want legislation to protect the renters.’”

“We’re here to provide a voice for people who can’t speak up, who are scared of fighting,” adds Christine Ackermann, who joined Renters at Risk when she was issued an eviction notice, which she fought at an arbitration last spring. “Because we knew this was a silent epidemic, we wanted to give voice to that.”

Ackermann, who works as an executive assistant for the United Church of Canada, says she receives at least two e-mails per day from tenants facing or anticipating what they see as unfair eviction by landlords. Many of those landlords utilize a tactic that has come to be known as ‘renoviction’: implementing extensive renovations of a suite or entire building, then using those renovations as cause to raise rent exorbitantly.

Tenants at the Seafield apartment building, at 1436 Pendrell Street, are currently facing a 73-per-cent rent increase from their new landlord, Gordon Nelson Investments (GNI). The increase marks the latest development in what is alleged to be a long line of intimidation tactics from GNI, dating back to the summer of 2008, when it purchased the 77-year-old building. Since then, tenants say GNI removed laundry facilities from the building, and failed to clear snow from the walkway during December’s heavy snowfall (but were seen walking past the building as tenants tended to the matter themselves). Seafield tenants’ stories are documented on the Renters at Risk website and at SeafieldApartments.com.

“It seems to be very intimidating; it does bring in issues of freedom of speech right away,” says Seafield tenant Tim Pawsey, with regard to Elections BC’s order for Renters at Risk. “I don’t see how Renters at Risk is a partisan organization.”

“In order for us to disagree with our government or ask our government to help out their constituents, we’ve had to register [with Elections BC],” says Hammond. “It’s absurd.”

PHOTO: Renters at Risk members Christine Ackermann and Stephen Hammond, in front of the Glenmore building on Barclay and Gilford. Christine lives at the Hollyburn-owned Glenmore and faced eviction from the building in spring 2008, which spurred her involvement with Renters at Risk. By Doug Shanks.

Public consultation will discuss civil liberties, public safety during Games

THE WESTENDER
January 29, 2009

A public consultation on civil liberties and public safety as they pertain to the 2010 Winter Olympics is on the horizon for the City of Vancouver, following a successful motion put forward in council last week by Geoff Meggs, the Vision Vancouver councillor in charge of the Games’ portfolio.

“What was promised in 2002, when the [Olympic] bid was submitted, was that we would have a discussion with those communities — the partners, with the security planners — before they finalized their plan,” Meggs says. “This motion, simply, is a reminder to all the partners, including the City, that we have to get the word out pretty quickly.”

The consultation will fulfill a commitment in the civil liberties and public safety section of the 2010 Inner City Inclusivity (ICI) Commitment Statement, which states that VANOC must “commit to a timely public consultation that is accessible to inner-city neighbourhoods, before any security legislation or regulations are finalized, subject to lawful and legitimate confidentiality requirements.”

Meggs says he expects a number of community organizations, such as the BC Civil Liberties Association, to be interested in participating in the public-consultation process, though he is confident that the RCMP’s Integrated Security Unit is doing its job to ensure civil liberties are protected during the Games. “I’m quite certain the RCMP is doing everything it can to make this a safe Games, but also one which free speech and the right of association is upheld, so people can demonstrate, speak their minds,” he says.

But David Eby, acting executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, has questions about the RCMP’s and Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD) approach to security, particularly as it pertains to Downtown Eastside residents. “I have no doubt there’s a huge amount of money going into security around these Olympics, but I have a broader definition of safety than the RCMP and VPD in terms of their current approach to security,” he says. “My definition of safety would include the safety of Downtown Eastside residents and their ability to access essential services, and the safety of protesters and their ability to freely express themselves around the Olympic Games without facing a line of riot police for doing so.”

Eby also has concerns about aspects of the VPD’s 2009 Business Plan, which contains specific strategies for reducing street disorder in the Downtown Eastside — strategies Eby is worried will displace drug dealing and usage to other areas of the city, and affect people’s access to needle exchanges and the safe-injection site.

Cpl. Jen Allan of the RCMP’s Integrated Security Unit maintains that it has engaged in ongoing consultation with “groups, associations and individuals” since 2007. “Those consultations will continue as our planning continues,” she says. “We are continuing formal outreach, and our intentions are to include communities that are directly and indirectly impacted by Olympic venue footprints.”

Asked whether the Integrated Security Unit will participate in the public consultation that councillor Meggs has suggested, Allen emphasized the ongoing nature of the RCMP’s planning that is already in place. “We will be continuing to communicate with our current stakeholders. We’ve held numerous meetings with members of the aboriginal community, civil rights and business stakeholders, and we will continue to consult with them as the Games approach.”

Vancouver to enact plan for dealing with mental health

THE WESTENDER
January 29, 2009

One in five Canadians is likely to experience a diagnosable mental illness, and by 2020 it is estimated that depressive illness will become the number-two cause of disease burden worldwide — and the leading cause in developed countries like Canada — according to Coast Mental Health. Even so, less than four per cent of medical research funding goes to mental illness research.

Given these statistics, and the fact that members of Vancouver’s large homeless population are often afflicted with concurrent addictions and mental-health problems, councillor Kerry Jang passed a motion in council last week to establish a mental-health plan for the City of Vancouver.

Jang, a UBC psychiatry professor who works with the recently established Mental Health Commission of Canada, moved the motion following a Vision Vancouver campaign promise to establish a mental-health advocate for the city. As it stands, the plan, for which City staff will produce a report by the end of February, will include recommendations for a mental-health planner or advocate who will work in tandem with the already established drug policy director.

“We wanted to take a far more comprehensive approach,” says Jang. “We’re reacting to the uniqueness of Vancouver, because if you go anywhere else, there’s no such thing as the Downtown Eastside in any other major city.”

Jang noted in his motion to council that one-third of all calls to which the Vancouver Police Department responds involve at least one mentally ill person, and an estimated 60 to 70 per cent of people with mental illnesses treated at St. Paul’s Hospital have multiple addictions. “Mental health and addictions have to work hand in hand,” he says. As for arguments that mental health is a provincial jurisdiction rather than a municipal responsibility, Jang says the city’s mental-health problems have been exacerbated by attitudes of “negligence.”

“That type of attitude, that type of ‘let someone else do it’ is what’s gotten us into this problem and why it’s gotten worse,” Jang says. “Somebody who’s mentally ill doesn’t give a damn if it’s a provincial, federal, whatever responsibility. They need services now. And let’s face it: they’re on the street, they’re here, they’re ours. We’ve got to take responsibility.”

Darrell Burnham, executive director of Coast Mental Health, says a municipal mental-health plan will be an important step for the City in raising awareness of, and giving support for, individuals with mental illness. “Part of it is a leadership of thought,” he says. “It’s easy to blame the victim in mental illness. With many other health issues, you never do that. If someone comes down with cancer, you never, never say it’s their fault.”

Burnham says the city councils he has dealt with over the years have been “very progressive,” particularly with regard to obtaining rezoning and development permits for social housing. He hopes the prospective mental-health plan can provide leadership to the province and across Canada.

If all goes as planned, Vancouver city council will start the recruitment process for a new mental-health advocate by the end of February, with the successful candidate starting work as early as March.

Downtown Eastside advocates point finger at landlords

THE WESTENDER
January 22, 2009

After years of alleged tenant abuse and flagrant violations of the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA), Downtown Eastside advocates have publicly named two families who are notorious for their longstanding mismanagement of what are considered to be the ‘worst of the worst’ single-room occupancy hotels (SROs) in the area.

Pivot Legal Society lawyer Laura Track gathered Downtown Eastside advocates from the Atira Women’s Resource Society, the Carnegie Community Action Project, the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, the Kettle Friendship Society Advocacy Service, the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and former advocates of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, to discuss the poor living conditions endured by low-income tenants. The discussions resulted in pinpointing the Sahota and Laudisio families for “exceptionally severe, deliberate, and long-standing violations” of the RTA.

Pal, Gurdyal, Parkash, and Ranjit Sahota own the infamous Balmoral, Regent, Astoria, and Cobalt Hotels, and Mario and Anna Laudisio own and manage the Powell Rooms, Brandiz, and Lucky Lodge. According to allegations from tenants who frequently work with the Downtown Eastside advocacy groups that are now speaking on their behalf, the Sahota and Laudisio families have been responsible for the ongoing disrepair and unsanitary living conditions of seven SRO buildings, as well as several other infractions of the RTA, such as verbally abusing tenants, ending tenancy without due process, illegally retaining damage deposits, and changing the locks on suites in order to evict tenants.

“The Sahotas and Laudisios are notorious in my neighbourhood,” says Wendy Pedersen, organizer of the Carnegie Community Action Project. “If we find out a friend is living in one of their places, often the first reaction is a condolence. People have no choice but to take a chance and live in these hotels, because often there are no other options, especially in the colder months.”

Pedersen says rent for a room in the Sahota and Laudisio-owned buildings range from $385 to $425 each. “Tenants on welfare get $375 a month for rent,” she says. “Low-income tenants are caught in many ways because of the housing shortage.”

By the same token, many low-income tenants are discouraged from taking their complaints to the Residential Tenancy Branch. “It’s a complicated process, it can be expensive, it can be time-consuming, and for people as marginalized as many of the people that live in the SROs in the Downtown Eastside, it’s all but impossible to do without an advocate,” says Track. She hopes the financial penalties that she and other advocates have recommended for the Sahota and Laudisio families will send a message to clean up their act. “They haven’t listened to the City, they haven’t listened to the tenancy branch as it’s decided cases against them. Maybe they’ll listen if they’re hit in the pocketbook.”

The new provision for administrative financial penalties was introduced as section 94(1) of the RTA in March 2008, but, according to Track, it has not yet been used. “The provision provides for a maximum fine of $5,000 per contravention of the law,” she says. “The fine can be imposed every day that the contravention continues, so it’s possible that a fairly significant financial penalty can be imposed on these owners.”

Track’s recommendation for administrative penalties follows what she calls the City’s failure to strongly enforce its Standards of Maintenance Bylaw, which Vision Vancouver councillor Tim Stevenson sought to change in December 2008 when he brought forward a motion about strengthening its enforcement.

“The City’s failure to enforce that bylaw over the last seven, eight years has really empowered the landlords in the DTES to think that they won’t be held accountable for the abhorrent conditions in their buildings,” says Track. “In 1999, the City gave orders under its Standards of Maintenance bylaw to hotel owners to fix up their buildings 106 times. In 2005, only eight such orders were made in the Downtown Eastside. I don’t know why that is, but it’s certainly not because the conditions in the buildings have improved.”

PHOTO: The Balmoral Hotel at Main and Hastings, one of the buildings owned by the notorious Sahota family. By Doug Shanks.

Financing debacle deepens Olympic controversy

THE WESTENDER
January 22, 2009

The task of keeping Vancouver’s Olympic Village afloat in the midst of an economic downturn has resulted in a frustrating start to the year for the city’s politicians and residents, many of whom fear that taxpayers will be on the hook for the $458 million Mayor Gregor Robertson has said is needed in order to complete the Village by its November 2009 deadline.

Last weekend, after 20 hours of debate, the B.C. legislature approved an amendment to the Vancouver Charter that allows the City to borrow money from the Province — without a municipal referendum — to complete the Village. Many details, such as the exact amount the City will seek, remain unclear, as does the reasoning behind the surprise January 15 resignation of Jody Andrews, the city manager in charge of the Olympic Village. Likewise, public support of the Games continues to waver, considering that 64 per cent of the Vancouver residents who voted in the 2003 Olympic plebiscite were in favour of hosting the 2010 Games.

“Negative press is sure to have hardened the views of some critics, and moved some who were neutral into a more critical frame of mind,” says Neil Guppy, head of UBC’s Sociology department. “Further, the current global recession puts the Olympics in a very different context, and this may have had even more of a chilling effect on public support for the Games. Nevertheless, the Games will happen, they will likely be judged as a success by most people, and the City — and Whistler — will benefit.”

Longtime Olympic critic Chris Shaw disagrees. Shaw authored the 2008 book Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games, and has been an outspoken opponent of the Games for years. “If an opinion poll had been held a year ago, I don’t think it would have come up the same way that the [2003] plebiscite came up, by any standards,” he says. “This [Olympic Village situation] has been, for many, the last straw. [Former COPE mayor] Larry Campbell and others, and some who are still sitting in council, had told us it wouldn’t cost us a penny. So, I suppose, technically, they were correct: it’s a lot more than a penny. But it was sold to Vancouverites as essentially free.”

Shaw says Millenium Properties, the development company behind the Olympic Village, has a poor track record, and was therefore an unwise choice as a partner for the project. “I looked into their financing and it was very, very odd and, frankly, shady. I looked at their minute books, [and] couldn’t figure out where the hell their capital infrastructure was coming from,” he says. “If I could do that on my spare time..., you’d think Jody Andrews from the City, whose project it was, would have done the same due diligence.”

Despite obvious controversy, B.C. finance minister Colin Hansen says the Olympic Village project will move forward smoothly. “We’re confident the Village will be completed on time, and that taxpayers will be protected,” he said Monday morning (January 19) after the marathon debate in Victoria. “Over the weekend, we assisted the City as it takes steps to put financing for the project on stronger footing.”

Asked if he, the minister responsible for the Olympics, ever expected the financing of the Games to get to this point, Hansen replied: “The operating project for VANOC is $1.7 billion, and the revenues to pay these costs are relatively secure. The vast majority of those revenues come from ticket sales, international broadcast rights, and corporate sponsorships. The action that we have taken to amend the Vancouver Charter gives the City of Vancouver the powers it needs to ensure that the financial risks to residents of Vancouver are minimized.”

With the May 12 provincial election on the horizon, however, Hansen is working in an increasingly politicized climate, as campaigns become more sharply defined. Hansen, BC Liberal MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena, sat on the other side of the floor when Gregor Robertson was NDP MLA for Vancouver-Fairview.

“I think Hansen has to be really careful about what he does now,” says Shaw, who ran unsuccessfully for a Work Less Party spot on Vancouver city council in the last election. “If he bails out Robertson, then he gets clobbered in May. If he doesn’t bail out Robertson, I’m not sure if it’s as bad. So they’re going to fight about this for a while.”
PHOTO: The troubled Olympic Village project. By Jackie Wong.

Gung Haggis celebrates Canadian interculturalism

THE WESTENDER
January 22, 2009

Growing up in East Vancouver in the 1960s, Todd Wong was one of many children who had a surname in common with his classmates at Laura Secord Elementary School. But when his family moved to North Vancouver when he was 14, Wong’s Chinese ancestry distinguished him from his classmates for the first time. “Suddenly, the only other Wong in the entire school was my brother,” the 48-year-old librarian recalls over tea at a Chinatown diner. “The other kids would ask if I was Chinese or Japanese, because they didn’t know the difference at the time. I kept being asked about Chinese culture because nobody else knew about it.”

Wong’s family has lived in Vancouver for five generations, and he was raised in what he describes as a “Canadian” household. But it was his immediate family’s move to North Vancouver that spurred him to further explore his ancestry. His great-great-grandfather, Reverend Chan Yu Tan, immigrated to Canada in 1896, and was part of Canada’s vast pioneer history in which Chinese-Canadians are frequently overlooked. “I’m one of the invisible-visible minorities,” he says. “The Chinese culture I grew up learning from my families really doesn’t exist anymore. [My ancestors] came over when China was still an Imperial Qing dynasty.”

Wong’s curiosity about his family history led him to start introducing Chinese New Year celebrations to uninitiated friends as early as Grade 12. Years later, in 1998, he hosted a private dinner that combined celebrations for Chinese New Year and for Robbie Burns Day, the annual Scottish celebration marking the birthday of that country’s national poet. The event gained momentum over subsequent years as a restaurant-hosted fundraiser for Wong’s dragon boat team.

Word of the innovative celebration travelled fast, and within a few years an annual inter-cultural celebration known as Gung Haggis Fat Choy became a highlight on Vancouver’s cultural calendar, and has grown to host as many as 590 attendees.

In 2008, Wong received a B.C. Community Achievement Award from Lieutenant-Governor Stephen Point and Premier Gordon Campbell, and, as part of B.C.’s 150th anniversary celebration, a life-sized photographic rendering of Wong, also known as “Toddish McWong,” was installed at the “Free Spirit” exhibition at the Royal BC Museum. Previous to earning provincial recognition, Gung Haggis Fat Choy was the inspiration for an annual cultural festival on SFU’s Burnaby campus, and was the subject of a 2004 CBC television special.

“The Gung Haggis dinner is inclusive and it recognizes every part of every person, and I think that’s important,” says Wong. “We don’t have to be one or the other. We can be everything, all at the same time. I don’t think we have a lot of events that speak to that.”

This year’s event, on January 25, rings in the Year of the Ox at Floata Seafood Restaurant in Chinatown. Inter-cultural dinnertime performers include the Scottish/Chinese Silk Road Ensemble, multilingual opera soprano Heather Pawsey, DJ Timothy Wisdom, and rapping bagpiper Joe McDonald. The Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner is a 10-course traditional Chinese banquet that also features haggis, the traditional Scottish dish that is a Robbie Burns Day favourite. Proceeds from ticket sales go to the Historic Joy Kogawa House Society, the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop/Ricepaper magazine, and the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team.

“It’s about hybridization — Haggis wonton, haggis lettuce wrap — where we purposefully put haggis in Chinese cooking,” says Wong. “People leave saying, ‘That is so Canadian.’”

While Wong often finds himself “running to catch up” with the momentum Gung Haggis has created over the years, the event shows no signs of slowing down. It’s even spread to Seattle’s Chinatown, where 150 attended the first event there in 2007. “People are continuing to discover the spirit of Gung Haggis Fat Choy,” he says. “It’s something everyone can participate in. I would like to see Gung Haggis dinners across the country. I think that’s how you contribute to Canada being better. It’s the good-heartedness of how you describe Canadians, and that openness to other cultures.”

The “good-heartedness” Wong describes as a trademark of his event also translates to political points on the municipal scene. At the 2008 Gung Haggis dinner, Wong notes that the 10 Vancouver city councillors who were later voted into office in the November municipal election were at the event, including Gregor Robertson and a kilt-wearing Raymond Louie. This year’s special guests include Musqueam elder Larry Grant; Leith Davis of the SFU Centre for Scottish Studies; Jan Walls, formerly of SFU’s International Communications program; and poet-translator Tommy Tao. This year’s Gung Haggis dinner is also the only dinner in the province to feature one of 250 limited-edition bottles of 37-year-old Famous Grouse scotch, made in a limited batch for Robbie Burns celebrations around the world.

“We’ve always attracted people who are good-hearted and open to interculturalism,” Wong says proudly. “That’s the Vancouver I see. We want to create the Vancouver we believe in.”

For more information on Gung Haggis Fat Choy and to buy tickets, visit GungHaggisFatChoy.com.

PHOTO: Todd Wong established the annual Gung Haggis Fat Choy dinner — a merging of Chinese New Year and Robbie Burns Day celebrations — in 1998. It now draws over 500 people. “People leave [the dinner] saying, ‘That is so Canadian,’” he says. By Doug Shanks.

Tenants continue fight for pets

THE WESTENDER
January 15, 2009

Seven tenants of the West End apartment building Emerald Terrace, at Nelson and Chilco Streets, will appear at the Residential Tenancy Office (RTO) in Burnaby on Friday (January 16) to fight to keep their pets in their suites, and to dispute a “no pets policy” notice the building’s property management company issued in late November.

Upon receipt of what seemed like a targeted letter, as only some of the building’s pet-owning tenants received it, the seven tenants filed for a joint arbitration which, at the time, allowed them to keep their pets until at least the arbitration date. They worked through the holidays to prepare for the arbitration, all the while fearing what they considered to be an inevitable eviction notice. The West Vancouver-based Hollyburn Properties, which owns the building, finally did deliver notices through their mail slots on the evening of January 6.

“I guess they couldn’t wait for the arbitration, so they issued eviction notices anyway,” says Andrew Simmons, a seven-year Emerald Terrace tenant who moved into the building with his three cats to escape the clutches of Hollyburn, which owned the building he previously lived in across the street. Simmons, a member of tenant advocacy group Renters at Risk, was aware of the notoriety Hollyburn had achieved through highly publicized mass evictions in the West End. When he moved into Emerald Terrace, it was owned by Colliers International and welcomed pets; the building manager at that time had verbal agreements with tenants allowing them to keep their pets. Hollyburn, which bought Emerald Terrace in September 2007, is now using that verbal agreement to penalize some — but not all — tenants with pets.

Upon receiving their eviction notices, Emerald Terrace tenants hastily filed a cross-application with the RTO to counter it. Simmons and his neighbours have spent what he says are “countless” hours working on the case, including multiple trips to the RTO and time off of work to deal with the situation.

“What is the benefit to Hollyburn by us giving up our cats?” Simmons says. “We’re not talking about a bunch of people who ran out and got pets yesterday as a violation of the rental agreement. We’re talking about people who’ve been here for years, and even decades, with pets.”

Vancouver-Burrard MLA Spencer Herbert spoke in support of Emerald Terrace tenants at a press conference on January 8, resulting in widespread mainstream-media coverage of the evictions. “It’s a sad day when renters are being told that, really, they have no rights; they have to take it to the arbitration in order to stand up for something they’ve had for years,” Herbert said. “Just because Hollyburn has bought a building doesn’t mean they have the right to push people around and arbitrarily change the rules for people who have been longtime tenants.”

Hollyburn property manager Allan Wasel told WE last year that Hollyburn prides itself on being the “premier provider of rental accommodations in British Columbia” and that “there is a good-news story, always, to Hollyburn taking over a building,” adding that Hollyburn has been a helpful provider of needed rental stock in the city. When WE contacted Wasel on Monday (January 12) for comment on the Emerald Terrace evictions, he replied, “Hollyburn will have no further comments at this time.”

Wasel issued a written statement to media last week which said the Residential Tenancy Act protects landlords and tenants, and that the eviction notices were issued to tenants who “breached the agreement” of a no-pets policy in the building, which was first instated in the form of the November no-pets notices. “They knowingly breached the agreement and therefore have no grounds to criticize Hollyburn for upholding the contract,” Wasel wrote in his statement.

In the meantime, Emerald Terrace tenants reportedly continue to be subjected to a series of suspicious intimidation tactics that Simmons says range from having their personal parking spots blocked by service vehicles, monthly suite inspections, and warning letters over what seem like arbitrary or untrue complaints.

When WE first spoke to Emerald Terrace tenants in November, a number of tenants came forward to describe how the building had fallen into disrepair since Hollyburn took ownership, damaging morale in the building and resulting in tenants — many of them seniors — fearing for their safety. “The general feeling in this building is that tenants cannot go to Hollyburn to ask for things,” says Simmons. “They’re scared. They know as soon as they start asking or if they make waves, they become a target.”

If the pets in Emerald Terrace are forced out of the building, Simmons says he and the tenants who own them will leave instead of part with their animal companions. “Most landlords are good; they’re law-abiding, they’re compassionate, they’re human,” he says. “ It’s just a very few of these landlords, like Hollyburn, that are giving landlords a bad name. But these few [landlords] — when you look at previous stories, what they do is they practice a war of attrition, and it’s basically intimidation and harassment.”

Mayor’s task force addresses growing need for shelters

THE WESTENDER
January 15, 2009

A new homeless shelter opened this week at 201 Central Street, near Main Street Station. The shelter, funded through a three-way partnership between the City, the Province, and the Streetohome Foundation, is able to accommodate 80 to 100 people, and is the fourth shelter to be opened under Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Homeless Emergency Action Team (HEAT). The “no-barrier” shelter allows people to bring personal belongings, such as pets or shopping carts, inside with them — items other shelters have been known to bar from their premises, forcing homeless people to choose between shelter for the night or their material possessions.

The Central Street shelter is staffed by members of the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society (VFCS), an advocacy centre based in East Vancouver. Its office, near Commercial Drive, has been operating as an ad-hoc shelter through the cold snap this winter, and staff member Jerry Adams says unprecedented numbers of people have come to make use of it over the past month. “We had 96 people show up the last day we were in operation,” he says. “We’ve never had 96 people show up to our shelter. That’s a lot. We would have 40 or 50 before.”

By extension, Adams sees busy weeks ahead at his new post on Central Street, a location he says will give much-needed access to those seeking shelter who live in the east end of Downtown, the Granville area, and Mount Pleasant.

“There’s a big argument by the naysayers that people won’t come into shelters,” says City of Vancouver housing advocate and HEAT member Judy Graves. “Quite clearly, HEAT has documented that we have literally hundreds of people on the streets of Vancouver who do want to come into shelters, and have come in.”

Mayor Robertson’s office reported last week that nearly 300 people visited shelters opened by HEAT (at First United Church, 1435 Granville Street, and the Stanley New Fountain) in their first three weeks of operation in December.

Still, controversy surrounding the quality of the shelters — and the use of the Mental Health Act to ‘force’ people to use them — has continued to swirl, especially following the death of a 47-year-old woman known as Tracey, who burned to death the week before Christmas while trying to keep warm in her shopping cart at Davie and Hornby Streets. She died after refusing repeated offers by police to help her find shelter for the night. Early this month, Housing Minister Rich Coleman told mainstream media he would consider amending the Mental Health Act to “force” homeless people into shelters “for their own good.” Vancouver-Mount Pleasant MLA Jenny Kwan spoke out against Coleman’s comments last week. “Your proposal to detain homeless people in shelters against their will is a blunt public policy instrument,” she wrote in a letter to Coleman dated January 9. “With your proposal, shelters could be seen as being turned into a form of prison for the homeless.”

Downtown Eastside activist Jamie Lee Hamilton already sees the current shelter conditions as prison-like, citing poor heating and lighting as some of the problems she witnessed when visiting the recently opened HEAT shelters. Hamilton, who supported the Non-Partisan Association during the last election and ran as an independent park board candidate after being denied NPA nomination, called preliminary HEAT reports “propaganda” that she says fails to address long-term solutions for the city’s housing shortage.

“[The shelters] were put together really fast, without much thought for the people or, for that matter, humanity,” Hamilton says. “It’s been done in a manner that’s very insensitive and not very productive.”

Hamilton is particularly concerned with what she believes to be a lack of medical and mental-health resources in the newly opened shelters. “I think we’re at a place where politicians don’t know what to do anymore. They’ve created this monster and there’s so much money fed into the Downtown Eastside,” she says. “ I have great admiration for Judy [Graves], but do you think Judy would have a job if there wasn’t homelessness? So, is it in their best interest to eradicate homelessness? I would say the answer is no.”

Graves, who has been known for single-handedly helping Vancouver’s homeless access housing and social services during her overnight walks through the city, says members of HEAT would share Hamilton’s concerns, but maintains it is important to “start somewhere and work.

“Perfection is not going to suddenly appear,” Graves says. “We need to work gradually but consistently toward those goals of everybody being able to access enough health care, enough mental-health care, enough addiction care, and housing. What’s really important is to do what you can today, and keep going.”

As for critics’ comments that housing advocates and shelter providers ‘kill people with kindness,’ Graves maintains that malice does not factor into the equation. “I think in the name of kindness, we all make terrible mistakes. But that’s not only with the poor. That’s also with our own families. That’s what it is to be human,” she says. “But when you’re delivering the basics of life to people — things like housing, food, medical care — I don’t think you’re ever doing something wrong.”

Report criticizes B.C. for high rate of construction worker fatalities

THE WESTENDER
January 15, 2009

Construction workers in B.C. are three times more likely to die while on the job than other workers in the province, according to a report released this month by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). The report, titled “Building a Safer Work Environment for B.C. Construction Workers,” is authored by labour research economist David Fairey; SFU health sciences professor John Calvert; and Wayne Peppard, a certified journeyman and pipe fitter who is currently the executive director of the B.C. and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council.

The report suggests that B.C. has a dismal construction safety record compared to other parts of Canada and other countries like the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand. It also suggests organizations such as WorkSafe BC provide very little in the terms of safety training and direction for workers.

“It’s the new entrants into the industry that are generally the ones at high risk,” says Peppard. “[Workers] ages 17 to 24 are disproportionately affected [by workplace injury]. That has a lot of bearing on the fact that there is no mandatory safety training for all construction workers.”

Calvert notes that many of the recommendations made by the provincial government 28 years ago, following the death of four workers in the construction of Bentall Centre, have yet to be implemented. And things have gotten worse in recent years. “Since 2002, we have seen a decline in the willingness of government to regulate the industry, in part because some employers want to reduce their premiums to WorkSafe, and partly because they do not want to be regulated by government. But this is the wrong direction,” he says. “What is most disturbing is the contrast between what is going on in B.C. and what is happening in other parts of Canada... Our report shows that Ontario has been making significant improvements while B.C. has been going nowhere over the past decade.”

Many organizations with regulatory ties to the provincial government, such as workers in the construction industry, will be pressing hard to have their cases heard between now and the May election. But regardless of who is elected, says Calvert, the plight of construction workers will still be a reality. “Given the track record of the government over the past eight years, it is not clear that it is prepared to do what needs to be done,” he says. “My feeling is that the public would like to see significant improvements in B.C.’s construction safety record. Perhaps a different government is the only way this will have a chance of happening.”

As for the role of politicians’ individual priorities in shaping public policy, Calvert is quick to note the dual influence of those priorities alongside economics. “We live in a political context in which there has been enormous pressure to reduce government regulatory activity,” he says. “Letting the market determine things is now a mantra of governments. But the market will not ensure that work sites are safe.”

‘Lost’ magazine meant to be found by Vancouverites

THE WESTENDER
January 8, 2009

If you should stumble across a small magazine this month with a cover bearing the phrase I left this here for you to read, Tim Devin wants you to pick it up. The 33-year-old Boston-based artist is a librarian by day, and is now in the sixth month of self-publishing I left this here, a series of handmade magazines featuring photos, writing, and ephemera from people around the world. Fifty copies of each issue of the magazine are printed by Devin, who, with the help of more than 100 worldwide volunteers, distributes them in public spaces including parks, bus stops, and restaurants, with the intention of humanizing public space and combatting the isolation of urban life. In the six months since the inception of the project, the magazines have been distributed to more than 25 North American cities, including Canadian distribution in Toronto, Quebec City, Victoria, and Sackville, New Brunswick.

This month, issues of I left this here will appear for the first time in Vancouver, courtesy of Ryan Nadel, a grad student who first learned about Devin’s project on a design website. Nadel e-mailed Devin on a whim two weeks ago to inquire about getting involved with the magazine, and he is now responsible for compiling material for its Vancouver edition.

“One thing I find is really great about the project is it’s a very old-fashioned application of new tools,” says Nadel. “This project wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for the internet, if it wasn’t for the ease of communication and the transfer of information provided by digital technology. That evolution of technology to make the simple things easier... is really exciting.”

Nadel is also excited about the potential of I left this here to transform our everyday experience with public space. “We’re so trained to expect to see advertisements when we’re outside,” he says, “but a piece of art, which is there at a bus stop, there at a restaurant, there at a dentist office, totally breaks down that expectation. I hope the large goal of the project is to change that relationship with public space. There can be flashes of art in this public world which has been so dominated commercially.”

For Devin, the project represents another creative venue in which people can connect and share ideas — one of a long line of public art projects he has created with the intention of documenting life’s small profundities. One of his most popular current projects is a Google Maps documentation of the locations of first kisses that have taken place around the world. He also published a book last year, The Last Time I Saw..., a collection of stories based in Providence, Rhode Island, about the last time individuals saw a lover, a friend, or family member. “All of my projects involve interacting with people in different ways,” says Devin from his home in Boston. “Particularly in the past few years, I’ve been interested in collecting people’s personal stories.”

Devin plans to continue publishing the magazine for at least another year, or until all submissions to date are included. For more information, e-mail Tim at i.left.this.here@gmail.com, or visit TimDevin.com.

Community trailblazer takes another run at politics

THE WESTENDER
January 8, 2009

From helping to build the ‘Welcome to Kitsilano’ sign at the foot of the Burrard Street Bridge to founding St. James Community Square, 64-year-old Mel Lehan’s influence on Vancouver’s west side is visible everywhere in his neighbourhood. A former elementary school teacher and a survivor of esophageal cancer, he is also responsible for establishing the Kitsilano Farmers Market and Kitsilano Car-Free Day, and organizing the Kitsilano chapter of the Citywide Housing Coalition, among numerous other achievements. A commemorative plaque in Lehan’s name will be placed in St. James Community Square this year, a follow-up of sorts to an honourary event that took place in October of last year. “To me, Mel is one of those essential people who does things because it’s their passion, and without any expectation of recognition or even thanks,” wrote David Suzuki in an invitational letter to the October event. “We must celebrate people like Mel who make community a word that really means something.”

Now, after 20 years of community activism, Lehan is making another run with the NDP for MLA in Vancouver-Point Grey, where he hopes to beat out Premier Gordon Campbell (who is currently MLA in that riding) in the provincial election on May 12. Lehan first ran in the 2005 provincial race, where he finished 2,250 votes behind Campbell. “I got into that race rather late,” Lehan recalls. “We basically started campaigning on about March 15, and the election was less than two months later. This time, we’re starting the campaign now [in January]. I’ve got 300 volunteers. People are so excited.”

Lehan held an official campaign kickoff party at St. James on Tuesday night (January 9), and is now on his way to mobilizing the hundreds of volunteers who have worked with him on community projects. Lehan says they hail from of all parts of the political spectrum. “To be a community worker, you have to work with everyone: Liberals, NDPers, Greens, non-political people,” he says. “I’ve never been on a group yet where we haven’t worked together harmoniously. People know that I am the kind of person who brings people together. I think people are really ready to vote for someone who builds community.”

If he wins a provincial seat, Lehan wants to focus on fighting climate change, homelessness, and poverty through community building. “I want to make everybody feel like they’re part of something and feel like life is really good, because life is good,” he says. “I want to make life as good for as many people as possible.” That means working with the NDP to increase the minimum wage to $10 an hour, implementing new provincial legislation to protect renters, keeping health care public, and promoting urban agriculture initiatives like the UBC Farm. “We’re one of the few cities in North America that has a living, breathing, working farm in the city, and Gordon Campbell and his board of governors at UBC want to destroy it,” he says. “It is absolutely one of the most shocking things they’re doing. I am going to do everything in my power to ensure we don’t lose that farm.”

As for the Campbell government itself: “I think it’s time that Gordon Campbell should retire,” Lehan says. “The terms [critics use] about him and his government — arrogant and out of touch — I think there’s a third thing: I think, basically, they’ve run out of ideas.”

Even so, Campbell, formerly the mayor of Vancouver, has been premier for eight years, and in the wake of the global economic crisis that punctuated 2008, the BC Liberals will likely have a field day campaigning against what they often paint as the free-spending habits of the NDP. But Jenn McGinn’s and Spencer Herbert’s NDP victories in the October provincial by-election have set a precedent in the city that Lehan says speaks for change. “I think everybody just wants to have a society where we take care of each other,” he says. “I’d like to talk to people all over the province and show them that community is the only way we can solve our problems.”

Photo: Mel Lehan at Tatlow Park near his home on 3rd and MacDonald. He helped build the playground here when his children, now grown, were young.

Hungry for change

THE WESTENDER
January 8, 2009

Vancouver social activist Am Johal savoured a much-anticipated grape-and-brie baguette sandwich at a coffee shop Monday afternoon (January 5), the first meal he had eaten after completing a seven-day fast as part of a national hunger-strike relay. In accordance with its rules, he subsisted on a liquid diet of juice, water, and coffee. He lost 11 pounds as a result.

Despite catching the flu during the fast, Johal said what he endured was nothing compared to the circumstances homeless people face on the streets every day — a situation he would like to see improved with the re-establishment of a national housing program that was terminated in 1993. Johal organized the hunger-strike relay to put pressure on the federal government to increase funding for social housing in the federal budget, which will be released at the end of the month. “We should be ashamed of ourselves,” he says. “We are making the public policy decision to spend $1 billion on Olympic security while we can’t make the same type of federal government investment in social housing.”

With the participation of supporters across Canada, the hunger-strike relay will continue through to the completion of the 2010 Winter Olympics. So far, approximately 60 people have contacted Johal through e-mail and Facebook to volunteer as hunger strikers.

Michael Byers, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at UBC, is taking Johal’s place in the fast this week, and will pass the proverbial torch to Sarah Evans, manager of HIV/AIDS and Harm Reduction Programs with Vancouver Coastal Health, next Monday (January 12). Brent Granby, president of the West End Residents Association, will follow Evans at the end of the month.

“I think Canadians need to have an expectation that there should be more money in the federal budget; this is investing in the health and well-being of Canadians,” says Granby. “It’s money well spent for all of us.”

“It’s cheaper to house people who are homeless than to leave them out on the street,” adds Johal. “It costs $28,000 to house somebody. The cost of having them out on the street is $40,000 [according to a 2006 report by the Pivot Legal Society]. If we can afford security for a three-week party [in 2010], we can certainly afford to invest in social housing.”

Photo: Brent Granby, Michael Byers, and Am Johal at the Olympic Clock in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. They are holding copies of the 2005 Homeless Action Plan issued by the previous city council. By Jackie Wong.

COVER: On the waterfront

THE WESTENDER
September 25, 2008

At this moment, clusters of construction cranes are looming over southeast False Creek between Columbia and Main streets, serving as visual signifiers of the imminent arrival of a long-anticipated community on the last stretch of undeveloped land along Vancouver’s waterfront.

The Millennium Water properties, a name that has long been buzzing on the tongues of the city’s real-estate mavens, is especially noteable not only because of its location, but because it’s designed to be Canada’s first LEED Gold neighbourhood, an enviable distinction indicating the highest standard of sustainable building practice. Its homes will be outfitted with sustainable technologies such as rain-screen wall systems; ceiling-mounted radiant capillary heating and cooling systems with automated exterior blinds; and water-saving, dual-flush toilets. Properties will be built using low-emission building materials and paints free of volatile of organic compounds, and UBC business grad Janice Cheam’s famous Energy Aware cards, which allow residents to track their energy consumption, will be fitted in each home.

With quick access to the Canada Line, pedestrian and bicycle pathways, and a streetcar bound for Granville Island, Millennium Water aims to lessen the car dependency of its residents, and, as a self-sustaining community, there is hope that those residents will continue living in the community at all stages of life.

The property will span seven city blocks, boasting 16 residential buildings, a community centre, an elementary school, and a community marketplace anchored by an Urban Fare grocery store.

Millennium’s tenants will start moving in by the summer of 2010. (Prior to that, it will be home to visiting Olympic athletes during the Winter Games, at which time kitchens will be boxed off, and carpet tiles will be installed over hardwood floors to protect them from damage.)

Marketing literature for Millennium Water paints an impressive portrait of its prospective homeowners. Readers are introduced to “Peter,” a mobile family man who travels to Brazil to deliver lectures on biodiversity, rides the SkyTrain home from YVR, and, to ease his jet lag, takes his children out on the water during weekends to hang out in Coal Harbour.

“To be environmentally correct is like wearing good jewellery,” says Bob Rennie, the Vancouver condo guru at the helm of Millennium Water’s marketing train. An official ambassador of the 2010 Games, Rennie grins when he thinks of the Olympic legacy he’s helping to build. “We handed out our business card to the world when we had Expo [’86] and everybody kept it,” he says. “This whole area is branded as ‘I live across from the Olympic village,’ ‘I live by the Olympic village,’ ‘I can see the Olympic village from my home.’ This, forever in Vancouver, will be a very rare community.”

While Rennie is quick to admit that most Vancouver residents won’t be able to afford homes at Millennium Water (prices range from $429,000 to more than $10 million), he looks to the power of international markets. “We’re passing what local incomes can afford to do,” he says. “So, why are those [real-estate] prices sustainable? It’s because they’re not just reliant on local incomes. It’s fueled by high-net-worth individuals and the planet. Whether it’s Korea or China or Europe or Iran, Vancouver is looked at as a resort.”

For Vancouverites looking to cash in on the Millennium Water properties, Rennie says it’s no market for first-time home buyers. “It’s a second-time-buyer address,” he explains, adding that the location will appeal to West Side and Commercial Drive-area residents interested in a condo outside of the downtown peninsula. However, Rennie is proud of the 150 new units of market-rate rental stock that will be part of the property, as he feels it will help mitigate the rental crisis happening across the city. Rent will likely fall in the range of about $2,200 per month for a two-bedroom unit by the time the units are made available for tenants. Also, there will be 250 units of affordable housing managed by the City of Vancouver, making up about 20 per cent of the total units on the Millennium Water property.

As for the voices of dissent in the city regarding the Olympics and the legacy that Millennium Water could be perceived as representing, Rennie remains optimistic that the Games will bring about the political and economic opportunities to address the social concerns voiced by Olympic critics. “The provincial government is really going to do something — with big, broad brushstrokes — on homelessness and mental health,” he says, “and if that was fueled through Gordon Campbell being approached in Beijing on Oppenheimer Park, take it. It’s a win.”

Rennie sees the 2010 Games as a catalyst for big and positive change in the city. “Looking at the future of transportation, if the Canada Line was put in because of the Olympics, take it any way you can,” he says. “It’s causing a sustainable community. I really believe that protesters can accomplish just as much at the boardroom table with levels of government as they can with shock value.”

Rennie also points out that money is required to solve social problems related to wealth disparities, and he hopes Olympic revenues will contribute to that. “We need an economically sustainable province and city so we’ve got money to solve these problems. We need the revenue to solve homelessness,” he says. “The Olympics isn’t a cure-all, but my worry is that as Canadians, we’re all going to stand up in the summer of 2010 and say how we’re supporting the Olympics. We all did it after Expo ’86. We said, ‘Oh, we should have gone more, we should have participated more.’ So, let’s get out in front of it. It’s here. Let’s deal with it.”

Info: MillenniumWater.com

Technology for all

THE WESTENDER
December 31, 2008

A used cellphone or digital camera might linger in the dusty depths of a closet — or worse, in a landfill — for years. But now, local tech developers, community organizers and artists are breathing new life into used mobile devices with Vancouver’s Phones for Fearless campaign, a project that aims to gather used cellphones and digital cameras for redistribution in the Downtown Eastside, enabling neighbourhood residents to tell their stories with the technology and, ultimately, connect with family and jobs.

The campaign is organized by local web services agency Raincity Studios along with Fearless City, a non-profit organization that uses mobile technology to provide resources and cultural outreach to Downtown Eastside residents. The Phones for Fearless campaign has been operating since December 23, and is currently soliciting donations of used digital cameras, cellphones (preferably with video, camera, or wi-fi functions), chargers, and spare batteries. Donations can be dropped off at the Roundhouse Community Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews), Pathways (390 Main Street), or Raincity Studios (1 Alexander Street).

“A consistent problem we experience in the Downtown Eastside is being represented sensationally by outside media, fueling the notion of a helpless community,” says Irwin Oostindie, who coordinates the Fearless City mobile campaign. “Fearless City is a project to confront the digital divide in one of Canada’s poorest inner cities, while providing access and peer training to community generated media so that residents in our neighbourhood can control their own representation.”

Developers at Raincity Studios have been using Twitter, Flickr, and blogging platforms to spread the word of the Phones for Fearless campaign. “The thing that’s neat about using tools like Twitter, blogs, and Flickr is it opens us up to a much bigger audience,” says Dave Olson of Raincity Studios. “We’re getting responses from California and Ottawa. It really gives us an opportunity to amplify our message to a much wider area, and much more quickly.”

Once the phones are collected and inventoried by Raincity and Fearless City workers, they will be available to Downtown Eastside residents on an as-needed basis, enabling residents to engage with mobile technologies that might otherwise be unavailable to them due to financial barriers. “Many people can afford the occasional use of a device without being caught in an expensive data plan,” says Oostindie. “It’s about a ‘handset’-up, not a handout — giving people access to appropriate technology to be engaged citizens, not merely surviving below a glass ceiling of independence.”
PHOTO: Kris Krug, a developer at Raincity Studios, holds up the first batch of mobile devices donated to the Phones for Fearless campaign. By Dave Olson.

Public forum to shed light on homelessness issues

THE WESTENDER
December 31, 2008

Local MPs, housing experts, and community organizers will start the new year with a public forum on homelessness. Organized with the help of UBC social work student Leya Eguchi, the forum will focus on federal policy and funding as they pertain to housing issues. “Federally, there really hasn’t been a lot of action,” says Eguchi. “That’s where part of the problem lies. The idea [of the forum] is to bring people together and bring clarity to the situation.”

Progress on finding solutions to homelessness can be muddied, Eguchi says, by the number of separate organizations dedicated to similar causes. “There’s the Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness, Gregor Robertson put together a [Homeless Emergency Action] team of different community members — and that’s really not a full-time thing — and there’s the Citywide Housing Coalition,” she says. “People are left wondering exactly what’s going on.”

Eguchi hopes the forum will shed light on the roles that communities, cities, and federal representatives can play in strengthening the federal government’s homelessness strategy. Scheduled speakers include Vancouver East MP Libby Davies; Vancouver Centre MP Hedy Fry; Pivot Legal Society lawyer Laura Track; Wendy Pedersen of the Carnegie Community Action Project; and Michael Byers, a UBC political science professor who ran with the NDP in last fall’s federal election against Fry in Vancouver Centre.

Eguchi maintains that the forum is a non-partisan event, and Mayor Gregor Robertson and city councillors have been invited to attend.

City of Vancouver housing advocate Judy Graves will give a presentation on homelessness in Vancouver. Graves has become known in the city for her nighttime outreach work, during which she has singlehandedly taken homeless people off the street and helped them access welfare and housing. “We get absolutely no response at the federal level,” she says, “even with the most basic solutions.”

The forum takes place Wednesday, January 14, from 9 a.m. to noon, at the Vancouver Japanese Language School Auditorium (487 Alexander).

NPA elects new board members

THE WESTENDER
December 31, 2008

The Non-Partisan Association (NPA), Vancouver’s oldest civic party, took another step forward in rebuilding itself after November’s municipal election swept Vision Vancouver into power, leaving the NPA clinging to only one seat each on council and the park board, and two seats on the school board.

NPA members gathered at the party’s annual general meeting, at the Hellenic Community Centre in Kitsilano, on December 29. Twenty members jockeyed for 11 elected spots on the party’s board of directors.

Sean Bickerton, who ran unsuccessfully for city council in the November election, is among the newly elected board members. He was raised in the Lower Mainland and currently lives near Gastown with his husband. “I offer nearly 40 years of community activism... and proud advocacy for gay rights and racial tolerance,” Bickerton said in his board nomination speech. Regarding his goals for revitalizing the centre-right NPA as a whole, Bickerton called for a united effort to “reclaim the centre” in Vancouver politics. “We lost the centre in the last election and got painted on the right,” he says. “The centre is where we need to be... City government is about finding pragmatic solutions to people’s problems. It doesn’t lend itself to ideological sermonizing.”

Twenty-five-year-old Gavin Dew was also elected to the board. He handled the NPA’s social media campaign in the past election, and is one of many young people to have become newly involved with the party in the last election cycle.

Twenty-six-year-old Melissa De Genova, the youngest park board candidate in the past election, was elected chair of the Young NPA (YNPA) board. “What we need to do is try and... bring in younger, progressive people,” she says. Twenty-year-old Meredith Ladner, Peter Ladner’s youngest daughter, was elected vice-chair of the YNPA. She has been involved with the NPA since 2003.

Other elected NPA board members include technologist and incoming Volunteer Vancouver president Chilwin Cheng, lawyer and Liberal Party of Canada worker Manjot Hallen, Kerrisdale realtor and Suzanne Anton supporter Deborah Spafford, real-estate finance expert Jeevan Khunkhun, entrepreneur Doug Leung, communications expert Michael Davis, and former park board candidate Naresh Shukla.