BOOKS: “Automaton Biographies” marks poetry’s final frontier

WestEnder
January 28, 2010

"The future is already here,” cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson famously told The Economist in 2003. “It’s just not evenly distributed.” As a self-professed Gibson fan, Larissa Lai’s poetry takes cues from cyberpunk traditions, with dark explorations of dystopian landscapes awash with cyborgs, astronaut chimpanzees, and media detritus. The Vancouver author and UBC Canadian literature professor’s first full-length collection of solo poetry, Automaton Biographies, was released in November 2009. Earlier that year, Lai published the chapbook Eggs in the Basement and Sybil Unrest, a long poem written with fellow Vancouver poet Rita Wong.

Lai’s speculative imaginings of the future in Automaton Biographies take the form of four long poems, the first of which, “Rachel,” is an homage to Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and its film adaptation, Blade Runner. The second long poem, “Nascent Fashion,” was written during the U.S. invasion of Iraq, while the third eulogizes the chimpanzee sent into space during NASA’s Mercury Redstone Mission in the late 1960s. The fourth and most personal poem, “Auto Matter,” explores the ways in which the self is constructed through culture and language.

“I’m interested in what’s actually there in the popular [imagination] and in my own [imagination],” Lai says. “I’m also interested in those parts of our history that we really can’t grasp, that we really can’t retrieve, and what it might mean to address the impossible task of trying to articulate them. Part of my impulse towards this kind of production of the future comes from the fact of being a second-generation Chinese immigrant. My parents left the past behind in order that their children might have a future here.”

While Automaton Biographies and Lai’s previous novels, such as 2002’s Salt Fish Girl, address issues of racial stereotyping and Asian identity, she has mixed feelings about being part of a literary tradition of Chinese-Canadian writers. “I think that it’s really important to make space for marginalized voices in the terms in which they’ve been marginalized,” she says. “[But] the problem that I have with it is that after a certain point, it becomes a market category that then takes away the political power of those voices. In the current system, [where] we have these big-box bookstores, [and] we have Amazon, we live in a capitalist economy, and that economy needs those categories in order to get those voices out there.”

Automaton Biographies, particularly the “Rachel” and “Auto Mater” poems, aim to shake up and complicate cultural stereotypes as they pertain to Asian identity. “As much as I dislike [stereotypes], I don’t think it’s possible to get rid of them. All you can really do is talk about them, point to them, and then try to unravel what it is that they’re getting at and complicate them, so that people can see there is nothing natural about them,” she says. “I’m very interested in the way in which new kinds of stereotypings of Asian people emerge at different historical moments — particularly in the present.”

City mulls future of rapid-transit line on Broadway

WestEnder
January 28, 2010

While city officials say the proposed rapid-transit line from Commercial Drive to UBC would not bring about a repeat of the chaos along Cambie Street during building of the Canada Line, the exact timing, construction methods, and funding for the project are yet to be determined. A January 19 city council report by Jerry Dobrovolny, the City of Vancouver’s general manager of engineering services, and Ronda Howard, director of planning, notes that the Provincial Transit Plan calls for the UBC Line to be in operation by 2020, but the timing of the project is unknown. A shortlist of six rapid-transit options will be selected by spring 2010, followed by a detailed evaluation of the possibilities.

A rapid-transit solution for the congested Broadway corridor has been in the works since 1997, when city council approved the City Transportation Plan, which included a rapid-transit line along Broadway with possible extension to UBC. Broadway is now one of the largest transit destinations in Metro Vancouver, according to Dobrovolny and Howard’s report. Buses along Broadway carry more than 80,000 trips a day, with frequent passenger pass-ups and overcrowding, even with a bus arriving every 90 seconds.

Heated debate continues to swirl around the possibility of a SkyTrain-style transit system along Broadway, but some say a strong rapid-transit solution for the congested Broadway corridor is already here, with last week’s arrival of two Belgian streetcars running between the Olympic Village and Granville Island. The trains, on loan from Belgium’s Brussels Transport Company, run on 1.8 km tracks the City paid $8.5 million to upgrade. Trains will run every six to 10 minutes between 6:30 a.m. and 12:30 a.m. until March 22.

Members of the transit-advocacy group Business and Residents for Smart Transit Alternatives (BARSTA) have expressed their support of the Belgian streetcars as a strong solution for rapid transit on Broadway. “[BARSTA] is a coalition of businesses and residents who want to make sure that the community comes out of this ahead, so that businesses aren’t forced out the way they were on Cambie, and that residents aren’t forced out just because the neighbourhood changes so much,” says BARSTA co-founder Mel Lehan. He and his BARSTA colleagues consider a light-rail transit solution like the Olympic Village streetcars to be less expensive and more environmentally sustainable than a SkyTrain-style project.

“Of course they can do it better,” Lehan says of city planners in charge of rapid transit along Broadway. “Will they do it better? My experience with planners over the last 30 years is they always say the right thing, but that’s just part of their job. When it comes down to reality, they don’t often follow up.”

Part of BARSTA’s role, Lehan says, is to ensure that Broadway’s rapid transit comes with a strong public consultation process.

Public consultation will be key to avoiding a Canada Line situation while building Broadway’s rapid-transit line, says former TransLink CEO Tom Prendergast, who attended the Olympic Village streetcar opening last week. Prendergast left his post at TransLink in November 2009 to take a job as president of New York City’s public-transportation system. “What has been successful in other places is extensive outreach with the community, an examination of the different options, and then once the option is selected, you still need to go through the different ways of how you would construct it, and how you can minimize those impacts,” he says, adding that the Olympic Village streetcars should be explored as possible options for Broadway.

“In my career in transportation, light rail is a very viable option for an urban environment. It provides a different alternative than a heavy rail, like a SkyTrain. In many cases, it’s less impactful to a community, but it can provide the same utility. I think this demonstration project for 60 days is really going to give Vancouverites an opportunity to whet their appetite to how good streetcars will be.”

PHOTO: Transit advocates say that light-rail streetcars such as the Bombardier demonstration line running between the Olympic Village and Granville Island, pictured here, could be a viable alternative to SkyTrain-style rapid transit along Broadway. By Doug Shanks.

'No-fun city' no more?

WestEnder
January 28, 2010

As part of seemingly never-ending efforts to put Vancouver’s “no-fun city” reputation to rest, city council unanimously approved a regulatory review that aims to dramatically reduce the jungle of red tape surrounding the creation and operation of spaces that host live music, performance art, and other cultural events. The recommendations contained in the review, which was brought forward by Cultural Services staff last week (Jan. 21), will be subject to formal investigation throughout 2011, beginning after the Olympics.

Inconsistent information, confusing or outdated zoning policy, and prohibitive regulatory frameworks surrounding basic acquisitions like liquor licenses, have been the bane of many cultural entrepreneurs’ ambitions for years.

Recognizing that the City of Vancouver’s current regulatory structures often work against the proliferation of a dynamic arts and culture scene, Cultural Services staff held community roundtable discussions last fall with venue owners, festival coordinators, and members of the independent music community to address the barriers they felt were prohibiting the pursuit of their livelihoods.

David Duprey, owner of the Narrow Lounge and Grace Gallery, at 3rd and Main, and the Rickshaw Theatre, at Hastings and Gore, participated in the roundtable discussions, and has been a vocal supporter for reforming what he says are prohibitive regulatory barriers. When WE met with him at the Grace Gallery, Duprey’s obvious exasperation for the City’s regulatory policies become even more pronounced when he compared Vancouver to other cities.

“If I was in California right now — or Toronto — with this space, I would literally apply for a liquor license and I would have one... I’d go and pay my $150 fee, and there wouldn’t be any weirdness,” he says.

In order for him to open the Narrow Lounge, Duprey had to pay rent for 10 months while waiting for approval from the City to build in the former industrial space. “It took me three months to be able to build everything, and then it took another four months after that to get the liquor license,” he says.

Meanwhile, the adjacent Grace Gallery remains without a liquor license because the space is not zoned for one, so Duprey and his staff must apply for a special-event permit when they hold an event that serves liquor. “You’re only allowed to get two of those a month,” he says. “There was a 40-seat liquor license that got offered to me the other day... and it was $600,000. Who the hell has $600,000?”

Duprey is optimistic that the City can change its performance-venue policies, provided there is enough political will. As an example, he points to city councillor Suzanne Anton’s recent success passing a motion that loosens regulations around privately-owned liquor stores.

“There are a bunch of people on council right now who are really dedicated to doing this, specifically Heather Deal,” he says. “This city is in a horrible position right now because it’s impossible to start a live-music venue. If you’ve got two million bucks, you could go do something and open up a new Biltmore. If you’re like me, and you have $40,000, you can’t do it.”

Jacquie Gijssen, senior cultural planner for the City of Vancouver, says she expects City staff will be ready to come to council with its first new set of bylaws to improve live-performance regulations by around this time next year. “Regulations obviously have their place. They’re meant to protect public safety and they’re meant to create the kind of city that we all envision and want to have,” she says. “But over time, regulations can get out of date, they can be inconsistent, they can be overly complex, they can be contradictory, and they can be barriers for operation and creation of, in particular, cultural spaces.”

Members of Vancouver’s arts and cultural community spoke unanimously in favour of the regulatory review at the January 21 city council meeting. “It might be a decade too late, but at least it’s happening,” said Ryan McCormick of the Safe Amplification Site Society, a non-profit organization looking to establish a permanent all-ages arts and music venue in Vancouver. “After attempting to learn how to start a legal venue,” McCormick told council, “I have a new appreciation for these illegal venues in Vancouver. These people aren’t being lazy; it’s extraordinarily difficult to even find out how to be legal, let alone actually going through that process.”

PHOTO: David Duprey, owner of Grace Gallery and Narrow Lounge, is part of a group lobbying to make it easier for entrepreneurs to open arts venues in Vancouver. By Doug Shanks.

COVER: W2 seeks to democratize Olympic coverage

WestEnder
January 21, 2010

In the years before online social networking was as common as trading business cards, people would watch the Olympics on TV and listen for radio updates on the drive in to work. Now, with the coming-of-age of Web 2.0 technologies alongside the evolution of Vancouver’s large and growing new-media community, the game — and Games — has changed.

At the centre of it all, the W2 Culture + Media House, in the Downtown Eastside, will host hundreds of bloggers, technologists, and independent and professional journalists during the 2010 Winter Games, marking the first Olympics in which social media will play a prominent role in covering its goings-on.

“We can say that Vancouver 2010 is the first truly digital Olympic Games,” says Andy Miah, chair in Ethics and Emerging Technologies in the School of Media, Language, and Music at the University of the West of Scotland. Miah has been researching new media and the Olympics for 10 years, at six Olympic Games. He’ll be working at the British Columbia International Media Centre and Whistler Media House during the 2010 Games.

“Web 2.0 was really getting started around the time that Vancouver won the [Olympic] bid, and now it’s fully flourishing,” says Miah. “The key question will be whether the mass of social-media reporting will transform the narrative of Vancouver’s Games into something more than just sport.”

Miah points out that there will be almost the same number of non-accredited journalists at the Games as those with official media accreditation, resulting in a potentially dramatic increase in the range of stories told about the event, and about the city. “The mass media — or accredited media — are so focused on celebrating the sports that their agendas don’t permit much deviation from the narrative,” he says. “This is why social media is so critical. When we look back in history, we will want to know what took place throughout Vancouver, not just what happened in the stadia.”

Creating a space where marginalized communities can voice their experience of the Games is one of W2 executive director Irwin Oostindie’s goals for the Culture + Media House. “The dialogue we’re fostering around social media and the Olympics is really about how we can reveal diverse communities’ experience and interest in the Olympic Games, apart from the dominant stories,” he says. “What is the experience of Filipino and Punjabi Vancouverites, who are not represented in the Winter Games?... For us, social media is an opportunity to enable more voices — a proliferation of voices — to bring more democracy to whose stories are told in Canadian culture.”

The W2 Culture + Media House will operate out of a mixed-use cultural space at 112 West Hastings, across the street from the new Woodward’s complex. Oostindie will make broadcasting equipment available to social-media enthusiasts, journalists, and Downtown Eastside residents interested in relaying their experiences related to the Games. W2 will also be home to the Legal Observer program headed up by the Pivot Legal Society and BC Civil Liberties Association, which will monitor the operations of Olympic security during Games time.

“We have to look at building a civil society that has a functioning democracy, and social media has a tremendous role to play in the future to ensure that people are not lost through the digital divide,” says Oostindie. “We always need to strive to access what we want for Vancouver [in the year] 2020, and not get lost in the moment of 2010.”

Members of Vancouver’s Fresh Media team will be among the new-media groups operating out of W2 during Games time. Launched in the past year by a group of artists and online-media enthusiasts, Fresh Media was created with the desire to make something new out of what its founders saw as the collapse of traditional media. “Fresh Media is a project of OpenMedia.ca, a national nonprofit organization working to advance and support an open and innovative communications system in Canada,” says co-founder Steve Anderson.

Fresh Media will host an event at W2 about social media and the Olympics on Monday, February 22. Information is available at W2’s website, CreativeTechnology.org. “We want to encourage participants to seize this mega-media moment and make it their own,” says Anderson of the event. “To me, W2 could become a physical mirror image of the internet, an open platform for citizen collaboration of all types.”

While social media will undoubtedly play a significant role in how Olympic information is disseminated during Games time, traditional journalism still has its place, says Linda Solomon, who publishes the Vancouver Observer, an independent online news publication. Many of her reporters will be operating out of W2’s media space during the Olympics. “There is no better seed for deep local reporting from the community than social media, but it’s just a seed,” she says. “Solid reporting by trained journalists is vital to creating a context for the Tweets and posts of social media.”

Acknowledging that traditional media is, in her words, “in a state of breakdown,” Solomon’s Observer aims to create a space for what she calls “public-service writers.”

“The fact that the Vancouver Observer has attracted such a large, skilled, and dedicated group of these public-service journalists speaks to the possibility of building a system that will work in the future,” Solomon says. “Web 2.0 tools have given people like me an opportunity to take back some control of the news media, to create platforms that level the playing field by giving an audience and a future to writers who have been closed out by downsizing.”

Yet, for all of W2’s and its supporters’ desire to level the playing field with regard to who gets a say in how we report on the Olympics, the question of how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) will treat independent social media initiatives like W2 remains to be seen.

“The IOC has based its relationship with the media largely in a system of control: very tight regulations about the Olympic trademark, what can be said, what can be used, who can shoot images, what video can be published,” says Alfred Hermida, a digital-media scholar and professor at UBC’s journalism school. “That system of control is fairly straightforward to maintain when you know exactly who the media is... It doesn’t work in an internet age when, basically, we all carry around with us the tools to be journalists.”

An increasingly blurred division between official and unofficial media — particularly with regard to how it will play out in Vancouver next month — may challenge the IOC to change its approach in how it handles media during Games time. “What we have here is a major sporting event taking place in a western liberal democracy, in a country that is highly wired, and in a city that has a very active social-media scene,” Hermida says. “In many ways, this is a tremendous opportunity to really expand the appeal of the Olympics, and to involve not just established media, but involve emerging media, and involve the public in general into celebrating this through the media.

“But for that,” he warns, “you need to accept that you will get the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

PHOTO: W2 executive director Irwin Oostindie. By Doug Shanks.

West End renters triumph against landlords, brace themselves for appeal

WestEnder
January 21, 2010

After more than a year of tenant-landlord conflict, residents of the West End’s Seafield apartment building were relieved last week to learn that the rent increases applied for by their landlords were overturned by the B.C. Supreme Court. The January 12 judgement by Supreme Court Justice Linda Loo called the landlords’ application for 15- to 38-per-cent increases in the 78-year-old building “patently unreasonable.”

Madame Justice Loo ordered the landlords — a brother-in-law duo who own Gordon Nelson Investments, a property management firm that purchased the Seafield in summer 2008 — to refund tenants the difference of the increased rents they had paid since April 2009, the month in which a dispute-resolution officer at the B.C. Residential Tenancy Office (RTO) controversially approved Gordon Nelson’s application for the increases. The landlords argued the increases would bring the Seafield, a 14-unit building located at 1436 Pendrell Street, up to market value.

The Seafield’s close-knit community of long-term tenants banded together to bring the dispute before the Supreme Court in November 2009, in the hope of drawing attention to what they and other tenants’ rights advocates saw as unfair legislation.

Seafield tenants will likely start receiving refunds in the form of deductions on upcoming months’ rents, although this has not been confirmed. But the tenants aren’t sure when or if they’ll be back in court, in the event that their landlords appeal the judgement. Property manager Chris Nelson told WE in an e-mail that he and Gordon Nelson Investments partner Jason Gordon will make a decision within the 30-day time frame allowed for appeal.

A statement on Gordon Nelson’s website says the company is confident that the Seafield rent increases will be restored in a re-hearing or “quite possibly result in a larger market-supported rent increase, as rents in Vancouver and the West End have continued to increase in the face of tough economic times.”

A representative from the B.C. Ministry of Housing and Social Development, who asked not to be named in this article, told WE the ministry is currently reviewing the Supreme Court decision, and that a new hearing will be scheduled in the near future.

The rent-increase issue is the last in a long line of disagreements between Seafield tenants and Gordon Nelson Investments. In fall 2008, WE reported that Seafield tenants felt threatened by Gordon Nelson’s intimations that tenants would be evicted to make way for building renovations. “After only a month of living here, I was being told I was going to get kicked out of my own home,” recalls Seafield tenant Melissa Mewdell. “I had no idea what to do about it. If these guys weren’t around to help me,” she adds, gesturing to her neighbours, who have supported each other through the conflict, “I probably would have left.”

Even though the disputes have resulted in Seafield tenants becoming extremely well versed in residential tenancy procedure, the lack of transparency they’ve experienced at the RTO has been troubling, says Mark Moore, who lives at the Seafield with his family. “You can’t find out how many of these cases there are [at the RTO]. You can’t find out how they were decided. There are no transcripts kept of any hearing. If this is where things are going to be adjudicated... it would at least be nice to know what’s going on here. This is notwithstanding the fact that we never know how many people are evicted who never go to the RTO because they don’t complain.”

Vancouver-West End MLA Spencer Herbert has been working with Seafield tenants and other local renters during their lengthy struggles with the province’s residential tenancy system. As part of efforts to resolve what he sees as gaps in B.C.’s Residential Tenancy Act that leave long-term renters vulnerable to unfair rent increases, Herbert brought forward a private member’s bill in November 2008. It has not yet been reviewed in the B.C. Legislature.

“I really hope that Housing Minister Rich Coleman will look at [the Seafield] decision and will look at the evidence, which is piling up, and decide that the Residential Tenancy Act needs to be reformed,” Herbert says. “B.C. renters owe a huge debt of thanks to the Seafielders for their perseverance, but think about the huge number of people out there who don’t have those resources, who don’t have that sense of community to support each other.”

PHOTO: The Seafield. By Jackie Wong.

Historian finds deja vu in 'modern' civic issues

WestEnder
January 21, 2010

The B.C. Court of Appeal’s landmark dismissal of the federal government’s attempt to close Insite, Vancouver’s supervised injection facility, marked an historical moment in the city’s history when the decision was announced last week (January 15).

But Vancouver historian Lani Russwurm knows that the city’s battles to implement harm-reduction strategies are nothing new. They date back to the 1950s — a fact that is often overlooked when politicians, policy-makers and media continue to talk about the Downtown Eastside’s drug problems as though they are specific to the present day.

Russwurm, who holds a master’s degree in history and blogs about Vancouver’s past at PastTenseVancouver.wordpress.com, notes in his blog that a narcotics committee was established by the Community Chest and Council — a precursor to United Way — in 1952. The committee, he says, recommended a comprehensive drug strategy including rehabilitation centres, educational initiatives, and even a proposal that some medical clinics provide “maintenance-level” doses of heroin to people addicted to the drug. “What’s regarded today as the novel philosophy of harm reduction was simple pragmatism in 1952,” Russwurm writes.

Unfortunately, he says, present-day discussions around controversial issues like drug policy become so politicized that it’s easy to forget what’s happened in the past.

Russwurm seems unfazed by this notion as construction workers put the finishing touches on the controversial new Woodward’s complex, where WE meets him at a recently opened coffee shop inside its new central plaza.

“It seems like the strategy to revitalize or gentrify the Downtown Eastside — what the City seems to want, or what developers seem to want — is to basically flood the area with middle-class people, where they bring consumer dollars, make businesses viable, and that sort of thing,” Russwurm says of the Woodward’s development. “Then you start to get these kind of new demands coming in: clean up the streets, get rid of panhandlers, get rid of poor people. So, drug addicts — where are they going to go?”

As a Downtown Eastside resident who works with the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU) in coordinating its Downtown Eastside Pedestrian Safety Project, Russwurm has seen his share of change in the neighbourhood since moving there in 2002. “The SFU school here [at Woodward’s], it’s going to bring a ton of students to the neighbourhood, so where are they going to live? I mean, even if you’re not homeless or on welfare or whatever, it’s hard to find an affordable place to live,” he says. “So, are they going to start moving into the SRO hotels? It’s quite likely.”

While history can — and should — inform our view of the present, Russwurm also emphasizes the importance of examining the impact of current actions that will inform the city’s future. “It seems to me the main issue facing Vision Vancouver or local city governance is not just homelessness, it’s affordability,” he says, adding that the City of Vancouver should focus more on stabilizing property values than encouraging projects that cause land prices to go up.

“People tend not to be critical about things that happen,” Russwurm continues, describing Vancouver’s view of the past as misguidedly parochial. “If you go to Toronto or Montreal, there’s more of a sense that history is more respected, in terms of heritage, that sort of thing. I would say Vancouver is lacking in that area. [Here], you build excitement by [building] something new... I think that really lends itself to that amnesia.”

Locals organize rally against Harper's prorogue

WestEnder
January 14, 2010

Ten days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper controversially called to prorogue Parliament, thus suspending its activity until March 3 (after the 2010 Winter Games), a group of outraged citizens gathered at the Vancouver Public Library’s central branch to organize the local contingent of a national rally protesting the decision. The rally, which will take place in Vancouver January 23 at 1 p.m., will begin at the Vancouver Art Gallery and proceed to Victory Square, where speakers from a variety of advocacy groups will address issues they feel will be missed while Parliament is closed.

Sean Devlin, Vancouver organizer of the Facebook group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, was part of a coalition of environmental groups lobbying for stronger leadership from Harper during last month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Given the lack of government action Devlin saw at the conference, he was immediately concerned when Harper called for prorogation on December 30.

“Copenhagen was the most recent step in citizens mobilizing to express their concern with this government,” Devlin told WE before the Vancouver rally meeting. “I think the important thing to remember is this is a minority government, and in the last election we had the lowest voter turnout in reported history. So, technically speaking, their mandate to govern is quite weak.”

Devlin’s Facebook page for the Vancouver chapter of the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament group had close to 900 members as of January 12. On a national level, support for the online initiative has been substantial. As WE went to press, over 170,000 people — an increase of more than double over the previous week — had joined the group started by Christopher White, an anthropology student at the University of Alberta.

Some critics say Facebook activism is an inaccurate litmus test as to how the majority of Canadians feel about government decisions, but Devlin maintains the discussions and organizing efforts coming out of the online campaigns are a strong first step toward badly-needed public dialogue about the Prime Minister’s decisions. “By no means do I think that Facebook is the starting and ending of the campaigning,” he says. “I think it’s really just the start.”

“When you look at the legislation that’s stalled or now stopped because of this prorogue,” Devlin continues, ”each one of those bills has a community within the country that is very concerned with it. The climate legislation, which is Bill C-311 — there’s hundreds of thousands of Canadians who have been following that bill very eagerly.”

Bill C-304, a private members’ bill for a national housing strategy brought forward by Vancouver East MP and NDP House Leader Libby Davies, is nearing a third reading in parliament. “Every time there’s a discussion about a crisis around housing in this city, the thing that always comes up, inevitably, is the lack of federal support, and the fact that there isn’t a national housing strategy and dollars in place,” Davies says. “This bill has enormous support across the country, and certainly in Vancouver.”

While private-members’ bills such as Bill C-304 will not be directly impacted by prorogation, committee meetings will be shut down until the new session of parliament begins in March. Of particular concern to many critics is the resultant closure of parliamentary committee meetings investigating the alleged mishandling of Afghan detainees by Canadian authorities. “I think the answer is that [Harper] doesn’t want the Afghanistan committee to meet,” says Davies. “[Harper] claims that [the prorogation is] because they want to... recalibrate their agenda around the recession... It’s such a lame excuse. I think what underlies this is his desire to avoid any public scrutiny or accountability.”

PHOTO: Vancouver meeting of Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament. By Jackie Wong.

New shelters open as homelessness continues to spread

WestEnder
January 14, 2010

A new emergency homeless shelter opened in the West End on Tuesday night (Jan. 12), the sixth shelter to open under the City of Vancouver’s Homeless Emergency Action Team (HEAT) established by Mayor Gregor Robertson in winter 2008. The 24-hour shelter, located at 747 Cardero Street and operated by RainCity Housing, offers 40 beds, two meals per day, and storage space for shopping carts and pets. A bed reservation system will be in place to reduce lineups and outdoor crowding.

The shelter is part of the City of Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Response program, which aims to address street homelessness by closing crucial gaps between temporary and permanent housing. “We really need to transition people from shelters into housing,” Mayor Robertson told reporters at a press conference January 5. “That’s the whole rationale of this program. Once they’re in shelters through the winter and stabilizing, improving their health conditions and connecting to services, hopefully we have a group of people who are ready to move into housing, and we can create those options with the Province.”

The Cardero Street shelter joins two other temporary shelters — at 677 East Broadway and 1435 Granville — opened by the City in the past month. Other HEAT shelters that have continued operations over the past year are in the Downtown Eastside’s First United Church; a section of the Stanley New Fountain Hotel, near Gastown; and at 201 Central Street, near Main Street SkyTrain station.

“The problem has never been this bad,” Mayor Robertson added. “Over the last couple of years, the homeless population [has become] bigger than it’s ever been, and that extends across the country.”

The City’s emergency shelters will cease operation by April 30, when provincial government funding runs out. In terms of funding for future housing initiatives in Vancouver, Mayor Robertson mentioned interest from the business sector, faith-based groups, and philanthropists. “I’m optimistic, but we don’t have the dollars identified yet,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll have more solutions coming on-stream in the spring, when we need them the most.”

In response to the city’s growing street homeless problem, the Streetohome Foundation released its 10-year plan for Vancouver on Tuesday (Jan. 12). A joint partnership between the Vancouver Foundation, the City of Vancouver, and the Province of British Columbia, the Streetohome Foundation formed in 2008, and has since been a key partner for funding the first HEAT shelters, investing in the Aboriginal Mother’s Centre, and supporting a national housing project initiated by the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

The 10-year plan tackles three goals: invest philanthropic funding from the private sector into permanent housing; prevent people who are most vulnerable from becoming homeless; and build public support and community involvement.

The Streetohome report estimates that 3,700 people were homeless in Vancouver in 2008. With 1,700 housing units created or under development since then, Streetohome estimates another 2,000 units are needed for people who are homeless. Anyone who has been homeless for more than a year or more will require supportive housing, the report says, even if they have no particular health issues.

“The plan... focuses on three population groups: the chronically homeless, youth, and families, particularly single women and children,” says Barbara Grantham, acting president of the Streetohome Foundation. “If we’re measuring our success in 2012, we’ll have put on-stream another 600 units to close that gap down into the 1,400 range.”

While the City is in the midst of opening emergency shelters to get people out of the cold (more HEAT shelters are planned for Kitsilano and Mount Pleasant), the Streetohome 10-year plan focuses on permanent housing. “Streetohome’s focus is not on shelters. It’s on creating permanent, long-term, supportive assets,” says Streetohome director Don Fairbairn.

As for Mayor Robertson’s plan to end street homelessness by 2015, Fairbairn is supportive, but says a major challenge for Streetohome and for the City is, as always, funding.

“We think we can bring new resources to the table. We’re not talking about reallocating existing philanthropic funding. We’re talking about bringing new money with players, individuals, companies, organizations that, to date, haven’t participated fully,” says Fairbairn, who sits on the 25-member Streetohome board alongside a range of Vancouver notables, including real-estate marketer Bob Rennie, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu, city manager Penny Ballem, and former Vancouver mayor and B.C. Premier Mike Harcourt. “We may not find unanimity around everything, but that isn’t a precondition for doing something. What is a precondition for doing something is a strongly-held view, by many, that this is the right thing to do.”

PHOTO by Jackie Wong.

Is feeding the poor enough if nutrition is lacking?

WestEnder
January 14, 2010

While senior city officials say the daily meals served at two recently opened, full-to-capacity homeless shelters (at 1435 Granville and 677 Broadway) are key to the shelters’ success, very little research has been done to investigate food security among homeless populations. It’s a troubling gap that food researchers such as Dr. Karen Cooper are looking to resolve.

Cooper met with WE on January 7, the day after a homeless shelter reopened under the Granville Bridge. That night, she visited the shelter to conduct nutritional interviews with people using the facility, as part of her research on the physical and mental health of homeless people before and after they’re introduced to a regular food program.

“The piece I’m looking at specifically is, what impact is there when you provide meals within the housing? What sorts of nutritional changes happen?” says Cooper, who is also researching the number of 911 calls from residents and shelter staff before and after food programs are introduced. “I can tell you right now that you get statistically significant drops in the number of 911 calls [after food is introduced to housing],” she says. “My research is going to show that it will be cheaper to [provide food programs in housing] than to manage the effects of hunger through the emergency rooms, through people sitting on the ward for three weeks to gain enough weight so they can fight off their pneumonia, through 911 calls by all of our services.”

Cooper’s work is part of a new and crucial body of research exploring the nexus between housing and food security, says Chris Miewald, a faculty member at SFU’s Centre for Sustainable Community Development. Miewald is the author of an August 2009 report for Vancouver Coastal Health, “Food Security in Housing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside,” which highlights nutritional deficiencies in much of the food served in the Downtown Eastside to homeless populations. The report suggests an overabundance of white bread and high-sodium foods are available, while fresh fruit, vegetables, and whole grains are scarce.

Introducing more nutritious foods to vulnerable populations can even go beyond meeting an individual’s basic needs for food — it might also help curb criminal behaviour, the report says. While problems with self-control are more likely when glucose levels are low from a lack of food or eating food with a high glycemic index, restoring glucose to a sufficient level tends to improve self-control.

The report also indicates that the Downtown Eastside has Vancouver’s highest rates of nutritionally-related disease, such as colorectal cancer, diabetes, and circulatory diseases. “Someone’s ability to stay housed and be healthy is related to food,” says Miewald.

But other than anecdotal evidence from food and housing providers, the research to back that claim is scarce. “We really came up with almost nothing on the topic,” Miewald says of starting work on the Vancouver Coastal Health report. “It was kind of surprising that more research hadn’t been done.”

While the cafeteria in the Carnegie Community Centre, at Main and Hastings, is looked upon as a model for providing affordable, nutritious meals to low-income and homeless populations, both Miewald and Cooper agree that more work needs to be done to ensure wider access to nutritious food among the vulnerable. “In the past, the emphasis was just on providing food to people that are hungry. Now the emphasis is on providing nutritious food,” says Miewald. “The question is, how do you provide healthy food on very limited budgets?”

Kitten rescue program in jeopardy

WestEnder
January 7, 2010

Beguiling as their rhinestone-studded collars may be, the luxuries enjoyed by the manicured dogs of Yaletown do not speak for the lived experience of Vancouver’s entire pet population. Cats, in particular, are often turned out onto the streets after their owners decide to abandon them, keeping the volunteer-run Vancouver Orphan Kitten Rescue (VOKRA) in high demand. In 2009, VOKRA rescued 1,371 cats and kittens in Metro Vancouver, marking a spike in service that has left the organization with little funding to continue the program into the New Year.

VOKRA president and co-founder Karen Duncan says the services provided by the non-profit, non-government-funded organization have run entirely on donations in its nine years of operation. Duncan made VOKRA’s first public request for donations in December; as a result, she and her VOKRA colleagues have been able to pay some of the veterinary bills accrued from rescue efforts of the past year. Nevertheless, food currently costs the organization $750 per week, and demand for VOKRA’s humane trap-neuter-release program has reached record highs in the Vancouver area.

Over the past year, VOKRA volunteers saw a particularly high number of pet owners abandoning their cats due to financial problems or an inability to find pet-friendly housing. Duncan says the problem is worst in low-income neighbourhoods and areas with a high number of renters. “These cats are there [on the streets] because of humans,” she says. “[And there] still is the problem of people not fixing their cats.”

As part of her efforts to safeguard VOKRA against future financial difficulty, Duncan plans to strengthen her advocacy efforts with municipal governments this year. “It’s something that municipalities need to really think about,” she says. “By just supporting the cost of the spays and neuters in their area, they can help us.”

In the meantime, VOKRA will continue to humanely remove breeding, feral cats from the streets, and shelter kittens until they are ready for adoption. VOKRA’s humane trap-neuter-release program helps keep feral cat colonies down. “People are so grateful to us when we come out and trap these cats,” she says. “It’s just heartbreaking. I get calls constantly with people crying and they don’t know what to do.”

Last month, Vancouver comedian and performer Morgan Brayton helped raise $765 in a bake-a-thon that she and her wife Michele held in an effort to help VOKRA. “They save the lives of over a thousand cats a year. What would happen to those animals if VOKRA didn’t help them?” Brayton says. “It’s very sad that people can’t afford to keep or take care of their pets due to financial issues, but it’s disgusting the way some people treat animals with such disregard, leaving them in apartments when they move out, dumping them in garbage bins.”

Brayton and her wife recently adopted their first VOKRA kitten, a three-month-old they named Billy P. Brayton. “His mother was dropped off at VOKRA, pregnant and sickly,” Brayton says. “She gave birth to six kittens but died from distemper soon after. Three of her kittens died, too. The amazing staff at Killarney Animal Hospital bottle-fed the kittens and cared for them around the clock. When we took Billy in after adopting him, they were so surprised and delighted. They said they never thought the remaining kittens would live.”

Brayton praises VOKRA for its trap-neuter-release program, an alternative to the traditional practice of trapping and euthanizing feral cats. “VOKRA’s more humane approach helps control the feral population as well as improve the lives of strays, and helps find homes for adoptable kittens and cats.”

While Brayton often hears people say animal-welfare advocacy is “a waste” in comparison to other human-rights issues, she begs to differ. “Do people really think there is such a finite supply of compassion in the world?” she says. “Personally, I don’t trust people who don’t care about the suffering of animals, especially when most of that suffering is caused by supposedly more evolved humans."

PHOTO: Billy P. Brayton. By Michele Brayton.

Community grieves passing of West End homeless man

WestEnder
January 7, 2010

A framed portrait of Ed Green currently stands in the window of a framing shop at the corner of Denman and Nelson streets. The recently deceased homeless man’s white hair and bespectacled blue eyes complement the Santa hat he wears for the photograph, taken two Christmases ago by the shop’s staff. Denman and Nelson was Green’s regular haunt: West End residents would see him in the area every day, making work for himself however he could, talking to neighbours, and sleeping on the Nelson Street side of the framing shop.

When a cold snap hit in early December, Green made plans to stay for a week at a backpacker’s hostel. As was his custom, he rang the bell at the back door of the framing shop and told its manager, Mary Marsolais, of his plans. “He had $25 on him,” she recalls. “He said, ‘If I can come up with another $20, I can get in to the [hostel] for one week.’ I gave him the 20 bucks. He was just borrowing it, which he’s always paid back in the past.”

Intent on helping Green get out of the cold, Marsolais suggested he go to a homeless shelter, but he refused, worrying that his belongings might be stolen. He was eager to stay at a hostel instead, where they would be safer.

“I never saw him after that,” says Marsolais, who, for four and a half years, paid Green to sweep the framing shop’s storefront. “That was my last conversation with him.”

A few days before Christmas, a woman who identified herself as a police officer’s wife visited the shop and told staff Green had died. The BC Coroner’s Office is conducting an investigation into Green’s death, but is currently unable to release further information. In the meantime, the shop’s staff has been overwhelmed with people coming to the store, asking about the homeless man who had been a fixture in the community.

“You should see how many people have stood by [his picture in] the window with tears in their eyes,” Marsolais says. “It’s pretty amazing that a street person could touch so many people.”

Green made a living by sweeping the storefronts of local businesses on Denman Street, and running a makeshift car wash on weekends. “He certainly worked his butt off; he wasn’t a lazy guy,” Marsolais says. She fondly remembers catching up on his news of the weekend during their regular Monday morning chats, and the look on his face when he’d surprise her at the shop with gifts. “He was constantly showering me with gifts. He actually bought me flowers,” she says. “If I’d go on holiday or something, and he knew I’d be coming back, he’d come to the door [with a bouquet]: ‘Welcome back.’”

Now, Marsolais says, Green’s spot on Denman feels empty. “When the doorbell rings, I kind of half-expect to see him, and he’s just not there.”

As a tribute to Green’s life, staff of various Denman Street businesses have been discussing the possibility of dedicating a Nelson Street bench in his name.

In an August 2008 interview with WE, at which time he claimed to be 70 years old (the coroner’s office has not confirmed his age), Green said he was ready to live out his final years on Denman. A recovering alcoholic and former Downtown Eastside resident, he said he had been living in the West End for seven years. Sitting in his regular spot at the corner of Denman and Nelson, he would say hello to neighbours walking by. “I know all these people, every single one of them,” he said proudly, “and they know I fight every day, just to live.

“I don’t want to be here — I have to be here,” he continued. “’Cause when my ticket’s up, only one person can pull the plug, and that’s not me. Until then, I’ll crawl, I’ll scrape, I’ll do what I have to. I can’t change the past, I can’t change the future, but I can always be the best I can.”

VANOC supplies own interview to media

WestEnder
December 30, 2009

Walking through the city after Christmas, one would be hard-pressed not to cross paths with at least one person wearing Vancouver 2010 Red Mittens. Many have likely given or received them as a holiday gift — at $10 a pair, they’re affordable to those who can’t even imagine being able to buy a ticket to an actual Olympic event.

But whether those increasingly ubiquitous mittens signify a thawing of what many say is a frosty lack of Olympic spirit among the local population remains to be seen. John Furlong, chief executive officer of the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC), says public support for the 2010 Games is still “a variable” in determining the event’s success.

“The atmosphere is in the hands of the public; the public really owns the Games,” Furlong said in a 15-minute media “interview” recorded, produced, and distributed by VANOC. “What we need now is for the public to go out onto the street and embrace the whole spirit and give our guests the welcome they expect, and to give people coming here this feeling that they’re in a very special place.”

Furlong’s pre-recorded interview, in which he answered nine questions formulated by VANOC itself, was released on Dec. 18 as part of the organization’s efforts to address, in one fell swoop, a range of media requests for year-end interviews with the CEO. Furlong’s interview covered such topics as his goals for 2010, the challenges and successes of 2009, and his plans for New Year’s Eve. Of his New Year’s plans, Furlong said he will be on the road with the torch relay team. His responses to other questions were similar in tone: work hard in the face of economic adversity, look forward to the excitement of the Games, and warmly welcome international Olympic visitors.

“What I hope for the visitors is they will come here and have a rare experience,” he said. “The people of the world live in Canada — people from all parts of the world — and they manage to get along, they work together. There’s a certain kind of harmony here, and for them to come and experience this and go home and feel that they’ve been exposed to something that’s profound and special and deep, I think that will be good for them, but also good for us.”

For many members of the media, and for Olympic watchdogs like the BC Civil Liberties Association’s (BCCLA) David Eby, Furlong’s interview left much to be desired. “It was really remarkable to see that [VANOC] eliminated the final form of accountability in Canada, which is accountability to the public through the media,” he says. “In some ways, it’s entirely in keeping with what I feel is the spirit of the Olympics, with is anti-transparent, anti-democratic, non-accountable governance.”

Eby says he and his BCCLA colleagues have “given up” on the accountability of VANOC or Olympic security forces. All that can be done now, he says, is to continue to keep watch on them through the BCCLA and Pivot Legal Society’s Legal Observer teams, which will be deployed during Games time to monitor Olympic activity for civil-liberties violations. “For example, the removal of the anti-Olympic mural [at the Crying Room art gallery in the Downtown Eastside], the crackdown on anyone who dares mention that there’s a sporting event happening in Vancouver that isn’t an official Olympic sponsor [Lululemon Athletica’s recent branding scandal] — these kinds of ideas, that VANOC controls all public space in Vancouver and all public dialogue around the Olympics, are ideas that we will be busy refuting in public, in the media and otherwise.”

PHOTO: VANOC CEO John Furlong. Credit: supplied.

Food bank woes a reflection of troubled economy

WestEnder
December 30, 2009

The holiday season’s spirit of giving can seem like a boon for local charities, but a sad truth is that food banks rely almost exclusively on seasonal philanthropy to get them through the year. According to Doug Aason, community investment director for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society (GVFBS), donations spike over Christmas and tend to drop dramatically during the summer months, when use of food banks by parents of school-aged children goes up in the absence of school meal programs and the onset of increased financial burdens from summertime childcare.

In recent weeks, at least, the Strathcona headquarters of the GVFBS are busy, with Aason and his colleagues handling the crucial flow of November-December donations — the most generous influx the food bank will receive all year. But this past fall, before the holiday rush began, the warehouse shelves were emptier than they’d ever been. Overall, donations are on the decline.

“Demand is up, donations are down. It’s a pretty deadly combination,” Aason says. “And the situation this past year that has been one we’ve never seen before. It’s tremendously worrisome.”

What Aason has observed at Vancouver food banks is consistent with information reported in an annual report released in November 2009 by Food Banks Canada, which shows that the effects of the global economic recession that defined 2008 were strongly felt this year. According to the report, 72,000 people were first-time food bank users as a direct result of recession-related job losses and financial difficulty. As of March 2009, 794,738 people used a food bank in Canada, marking an 18-per-cent increase compared to the same time in 2008.

“The food bank isn’t the answer,” Aason says, adding that food banks in Canada started out in the early 1980s as a temporary solution for those struggling to make ends meet. “It’s just the symptom of a bigger problem... that hasn’t been addressed.”

Shuana MacKinnon, director of the Winnipeg branch of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, authored a Dec. 21 article titled “Putting the Spirit of Giving in Context,” as part of an effort to highlight how food banks fill a gap in society that governments should be taking care of themselves. Most troubling, perhaps, is MacKinnon’s assertion that food banks make governments and citizens complacent to persistent inequalities that cannot be addressed by seasonal philanthropy. “Unfortunately, public calls for charity donations neglect to draw attention to the inequality that creates need [in the first place],” she says. “The public is not challenged to consider the social and economic structures that have created the need for charities to serve the poor.”

Moreover, food banks and holiday charity drives let governments off the hook for issues they should examine more thoroughly, MacKinnon says. “Seeking donations to help the poor without providing context as to why we have so much poverty in a world of plenty allows us to individualize poverty,” she explains. “We allow ourselves to believe that [food bank users] are not like us — we would never be poor like them, but we will help them at Christmastime because we feel sorry for them, and giving makes us feel better.”

As long as food banks remain a permanent fixture of Canada’s charity landscape, MacKinnon says, governments will continue to shirk responsibilities in addressing poverty reduction. “The demand for food banks tells us that our country is failing to reduce inequality in a land of plenty. We should be outraged,” she says. “Our only hope is if provincial governments work together by implementing their own strategies and mobilizing public pressure to get the federal government on side.”

While Aason points out that the GVFBS does not receive government funding so that it can work independently to advocate for food security and poverty reduction, he emphasizes the role that food banks play in filling poverty gaps that governments leave behind. “Really, we’re there as a result of certain things failing in our system,” he says. “All of us here would love to be out of business and see people getting access to food that [they] need, and having a livable wage and affordable housing and a vibrant economy. But... 27 years ago, this was just a temporary thing that was set up to deal with a difficult economic downturn.”

PHOTO: Prior to the annual flood of donations during the holiday season, the shelves in the warehouse of the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society were close to empty. (This photo was taken in November.) A representative says donations have decreased while demand has gone up. Credit: supplied.

HIV/AIDS groups protest funding cut

WestEnder
December 23, 2009

While recently announced budget cuts to community HIV/AIDS organizations are not intended to jeopardize their core services, staff are preparing for the worst.

The provincial health ministry began rolling out administrative cuts of up to 16 per cent on Dec. 1 — which, in a cruel coincidence, was also World AIDS Day. Locally, affected groups include AIDS Vancouver, the Dr. Peter Centre, Health Initiative for Men, YouthCO AIDS Society, and Vancouver Native Health Society, all of which are managed by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH). Many of those organizations’ employees and their allies have launched initiatives against the cuts, and have documented their efforts on the website CancelTheCuts.org. Among those efforts, a goal has been set to send 1,000 letters of objection to Premier Gordon Campbell by New Year’s Eve, and a protest took place at the Vancouver Art Gallery Dec. 18.

The cuts, which require community-based health organizations to scale back administrative costs to 10 per cent of their total operating budget, are part of an effort to address a $90 million shortfall in VCH’s $2.9 billion budget.

“We feel that 10 per cent is a reasonable amount to have for administration in any kind of contracted service, and we’re asking our contract providers to do the same thing that we’re doing,” VCH spokesperson Anna-Marie D’Angelo told WE.

VCH has made similar cuts to its own administration and support staff, says D’Angelo, adding that given the budget challenges faced by VCH, it’s reasonable to ask other organizations managed by VCH to do the same. AIDS Vancouver’s administrative costs, for example, account for 26 per cent of its total budget. “Their administration was at $428,000... We’re asking them to bring it down to $250,000,” says D’Angelo. “We feel that it shouldn’t impact client services and programs.”

D’Angelo also emphasized that the Dec. 1 budget-cut launch date had no connection with World AIDS Day. “There isn’t a correlation. Since July, we’ve been discussing this with [the other organizations]. They’ve all been given notice.”

David Swan, executive director of AIDS Vancouver, rejects VCH’s claim that the funding cuts will not jeopardize client services, calling the assertion “outrageous.”

“There isn’t anyone in AIDS Vancouver who simply delivers mail and picks up coffee — that’s not how it works,” Swan says. “Cutting community-based frontline services is not the way to recoup a deficit the size of theirs.”

In response to its request to reduce administrative costs to 10 per cent, Swan is skeptical of the ability of even VCH and the Ministry of Health to do it themselves. “We were told it was reasonable because VCH has done it, as has the Ministry of Health,” he says. “Frankly, as a former employee of the Ministry of Health, I highly question that.”

Maxine Davis, executive director of the Dr. Peter Centre, found through an informal survey of other downtown businesses that a reasonable administration cost is considered to be between 15 and 20 per cent of a total operating budget. “Using the 10-per-cent cap, VCH has reduced the Dr. Peter Residence contract by $70,000 annually,” she says. That means less funds for financial-management services, IT infrastructure, health records, and management and support for frontline staff. “These are clearly basic infrastructure costs these days to run a modern business, and a health-care facility is a modern business. Certainly, that’s not an excess. It’s what one needs to do.”

Despite the cuts, Davis says Dr. Peter Centre staff will not waver on the quality of care provided at the HIV/AIDS residential-care facility, which has been renowned in national and international health communities for setting new standards.

A more troubling issue, Davis adds, is the 10-per-cent cap VCH has imposed on itself. “Citizens in the region should be alarmed that Vancouver Coastal intends to manage a complex $2 billion health-care system with 10 per cent of their budget,” she says. “I see [that] problem as far greater than the reduction in revenue we will receive.”

PHOTO: Members of YouthCO AIDS Society formed a human AIDS ribbon on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery last week to protest budget cuts to community-based HIV/AIDS organizations. Inset: Members of the Vancouver Native Health Society also gathered to protest the cuts. By Jackie Wong.

Increased vacancy rates offer little relief for renters

WestEnder
December 23, 2009

Although rental-housing vacancies in and around Vancouver have risen during the past year, finding affordable housing and navigating B.C.’s residential tenancy legislation hasn’t gotten easier, according to housing advocate Sharon Isaak. In her first months working as a seniors’ housing outreach worker for Gordon Neighbourhood House, a multi-use facility that has been a hub of the West End community for decades, Isaak has been swamped with visits from people in search of affordable or subsidized housing, both of which are in short supply in many neighbourhoods.

“Public awareness [of tenancy issues] is much higher than it was three years ago,” says Isaak. “The market was so tight three years ago that it triggered a whole wave of reno-victions” — evictions for the purpose of renovations, after which rents are often significantly increased — “to capitalize on market forces. Tenants are aware of that now. What hasn’t changed is the number of tenants who challenge their evictions at the [Residential Tenancy Office]. Most tenants still find the system far too complicated, and they give up.”

Isaak’s weekly drop-in sessions at Gordon Neighbourhood House have drawn unexpectedly high attendance since they began in mid-October. “They don’t have a lot of resources to turn to,” she says of the attendees. “There’s a few tenant-help groups, there’s a few advocates out there, but it’s largely an underground community that’s hard to access for the average tenant.”

While the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Fall 2009 rental-market report shows that Vancouver-and-area vacancy rates have increased to 3.6 per cent (up 1.7 per cent from last fall), rental rates are still higher than in 2008. In addition, few purpose-built rental units have been added to the total housing stock. “People aren’t finding affordable places, even though the vacancy rate is up,” Isaak says, adding that the market is now skewed towards short-term renters. “People stay a year, for their lease, and then move out because they can’t afford the rent.”

When addressing an unfair eviction or a tenant-landlord dispute at the Residential Tenancy Office (RTO), tenants continue to face process-releated difficulties, particularly since most hearings now take place over the phone. In a February 2008 B.C. Supreme Court case between a tenant and Dispute Resolution Officers under the Residential Tenancy Act, Hon. Mr. Justice Joel Groves recommended that B.C.’s RTO amend its policy regarding telephone conferences. Vancouver-West End MLA Spencer Herbert’s staff has been privy to a number of cases in which a dysfunctional phone-conferencing system at the RTO has cost tenants a fair assessment of their dispute.

“What’s concerning for me is this [Groves] case was last year, but we’re still hearing about people with the same problems,” Herbert says. “It’s something we’ve been hearing for years from tenants, and from landlords, too.”

Most recently, with the Olympics less than two months away, reported disputes have led to renewed discussion about Olympics-related evictions. Earlier this month, a group of East Vancouver tenants went to the media to claim their eviction was related to their landlord seeking Games-related profits. But for renters like Katrin Lohuaru, the motives for her own eviction from a shared Cambie Street heritage house are less clear.

“The landlord is intending to completely renovate the house we’re living in... We received a letter from him on the first of December, asking us to vacate by the end of February, possibly sooner,” Lohuaru says. “The notice he gave us wasn’t on the official form; he’s not actually allowed to ask us to go unless he has all of his building permits in place.”

Even so, the landlord’s explicit intention to evict his tenants for renovations was enough to motivate Lohuaru to move, but she says it was impossible to find a new rental with comparable location and price. “I’d been looking on Craigslist for a new place, [and] I’ve found that the sublet category particularly is saturated with Olympic rentals, which are grossly more expensive than the suites would be otherwise,” she says.

Since Lohuaru’s eviction has not been made official by her landlord, she can’t dispute it at the RTO, and is not eligible for a break on her final month’s rent to cover the costs of moving. “Unless a landlord gives us legal notice, it puts us in a very vulnerable position,” she says.

While Lohuaru is extremely knowledgeable about her rights as a tenant, wisdom, unfortunately, comes with experience: This is the third time she’s experienced an unofficial eviction for home renovations. More proof, perhaps, of Isaak’s assertion that B.C.’s residential tenancy system needs revision.

Park board divided on future of zoo, conservatory

WestEnder
December 17, 2009

The Vancouver Park Board’s final meeting of 2009 centered on its most talked-about issues of the year: the respective futures of the Bloedel Conservatory and the Stanley Park Children’s Farmyard. Following Vision Vancouver park board commissioner Aaron Jasper’s motions at the Dec. 14 meeting, members of the public will have until Apr. 30, 2010, to submit business cases and concept plans for the possible preservation of the popular conservatory and petting zoo.

The motion follows a controversial Nov. 25 vote by Vision commissioners to close the conservatory and farmyard as part of efforts to address a City request that the park board reduce its operating budget by $2.8 million. Jasper, along with fellow Vision commissioners Sarah Blyth, Constance Barnes, and Vision park board chair Raj Hundal, voted in support of the motion, while COPE commissioner Loretta Woodcock, the Green Party’s Stuart MacKinnon, and NPA commissioner Ian Robertson voted against it.

“This is a situation where you can’t be led by your heart; you’ve got to use your brain,” Jasper told WE the morning after the meeting. “The point I raised at our meeting last night was... we were having this discussion about which items may be cut, going back to [the beginning of the discussions in] early October. So, for my colleagues to just say, at the eleventh hour, ‘No, we won’t stand for this; this is unacceptable’ — the point I made last night was, where were the solutions?”

The NPA’s Robertson was approached by local philanthropist Josef Wosk on the day before the Nov. 25 park board vote with a proposal to contribute financially to preserving the Children’s Farmyard.

“[Josef] specifically said he would give the park board $50,000 in our 2010 budget year, and then $50,000 over 2011, 2012, and 2013 — so, a total of $100,000 towards the operating cost of the farmyard,” Robertson told WE the day of the Dec. 14 meeting. “The motions coming forward tonight are basically a rewrite of an amendment I put forward on November 25, which was rejected five-to-two... Vision Vancouver, I think, have clearly learned that they made an error two weeks ago.”

For his part, Jasper says Robertson is playing “both sides of the argument,” considering his vote against Jasper’s motion at the Dec. 14 meeting.

Robertson, like members of ad-hoc advocacy group Friends of Bloedel, is interested in exploring the possibility of a not-for-profit operating board for the Bloedel Conservatory. It could work in tandem with the park board, similar to the current set-up at Vancouver’s VanDusen Botanical Garden, which is operated by the park board and works directly with its not-for-profit society. “I think there’s a real opportunity for that type of model to occur, both at the farmyard and especially at the conservatory,” Robertson says.

Sheryl Hamilton, co-founder of Friends of the Bloedel, which garnered more than 5,000 signatures in less than two weeks on an online petition to save the conservatory, would like to see the introduction of a new membership program for the conservatory to help it turn a profit, as well as new educational programs. She and her Friends of the Bloedel colleagues would also like to have the conservatory kept public. “We certainly wouldn’t want to see it be privatized,” she says. “We’d like to keep it in public hands, and operate in support of the Bloedel alongside the park board.”

For Neil Monckton, chair of civic-issues group Think City, the public outcry surrounding the uncertain future of the Bloedel Conservatory and Children’s Farmyard signifies a democratic shortfall the City needs to address. “I keep hearing the same thing: citizens are shut out, City Hall’s not listening to them... or at least that’s the perception amongst many of them,” he told WE in an interview before speaking at a crowded city budget hearing Dec. 9. “There’s a democratic deficit.”

Think City recently released the results of its fourth annual Citizen Budget Survey, which attracted more than 2,000 participants. The survey suggests that participants value the protection of park board and library services, and oppose shifting taxes from businesses to residents.

“Vision is doing other work on other issues like homelessness, like climate change... but, in the end, citizens care about their public services: their libraries, their community centres, they care about public safety,” says Monckton.

His advice to the Vision Vancouver-dominated council: widen citizen involvement and open up debate. “There’s a fork in the road for Vision right now, and they need to choose whether they’re going to go down the route of more and better citizen involvement, or the one where they become a bunker and are just not inviting citizens in. And we’re hoping it’s the former.”

Vancouver City Council will make a final vote on the 2010 Operating Budget Dec. 18.

PHOTO: The Vancouver Park Board’s budget woes may jeopardize the future of the Bloedel Conservatory (pictured) and the Stanley Park Children’s Farmyard. By Jackie Wong.

Locals lobby for more say on high-rise projects

WestEnder
December 17, 2009

If a rezoning application submitted for the site of a heritage building at 1215 Bidwell Street is approved, the current home of nightclub Maxine’s Hideaway will be redeveloped as a 20-storey mixed-use commercial and residential space. While some say it would constitute a win for the neighbourhood (the plan includes 49 units of rental housing in addition to condominiums and retail space), West End residents such as Randy Helten are concerned that the project could initiate an onslaught of tall-tower developments in the area.

“Do we want the West End to look like Yaletown or Coal Harbour? If so, it should be done through a public decision-making process, not by backroom deals pushed by the developers, subsidized through tax money,” Helten told reporters last Wednesday afternoon (Dec. 9), prior to a public hearing at City Hall the following night. Rigorous debate extended the session past midnight, and city council gave final approval of the rezoning application at a Dec. 15 council meeting.

While the application has been in the works for more than a year — Henriquez Partners Architects submitted it to the City on behalf of developers Millenium English Bay Properties in May 2008 — Helten and other West End residents say they’ve felt shut out of a consultation process they believe should have been done within the context of a comprehensive community plan — something Helten says the West End lacks and desperately needs.

To make up for a perceived lack of information-sharing and discussion initiated by the City of Vancouver, Helten and other like-minded residents have launched a blog, named 1215Bidwell.ca, as well as 1401Comox.ca, a blog about the redevelopment of 1401 Comox Street, currently home to St. John’s United Church.

The City’s treatment of these proposed developments, Helten says, will set a precedent for the future of development in the West End.

“This isn’t an isolated situation,” says West End resident Alan Kostiuk, who is especially concerned about the potential loss of a Vancouver heritage building. (In the development proposal for 1215 Bidwell, only the house’s façade would be retained.) “It seems to be City Hall’s plans to say, ‘There doesn’t need to be heritage.’”

Vision Vancouver councillor and West End resident Tim Stevenson passed a motion in city council in July 2008 which called for a review — in consultation with community groups, property owners, and interested citizens — of 1989 zoning regulations governing the West End’s commercial and residential districts. Stevenson was unavailable for comment on the current state of the Bidwell site, but his 2008 motion, Helten says, could be helpful in providing future direction for what the West End’s community plan should look like — as long as it gets off the ground.

In the meantime, another Vancouver resident, Ned Jacobs, has been picking up where city officials left off, creating opportunities for residents to consult with each other about the future of their neighbourhoods. Jacobs, son of the late Jane Jacobs, an influential writer and urban theorist, is part of a citizen group called Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSB), which held its most recent meeting at the end of November.

“Part of the idea of [NSB] is not only to find a common ground around process, but also to learn from one another about neighbourhoods, and about how people feel about issues such as amenities, building scale, affordability — and finding that there’s more common ground than you would think in those areas, too, and a lot less knee-jerk NIMBY-ism,” says Jacobs. “The most important thing is that all the stakeholders and the interests are involved, right from the City to the citizens to the various groups and the developers.”

Jacobs says better-publicized use of public-opinion surveys would be helpful in curtailing the outcries of frustration that have plagued City Hall’s multiple year-end public hearings of late.

“When there’s a follow-up survey or polling of some sort... so that those who are most immediately involved or affected have the opportunity to look at the proposed policy before it’s approved and give their input — the whole process tends to be better,” he says.

“The outcome tends to be better, and you’re less likely to end up in a battle over it.”

PHOTO: West End resident Randy Helten says a redevelopment proposal that would replace nightclub Maxine’s Hideaway (housed in a heritage building) with a mixed-use high-rise is an example of communities not being given a say in what happens to their neighbourhoods. By Jackie Wong.

COMEDY: Going 'Mental' on the web

WestEnder
December 10, 2009

It’s December 2008, the morning after a staff Christmas party where more than a few regrettable life choices have been made. So begins the first episode of Mental Beast, an ambitious multimedia web series and music compilation powered by the A-Team of Vancouver’s independent comedy and music scenes. The series features members of improv troupes such as the Sunday Service and Bronx Cheer, with music by Rose Melberg, Fanshaw, Secret Mommy, and others.

The brainchild of Conor Holler and Cameron Reed, Mental Beast was conceived with the aim of bringing together local comedic and musical talent through a variety of digital-media platforms. The resulting web series, available at MentalBeast.com, alternates between video episodes chronicling the impending demise of fictional radio station KRML (shot on location at real-life CITR) and podcast episodes of the titular Mental Beast radio show that airs from the station.

The project’s many collaborators will converge at the Biltmore Cabaret (395 Kingsway) Friday, December 18, for a live music showcase and release party for The Eggnog Experience, a local-music compilation. Tickets are $10 at the door, or $5 with a canned food donation. All proceeds will benefit the Vancouver Food Bank.

PHOTO: Mental Beast cast members hash out scripts in preparation for shooting inside the CITR radio station lounge at UBC.

Buskers may vanish from city transit

WestEnder
December 10, 2009

Like many young people new to the city, Angie Inglis was having trouble finding work when she moved to Vancouver from Winnipeg nine years ago. Strapped for cash but interested in continuing to pursue her creative endeavours, she signed up for a busking license as part of the TransLink Musician Program. Within a few months, she was busking full-time, making a modest living by playing guitar at downtown SkyTrain stations. She became known to regular transit commuters as the “SkyTrain songstress,” and even forged friendships with other musicians she met while performing.

Now a full-time yoga teacher and occasional busker, Inglis was shocked to receive a letter from TransLink in October outlining what she worries may lead to the ultimate demise of Vancouver’s small busking scene.

In an October 1 letter to TransLink musician license holders from the company’s community relations officer, Bill Knight, the TransLink Musician Program was described as a “nice to do” part of the company’s many directives, not a “must do.” The biggest challenge to the program, wrote Knight, was ongoing discussions with the Society of Composers, Authors, and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN), a national organization that licenses the use of more than 90,000 musicians’ work across the country. SOCAN collects license fees on behalf of artists and distributes royalties to them.

Even though the TransLink Musician Program has been in operation for 23 years, SOCAN has only recently approached TransLink with copyright-enforcement proposals that would require it to pay licensing fees for its buskers. According to Knight’s calculations, using the 2007-2008 TransLink Musician Program as a guide, license fees would have to go up to more than $1,500 per busker, per year. Given TransLink’s already strained financial situation, it is not able to absorb the fees, Knight wrote in his letter. Inglis says a $1,500 annual fee would be almost impossible for most buskers to pay.

“By enforcing copyright law in a situation such as what [SOCAN]’s doing right now with TransLink, they’re actually behaving in a completely counterintuitive way,” she says. “There’s no doubt that what they’re doing is undermining the ability of musicians to not only make a living, but just to do what they love at all.”

Despite ongoing negotiations, neither TransLink nor SOCAN seem ready to articulate concrete plans as to the future of the busking program.

TransLink spokesperson Ken Hardie told WE that TransLink is working to structure the program in a way that’s not priced out of the range of buskers. “TransLink certainly isn’t in a position to pay the kind of fees that SOCAN is asking for,” he says. At the same time, Hardie says, SOCAN’s request for licensing fees doesn’t come as a surprise. “A couple of years ago, SOCAN came down pretty hard on stores who were playing music on their music systems, looking for performance-right payments and all of that,” he says. “We kind of figured it was only a matter of time before they came calling to us, and it doesn’t seem to matter whether the musicians are playing their own material or somebody else’s material.”

As a member of SOCAN who exclusively plays her own compositions, Inglis is concerned that other SOCAN members like her may be asked to pay a licensing fee that doesn’t apply to them. “I don’t know whose interests SOCAN is serving in this regard,” she says. “What if only original music is played? And what if I stopped being a member of SOCAN, so I no longer authorize them to collect royalties from me?”

But whether or not buskers are members of SOCAN doesn’t make a difference in terms of the licensing fees TransLink needs to pay in order to sustain the program, says Marie-Josee Dupre, director of business development in SOCAN’s licensing department. “The fact that the buskers might be asked by TransLink to cover whatever fees that we finally calculate is none of SOCAN’s doing, actually,” Dupre says. “We deal with TransLink as the authorized public performance of music.”

While TransLink has expressed interest in resolving the issue by the end of the year, Dupre says there’s no specific timeline. “They’ve asked us some questions, we’ve provided some answers, and we don’t have all the details to finalize any fee calculation yet,” she says. “If TransLink wants to deal with their buskers, that’s their own decision. But SOCAN has nothing to do with that. We have distribution rules, and we make sure that the money that we collect goes back to our members.” 

PHOTO: Angie Inglis, who has performed outside of SkyTrain stations for years, says she and most other TransLink buskers would be unable to continue if a $1,500-per-year fee is introduced. By Doug Shanks.

Olympic civil-liberties debates continue

WestEnder
December 10, 2009

Stickers and graffiti memes containing messages such as “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land,” “Homes Not Games,” “Riot 2010,” and “Relax 2010,” have peppered the city for months. The potential for their swift removal during the weeks surrounding the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games spurred action from civil-liberties groups in the months following Vancouver city council’s initial approval of a bylaw in July, which critics said stifled free speech by placing restrictions on non-celebratory Olympic signage. In October, two Olympic critics filed a lawsuit against the City of Vancouver for what they deemed to be City-sanctioned infringements on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Last Thursday (Dec. 3), city council approved a revised administrative report on 2010 Olympic bylaws which places stronger emphasis on the City regulating commercial activity — not political expression — during Games time.

According to the report, City prohibitions on the display and distribution of illegal commercial advertising during Games time will help prevent unregulated commercialization of public space. At the same time, Olympic sign bylaws are not meant to have the unintended consequence of interfering with citizens’ rights to express disapproval of the Games.

“This is the nature of the goals of our bylaw: to allow us to operate; to be a welcoming, safe environment for our visitors; and to provide the operational support and to ensure that our city is a nice place to visit and not be unnecessarily commercialized,” city manager Penny Ballem told council at last week’s City Services & Budgets meeting. Ballem added that existing commercial-signage bylaws do not give sufficient responsiveness to the relatively short period in which the Olympics will take place; therefore, temporary amendments to the bylaws will allow city officials to remove illegal commercial signage and graffiti more quickly than they would under normal circumstances.

Despite the revisions, Olympic critic Chris Shaw, who filed a lawsuit against the City with fellow critic Alissa Westergard-Thorpe two months ago, says he is “not satisfied” with the changes. As of the end of last week, the lawsuit still stands.

“It’s certainly a beginning, but it’s not the end of the process, by any means,” Shaw told WE by phone from Toronto. “There’s still concerns about the commercialization of space, there’s still concerns about the restrictions on civil liberties within the celebratory zones.”

David Eby, executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, an organization which supported Shaw and Westergard-Thorpe in their lawsuit, spoke at the December 3 city council meeting. He raised concerns about the potential for Downtown Eastside residents on Hastings Street — part of which will include a designated “Olympic lane” for Olympic vehicles — to be ticketed for illegal vending, as part of the city’s efforts to de-commercialize public spaces. Councillor David Cadman shared Eby’s doubts. “Obviously, this is one of the poorest areas of town, and we know that there are many homeless people, and we know that there are many people who sell things on the street,” Cadman said. “I guess that my fear is that this is going to be [an opportunity] to harass people and remove them from Hastings Street, which is their neighbourhood.”

Ballem responded by emphasizing the work that city officials had done on the issue with police and community legal planners. “We had no intention of using this opportunity to so-called ‘clean up’ the Downtown Eastside or take unnecessary action,” she said.

While City staff emphasize that the bylaw revisions “will not interfere with freedom of political expression, including criticism of the Games,” Eby says interest in the Legal Observer program organized by the Pivot Legal Society and BC Civil Liberties Association has been “overwhelming.” The program will provide on-the-ground monitoring of how civil-liberties issues play out during Games time. As well, a Civil Liberties Advisory Committee (CLAC), consisting of a retired provincial court judge, lawyers, and academics, has been established with the self-assigned mandate of seeking information and making recommendations on civil-liberties issues with regard to the Games.

The CLAC released its initial report on December 2, which includes recommendations to revoke the Assistance to Shelter Act and keep the space between the Vancouver Art Gallery and West Georgia Street open, without designating it as an official “protest zone.”

“Certain facts are obvious and undeniable: the Olympics are coming...,” the CLAC report reads. “At the same time, the rights and freedoms of citizens must be respected. Any restrictions on civil liberties should be discussed openly and have clearly justifiable purposes.”

Miloon Kothari, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Adequate Housing, visited Vancouver in late November. The Impact on Communities Coalition, an Olympic watchdog group, is seeking funding for Kithari’s return in February, during which time he would carry out a fact-finding mission on housing and civil-liberties issues as they pertain to the Games. 

PHOTO: Anti-Olympic stickers such as this, photographed in Portland, Oregon, have been widespread in Vancouver and surrounding areas. Activists charge that enforcing their removal from private property is an infringement of civil liberties. By Jackie Wong.