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NEWSLETTER 401 Main Street, Vancouver V6A 2T7 (604) 665-2289

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OCTOBER 1, 2007 - . '

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WOMEN RESPOND TO DOWNTOWN EAST SIDE WOMEN'S CENTRE SHELTER FUNDING

The Power of Women Group at the Downtown East­side Women's Centre (DEWC) held a press confer­ence to respond to the recent continued funding an­nouncement of the DTES Women's Shelter. The DEWC Emergency shelter has been operating since November 19,2006 because of a lack of housing for women in the community. On Mar. 31,2007, fund­ing ran out for the shelter but was renewed by BC Housing until September 30, 2007 in response to women pressuring BC Housing to keep the shelter open and to commit to long-term, safe, and afford­able housing for women.

Recently, BC Housing announced continued fund­ina for the DEWC shelter because, despite their as-o surances, they had not secured safe and affordable housing for women. According to Madeline A, a member of the Power of Women Group at DEWC "Six months ago BC Housing assured us that they would fund the shelter for another six months and that by then, they would provide safe and affordable housing for women. We had made it clear that shel­ters were not a viable solution and that we wanted housing. "It appears that BC Housing prefers to con­tinue funding the DEWC Shelter instead of follow­ing through on their assurances for actual housing. Sleeping on a mat on a floor in a shelter is not hous-ing for women. Why can't they spend the mane~ on real long term solutions instead of these band-a1d and completely undignified solutions", states Bee, a native woman and long-time resident of the DTES. According to Sylvie Poirier, "All levels of govern­ment need to commit to ongoing funding for re­placement and new social housing. The announce­ment by BC Housing earlier this year to purchase 11 hotels is not actually new housing units; those are units that are already currently occupied. Only 300 units of those are actually new housing units. In ad­dition, governments frequently count shelter beds as housing units, which is outrageous as we know that shelters beds are not long-term housing."

Women are disproportionately affected by the on­going devastation of poverty and homelessness i.n Vancouver. According to research by the Canad1an Centre for Policy Alternatives, with the new 2002 social assistance and disability regulations, ap­proximately 16,000 women have bee.n removed from social assistance in BC. One-th1rd of BC wel­fare recipients are single-parent families, 88% headed bv sinale mothers. Homelessness for many

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women is also an initial solution to unsafe housing due to physical and/or sexual violence. According to the 2005 GVRD Homelessness Count, there has been an increase of 60% in the number of homeless women since the 2002 Count, with shelter beds available for no more than 50% of homeless women. It is estimated that the rate of rapid gentrification leading to the Olympics will triple the number of homeless in Vancouver.

Harsha W a! ia Project Coordinator Downtown Eastside Women's Centre 302 Columbia Street, Vancouver, BC, V6A 4Jl Email: project@dewc.ca Tel: (604) 681-8480 x234

To Lawrence Cannon, M.P. Minister of Transport

Please do not allow the sale of the central water­front lands in Vancouver by the Vancouver Port Authority to the owner of the Whitecaps ( 15,000 seat stadium proposal). The sale is not in keeping with the Port Authority's

mandate of protecting "working port" lands. It is significant that neither the Whitecaps nor the

City of Vancouver will accept any legal responsibil­ity in case of dangerous goods railcars in the shunt­ing yard immediately beside the proposed stadium. There is a lack of proper roadway exits and there is no egress from the proposed site "C" Whitecap sta­dium to the north. It's all water. This is the wrong location for such a stadium. The

noise, traffic and social concerns (i.e alcohol related) would have significant negative impacts on both nearby Crab Park (aka Portside Park) and the nearby residential and small business communities.

Truly, Don Larson

CC: Carnegie Newsletter

WELFARE RATES STILL SUCK

"Punitive!" That is the word Jean Swanson a com-. '

mumty organizer in the Downtown Eastside and author of Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion uses t~ describe welfare policy in B.C. And if any­one thmks the increase in welfare rates announced in the provincial budget marks a change in that policy they would be dead wrong. Those familiar with welfare in B.C. will see no

change in such barriers to accessing the program as the three-week wait, the two-year independence test the tvvo-year limit, the 1-800 number enquiry and ' the mandatory internet application process. These barriers combined with a lack of affordable housing are what have contributed to the rising rate of home­lessness not only in Vancouver but across the prov­ince, according to Swanson who now helps coordi­nate the province-wide Raise the Rates campaign from Carnegie Centre.

In 200 I , before the Liberals put up these barriers, about 15 per cent of the street homeless in Vancou­ver were not on welfare, but by early 2004 over 75 per cent of those homeless said they were not on welfare, a 2006 paper by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) entitled Den ied Assis­tance reported . So, wh ile the B.C. government trumpets the reduction in welfare caseloads as evi­dence that the poorest ofth~ province are getting back to work, the story on the street in Vancouver

' as anyone can see, says it isn't so. Even while the unemployment rate in B.C. was

risi~g in 2002, the welfare caseload dropped dra­matically as a result of the new barriers to welfare and it continued to drop up to the present at a rate ' greater than later decreases in the provincialunem­ploym~nt rate, according to the CCPA paper, dem­o_nstratmg that those who were not accessing welfare smce 2002 were not being absorbed into the econ­omy. And that means homelessness for many. "The province needs to be building 2,000 units of

affordable housing every year," Swanson goes on to say. "We're not talking radical here. We could have it without raising taxes." The Liberals have allotted $38 million for social

housing in the coming year. In contrast Raise the

. Rates has casted their 2,000 units at $700 million. ~ The obvious conclusion is that there will continue to. be, by most measures, a severe shortage in afford­able housing. Swanson did a calculation last year that shows how

much people on welfare have been squeezed since as far back as 1980. "I figured using the Bank of Canada inflation calculator that if peop Ie had the same purchasing power last year as they did in 1980 they would have got $802 instead of$51 0." The figures refer to single people on welfare now re­ferred to as "expected to work". Although their rates have gone up to $61 0 with the new budget, these figures should still create a lot of frustration among welfare recipients. So, how did it wind up that welfare recipients in the

first decade of the millennium fare so much worse than their brothers and sisters did in the 1980s? In 1996 Ottawa finally ended the Canada Assistance Plan (CAP), which had its annual increases cappeJ in the few years preceding that. It was a federal cost­sharing program with the provinces that helped fund social assistance. According to Swanson, "CAP had more rights for people on welfare. The right to an adequate income or an income that met basic re­quirements, the right not to have to work for wel­fare, the right to get welfare if you were in need ­that one is really being violated- and the right to an appeal. We still have kind of a half-assed appeal system, but it isn' t very good. So, Ottawa caused it," Swanson says. Of course, the province has made several cuts to

welfare rates since 1980. Moreover, the unwilling­ness of the provincial government to index the rates to inflation has allowed vi rtual cuts to be made every year as inflation increased. The rate hike that the Liberals announced a few days ago doesn't even keep up with inflation since 1992 when the last ma­jor shelter rate increase took place. Failing to index is another way to take back !Tom people on welfare what they desperately need. The increase in the budget of $100 dollars to singles on welfare, Swanson says, "might mean that they don't have to scrounge quite so much for food, they don't have to use the bins so much, panhandle so much." The word "punitive" in the light of all this is a pain­fully accurate way to describe welfare policy in B.C. today.

By Ron Carlen [From Columbia Journal, Sept.2007]

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. To: Stephen Lytton ; Dora Sanders ; Sophia Frei-gang ; Jeff Sommers ; Peter Fairchild ; Mike Read ; Gerald Wells ; Bill Everyman; April Smith ; Grant Chancey ; Gena Thompson Hello fellow board members, Have you seen this? It is Paul Taylors latest, it•s on the last page of the Sept. 15th issue. What he describes is not the motion that we voted on and passed. Thank you for your attention to this. Subject: Re :. Paul Taylor•s latest article on the board

Hi Rachel, thank you for keeping us informed of what your thoughts are on this.

for the record, i realize that the detail of your inter­action with the participants in this little .,drama .. (shakespeare said it, not me) .

my perspective. inherent in any system is systemic abuse, when the

underlying base structure is power and control. my interest in this is the systemic form of abuse

practiced by paul taylor, who, i know very well works very hard and to the best of his ability at be­ing an editor. my problem arises with his distinctly sour and one faceted outlook on life. and the venom

·with which he expresses his point of view.

perhaps after years of long service mr. taylor needs to step aside and let other opinions and meth­ods and editorial approaches have their turn.

the idea of a editorial board in the true democratic .. way would be excellent and i would be thrilled down to mah pretty little toes to see such. ' dissenting voices, in a true democracy, are always heard.

please feel free to publicize this communication. anarchy karenza [wall]

As a reply from the umpteenth person in your blanket emailing: · Thank you for sending me this - it gives me endless hours of contemplation and chuckles and further proof as to why I do not get off my own soap box and try to do something myself.

My first statement is to the Board: I wonder why you are even wasting your time with a lot of silly drama which includes this particular instance of at­tacking anyone who is volunteering their time to produce a newsletter.

Secondly I am wondering seriously if CSIS [Cana­dian Security and intelligence Service] has infil­trated the Carnegie and other DTES organizations to create a whole lot of petty crap under 'dissenting

· voices [that] must be heard"= divide and conquer. Clearly if you want to participate in the newsletter

. volunteers are always ~elcome. I do not support the malicious attack on employees

and volunteers that I have seen happening.

Lesa [De Tree]

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"WHO's being childish?!?"

Why I Strike

Yes I am a striker, necessary because. justly b--:causc my relentless focus is right on the dime. I sup,,ose you've heard the City Hall beancountcr piker:- with their stubbof.fl wishes and capitalist salary crit :tes .. . I trudge, I stroll through the cold and damp. \\Tapped up nice and neat (often warped) yet st r~?ngthct :~d by courtesy and the high summer heat. Tu cut a t : ~al­

that's quite a feat! Yet I continue to walk, to c :rcle my mapped-out beat, all this in a positive, sometime subtk and occasionally boisterous rhythm.

Inside, outside, what the heck's the difference? We're always only upward and o.1.ward, no splits, consistent and so encouragingly deep. Please, gently tap your horns or clap your hands; we'll prevail with or-without the disparaging scorn. Even though some­times fair union-management deals are hard to come by and/or just devise, it's give and take to attain a livable, bearable and hopefully happy compromise. To sift n' sort through their legalesed encyclopedic

rhetoric, it ain't dreamin' to hope your modest and constructive wishes, to be your levelest and damdest and not misconstrue, ·so please take and wear our solid. rallying union's button.(!) It means so much: it's about fairness and humankind and the anti- · harshness of slashing and cutting. We really hated to

leave and desert you when issues started down a slipp~ry slope; we've kind of dragged you along with us on this long and precipitous ride and no, we'll never 'cut our losses' come hell or high water. We' II struggle with this as we sit, kept on guard like a vilgiled cast of squatters in this ~attle of tit for tat-

~, the forever age-old tryst of cats and mice ... to strike balance like the scales of justice. Do you catch my drift? That's what it is all about so what the heck's the fuss? You:re just like me (or are you?) it\s sometimes hard to tell, so don't ti·et I' II keep the peace and never violently shriekingly scream or yell. I refuse to be that way, I can't and I shant, neither will you hear a desperate or disparaging pant from worn out weari­ness or lack of sleep. I(s just the tried and true bump and grind of a striker logging time, as alike punching a clock for fotty hours overtime, addled, saddled and yet I dis.cover oodles or comradery and an almost selfless state of solidarity. So I cover just my rent, grab a bite here and there, · study this, perus~ that. hch, I'm collective bargain­ing extremely hard - managerials beware. I can take a hit. the literal st icks and stones, oh well, I'll let them be. You real izt:! or ~ourse I've got heavy­heart~d and impottant responsibilities and, even in the thick of it these must be shouldered and yet the more intense it gets all the more I am emboldened and cl rop by any time, ·have· a chat, sip some tea, · shoo1 the breeze and pk:.tse, you're most certainly quite welcome, i r you \\·ish to be extremely expl iLitly specific . . . and feel completely at ease.

Robyn Livingstone

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Communication

Communication? Language a blunt instrument Rendering partial meaning Often not even Often misinterpretation.

Tragedies and travesties occur due to work And in the beginning ws The Word Who said that? It ain't necessarily so "The things that you ' re liable to read In the Bible."

So - go figure Pilgrims- this language thing

Not the grammar Not the words Not the gesture Not the assumption A clean slate- table rasa

Unlearn -learn anew 'member ol' Ezra P, one of those clever fascists "Make it New."

Rethink Plato and Khyamm Even Shakespeare & Cervantes There is more than Will Power & windmills Maybe sometimes Let the New Sun Dance begin

Wilhelmina

Wishing

Wish I was a bird Where I would be free Not to be told where to live and die Even that seems to be taken over by pollution

People are getting too greedy Land invasion is becoming a problem Pretty soon we'll be living on the moon- .. Our animals are suffering 'cause of human stupidity

We should be thinking and living green I'm all for electrical cars . . People should invent boats, shtps & atrplanes Make them all electric so they won't pollute

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land or water or atr

Global warming is upon us So come on people, let's use our hea~s Let's think green for Mother Earth's sake.

All my relations, Bonnie E Stevens

I do hope that Earle Peach paid for that "Do You Like to Sing?!" ad in the Sept. 15 Carnegie News­letter. If not, I would like everyone to know that my poems are for sale for 25¢ - $3, depending on length. Rudolf Penner

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Storyeum Update I am now doing guerrilla vigi ls in front of

Storyeum and other heavy traffic areas of the City. It isn't often I get someone down on the idea. The most recent two were x-addicts saying that the homeless deserve the street. I do not know why a certain segment of the population wants people to suffer needlessly. A roof over one's sleeping bag is the least our City should offer.

At the recent Strathcona Business Improvement Association meeting one of its concerns surrounded Sister Elizabeth's sandwich/food line which feeds 400 to 500 individuals at a time. The Strathcona BlA's concern was that this population had to defe­cate and there were insufficient toilets for them to use in the area. When it was proposed that if Storyeum happened it would provide a place for the street people to defecate, it meet with deaf ears. What is needed is Storyeum to be a community cen­ter and shelter that would be open 24-hours a day. The street people have to have a place to go rather

The fol lowing announcement is sent to you by the Canadian Harm Reduction Network. http://www.canadianharmreduction.com Please visit our website, check it out and support us by becoming a member.

Professional Enrichment Program: The Division of Continuing Education, York University

HARM REDUCTION This 24-hour, non-credit course will introduce service providers, administrators and policy makers to the ba­sic principles, philosophy and application.

Harm reduction refers to a specific set of approaches, and the corresponding policies that underlie those ap­proaches, aimed at reducing the harms for people who use drugs. It focuses on issues of health promotion and social justice in addressing needs of this population, rather than on abstinence and suppression. Canada's Drug Strategy, the Canadian Strategy on HIV/AIDS, and the Hepatitis C Prevention, Support and Research Program all highlight the need for enhanced harm re­duction programming. This course will be of value to a broad range of practi­tioners, administrators and policy advisors/analysts interested in gaining a better understanding of harm reduction and of how to implement harm reduction pol-

than the sidewalks. Another concern was voiced over the fact that

many businesses including the G&F Fisherman's Credit Union had recently put up iron gates in front of its property and these gates were giving the DTES the impression of it being a terrorist state. The BIA were of the opinion that such barring was necessary. I was told by G&F that it was necessary to prevent the homeless from sleeping under its overhang at night. The G&F also has a policy of preventing it own members from using its toilet. The Manager of the G&F and the President of the Strathcona BIA is the same person.

Nothing has been heard respecting the Proposal submitted to the City for Storyeum. So, in the meantime, could the readers sign the petition found at: http:/ /storyeum.googlepages.com to solidify the demands of the community to MAKE STORYEUM A SHELTER.

Audrey Laferriere

icy/practice within their organizations and communities. Fall2007- 4 Weekdays (Monday-Thursday) December 10-13, 2007. Time: 9:00am-5:00pm Instructors: Dale Kuehl, MSW, RSW, is Acting Addiction Discipline and Addiction Therapist with the Assessment and Rainbow Service programs of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and works with LGBTTTIQ commu­nities across Ontario. He is also an instructor in the undergraduate program at Ryerson University's School of Social Work and a harm reduction psychothera­pist/consultant in private practice in Toronto. Barb Panter, BSW, is a harm reduction worker at the Queen West Community Health Centre in Toronto, where she works primarily with homeless drug users. She has worked in harm reduction for over 10 years in Toronto and in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. She obtained her BSW at the University of B.C. [There is a cost: $475 plus GST (this includes all program materials) and it's in Toronto, but it highlights the level at which one of the Four Pillars is taken sincerely) On-line Registration is available at www.atkinson.yorku.ca Marina DeBona-Ross, Program and Logistics Manager Division of Continuing Education Atkinson F acuity of Liberal and Professional Studies (Room 107, Atkinson Building) Email: mdebona@yorku.ca (Tel) 416-650-8049

What I would say to the UN visitor

Miloon Kothari, the United Nation's special rap­porteur on adequate housing, is coming to visit Van­couver in the first part of October on a fact-finding mission. He will be here two days, and on the sec­ond day, he will spend a ll day hearing five-minute presentations from people speaking about homeless­ness and poverty in Vancouver. This is what I'd saY' if I had a chance to speak to him.

Homelessness has grown into the most pressing anti-poverty issue of our time. Having a home should be a right of everybody in the world, espe­cially of those living in a country as rich and pros­perous as Canada. Of the western industria lized nations, Canada is the only one which doesn't have a national social housing program. It hasn ' t had such a program since 1993, when the federal Liber­als eliminated it. But the actual damage to the pro­gram occurred during the preceding decade, under the federal Conservative government of PM Brian Mulroney.

Homelessness in Vancouver has been predicted to reach over 3,000 people by 2010, the year that Van­couver hosts the Winter Olympics. There was a commitment made in the Inner-City Inclusivity re­port-an agreement between the Vancouver Olym­pic Organizing Committee (VANOC), the three lev­els of government, and various community and business organizations- to build 3,200 units of so­cial housing by the time the Winter Olympics ar­rived, thus leaving the promised legacy of the Olympics to be the solving of homelessness in Van­couver. On June 28, 2007, this commitment was broken, due to- it was claimed -a lack of funding.

It's no't as if there's not enough government fund­ing available to provide the housing. The new homes are thought to cost $640 million to build (Marc Lee, Canadian Centre for Policy Alterna­tives). This year, the provincial government has a budget surplus of$4.1 billion. In each of the three years preceding this, it ran surpluses of$3 billion. The federal government is thought to have a budget surplus of$9.2 billion this year. So it is well within

the means of these two governments to make good Cf on that commitment. I

Instead, there is no word from Ottawa on provid­ing funding for the necessary social housing. The provincial government-via Minister of Housing Rich Coleman-is too busy playing shell games with existing housing to make it appear as if some action on the housing front is taking place, when in fact it isn't.

The city's municipal government isn 't doing much better. The O lympic party places cost $23 million, and of that, the city threw in $5 million of its own that it somehow was able to come up with, just not for additional social housing.

The feds and the province are able to come up with $90 million for an expansion of Vancouver 's aquarium, but can find no money for housing.

V ANOC is giving its staff $45 million in bonuses, and is providing a grand total of25 low-income housing units as its gracious gift from leftover 2,000 Olympic village housing units.

There are no affordable housing incentives in place to coax developers to build housing for low­income people, even though policies such as these can be found in certain states of our neighbour to the South.

We're not even talking about the 9,000 or so peo­ple on the waiting list for social housing, who are in the meantime forced to live in substandard housing elsewhere.

Having a place to call home, and having an ade­quate income are human rights as established by the United Nations, and as laid out in conventions and treaties of the UN which Canada has ratified. Can­ada's records on these counts are shameful, and should be internationally exposed, maybe to show the world that Canada isn't as kind-hearted a place as it is thought to be, and therefore maybe to suc­ceed in galvanizing Canada into taking action on fixing them.

I' ll close with a quote from an essay on poverty that I wrote in 1990, Poverty: The Graven Neglect of Progress. "Fear has never ceased being the bottom­line motivator of the human race. Whatever trickles down from the multitudes of us bathing in success is all that sustains victims of privation. In other words, fear is the cei ling of poverty."

It seems very obvious that the homeless deserve better ceilings over their heads than what fear alone provides.

By Rolf Auer

To a Man Who Knows Me

My way of thanking you Is to say & put together these words: You have put u[ with me for more than 10 years Our emotional roller-coaster seems to stop When we both know We still have love for each other Caring, sharing all our hurts Forget about our troubles Move on to a new day. Forgiveness is the joy of life, Letting go of the past Seems so hard but we are both human Facts of life: we, as a couple, are learning How to be grown-ups How to nourish our relationship even though It can seem to us a failure Hopefully in more years to come We become closer We don't give up our love for each other.

Love you always, Bonnie E Stevens

MISSING THE BOAT? In life so many things happen so if one is not careful then the mind will just get caught up in that whirlpool of those events. Indeed it is the common malady that step by step people burden themselves and al­low theirs minds to get preoccupied with family problems, job issues, financial mat­ters and the opinions or machinations of others. But in that troubled state of mind one cannot move ahead. The mind will just get burdened and one will be walking around carrying a heavy load of thoughts or concerns. In which case-- just like in the above story-- one will not be able to func­tion. The real charm and beauty of life will pass one by.

Parashan

Panhandling should not be criminalized Study from CCPA National Office .

OTTAWA -- Restrictions on peaceful panhandhng -- such as City of Winnipeg Bylaw No. 128/2005 -­constitute an illegitimate use of state power, says a study released today by the Canadian Centre for Po I icy Alternatives. The study, by Arthur Schafer, director of the Cen­

tre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the Uni­versity of Manitoba, says there is no moral or legal justification for turning peaceful beggars into crimi­nals. "Non-aggressive begging," Schafer says, "involves

the kind of expressive communication between peo­ple that a free and democratic society should seek to protect rather than restrict. Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, so any law that limits or interferes with this liberty should be viewed as a violation of human rights." The study notes that beggars, as a seriously mar­

ginalized group, have few opportunities to make their plight known to fellow citizens.

"When they are denied the opportunity to commu­nicate their needs to the privileged classes, when they are excluded from the free marketplace of ideas, the advancement of knowledge for everyone is prejudicially affected," says Schafer. Schafer argues that municipalities that want to ban or restrict peaceful panhandling must prove such constraints are justified. "They must show, with credible empirical evidence, that begging causes serious social harm, that its criminalization will reduce or eliminate such alleged harm, that no other less liberty-invasive means are available, and that the overall good produced by violating the freedom of panhandlers will outweigh the harm caused to them, to pedestrians who wish to interact with them, and to society as a whole." The study finds that the laws restricting peaceful

begging in Winnipeg and other communities fail to meet these prerequisites. Schafer says that, instead of relying on legal penalties, cities should focus in­stead on efforts to reduce the poverty, homelessness, lack of access to mental health services, and insuffi­ciency or unavailability of treatment abuse pro­grammes that force people to beg for help. "If we value civility in our public spaces, we must

be prepared to invest in the needs of people now excluded from the mainstream of society."

Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) Newsletter

For info about CCAP during strike call 604-839-03 79 Oct 1. 2007

Free the Fish; Homes for People ··oo I have to grow gills to get a home?'' That's what Clyde Wright, VP of Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction said in a press release put out by Carnegie Action, VANDU, the Citywide Housing Coalition and Students for a Democratic Society (UBC) for our action in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery to protest a $90 million expansion of the Aquarium for fish homes last week.

The Provi ncial and Federal governments will pay for over half of the expansion and we thought that was a travesty when people are dying on our streets with no roof above their heads.

Iv1any people in our neighbourhood and their cityw·ide allies made colourful fish and a big shark. We said these fish were from the Aquarium that had escaped their prison to protest. They are

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running wild throughout the city! They stand united with us for freedon1!

After parading around the intersection of Hornby and Robson we heard from Robert of Aboriginal Front Door and CCAP who originally thought of the idea for this protest. He said: "Senior governn1ents and the city seem to be more interested in bringing tourists into

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the city rather than living up to their Olympic promises and their legacy. The Olympic Games are not a boon -- for the homeless. they are li ke a curse."

Jackie Robinson. President of BC Association of People on Methadone

Regent for 15 years compared to living at

J Bridge Housing. a social · ' housing project for women

above the Women's Centre. .. I used to sleep 'Aith weapons under my pillow and now I don · t have to lin: that way.·· She said homes are the answer and \\ c need them now. ~WP

Questions and answers about homelessness in Vancouver

(Prepared by Jean Swanson of the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) September, 2007)

How many homeless people are in VancouYer now? According to the city's housing relocator. .I udy Graves. about 1500 to 2000 people arc sleeping on the streets with hundreds more in shelters. transition houses and couch surfing. T& Pi \·ot Legal Society predicts

Assistance Plan (CAP) that said provinces had to provide welfare to people in need if they wanted the federal share of welfare payments. CAP also said that welfare paytnents had to be high enough to meet basic requirements.

.--When CAP ended,

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that hon1elessness could increase to over 3000 by the time of the 20 10 Olyn1pics.

aise We I fare

provinces started denying welfare to people in need and slashing rates . Third, during this time people living in mental insti tutions were also released \vithout adequate community

Homelessness do ubled. in the Vancouver region. according to a GVRD report. between 2002 and 2005.

How long has homelessness been a problem in Vancouver? There have a}v.;ays been a fev.; homeless p~opl e. but the numbers started c\panding in the mid 1990s.

\Vhy did that happen? First in 1993 the federa l government .....

stopped fu nd ing new social housing. This means that at least 1200 units per

:car of social housing stopped being hu i It in BC. Second. in 1996 the federal go\·crnment abolished the Canada

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supports. But hasn't the provincial government

done a lot to tackle homelessness? The government is making piecemeal

attempts to appear that it is concerned about homelessness. For example:

*It bought 11 hotels, 595 rooms, in Vancouver. This was a good step but it is not creati ng extra housing for people in need because almost all of the rooms in these hotels \Vere occupied.

*The government says its new homeless outreach workers have helped (Continued on page 3)

(Continued fr01n page 2) 991 people (in 2006) get on welfare and get into housing. But a freedom of information request obtained by CC AP says that, of about 6000 welfare pre application forn1s submitted, only about 3000 per month received assistance. Numerous barriers to getting incon1e assistance were introduced in 2002 just before homelessness in the GVRD doubled. These include having to wait 3 weeks for assistance, having to prove that you have worked for 2 years, employment plans, welfare time limits, on line orientations, and the need for numerous appointments to con1plete an application.

*The government brought in a rent supplement program for son1e low­income people. Rent supplen1ents work best where rental vacancy rates are healthy which they are not in the GVRD, at less than 1 per cent. In addition, the govemtnent has purposely excluded the neediest people, those on assistance, fr01n receiving the supplen1ent. Even people who get the supplen1ent will have a hard time finding low rent housing in such a tight housing n1arket and wi 11 continue to pay over 30% of their income on housing.

*The governn1ent boasts about increasing welfare rates in Feb. 2007. But the rate increase leaves recipients

still far below the poverty line. Single people still get only $3 75 for rent phone and utilities. and $610 a month for everything, while the average rent for a

3

bachelor apartment in Vancouver is $722. This welfare increase was the tirst increase for non-disabled people since 1994 and doesn' t n1eet the cost of livin}2

~

increase incurred since then. *The government says it is planning a

new development at Little Mountain that \viii preserve 224 units of social housing and provide funds for an unspecified number of new units elsewhere. But to do this, it

is evicting fan1ilies fr01n those 224 units even though the new units won't be built for at least 5 years and the approval process for the new development wi II take at least 3 years. So for the n1oment this plan is reducing the number of social housing units in the region by 224.

*The governn1ent says it will redevelop the Riverview site in Coquitlam to house up to 1100 low­income residents, along with at least 7000 condo owners. This proposal is opposed by n1any in Coquitlan1 and if it does go ahead, would take at least 5 years. probably more, to be developed. 11 00 units over ten years might rneet the needs of Coquitlan1 for social housing. but won "t be enough for people in other municipalities too. Besides. the history of other developn1ents in the region sho\\ (Continued on page 4)

(Continued from page 3) that go\·ernment plans for social housing nrc often not implemented. For example. the Athlete' s Village at False Creek was supposed to pro\·ide 250 units of social housing. but in reality. at this point. only 25 will be for people \Yith welfare le\·el . Incomes.

$250 n1illion into a housing endowment fund rather than into building housing. The federal government had a surplus of $6.4 billion for the first qumier of2007. It would cost about $640 n1illion to build the 3200 units of housing called for by the Inner City Inclusivity Housing Table p-- to meet Olyn1pic housing ·1"--\ • .__:-~ commitments of the 3

& • .. ~~ - • *The go\·ernment makes

freq uent announcen1ents of housing units that it claims to be bui !ding. It is hard to fi L!ure out exactlv what is

r I . -ll!ftli:,:. t . -,.,.., · ~ • ti-~' r'.!.C··-;..;.;...-.--,;""\ "i ·· "-~ ~~ o O'•J f. l \ .. '*" .

levels of government and VANOC, and to provide homes for homeless

...,- ••f-r~[ . a..t!\~._. -- .• , J, } "',.,.::. - •( (; !~\ .. ~

."": ~ :.• f ,._._...... ). ,I :: r:Jl \ • ..- ' f'J.. .

·..:--"1

- · :4 r\ t '- .,

actually being built and \\·hat is being double or triple counted. We do know that the government has consciously decided to count shelter beds as housing units e\·en though they are not pen11anent housing. So when the government says it is building x number or "units" vve don't know if the;: are nctual homes. or temporary shelter beds. 'v\ 'c do know that sotne of the ··uni ts" it hns announced are projects that the Qo\·ernment cancelled in 2001. Some of ,_

the '"units" are actual lv hotels that have ., been purchased that are already full of tenants. And thousands of the units the go\·ernment talks about building are Assisted LiYi ng units for seniors that .....

prc\·iously were funded out of the health. not the housinl!, budget. ..... ~

\\'ill funds from redevelopment of the Little l\1ountain and Riven·iew sites pay for more social housing? 1\n. This yenr the provincial government had a surplus of $-4-. I billion. It also put

4

tRl~\~ people in the Vancouver region. All thi s housing could be built with only one-tenth of the federal

surplus for the first 3 months of the year. Can the government end

homelessness without ending the policies that caused it?

The policies that caused homelessness in the first place have to be rescinded, and sufficient low- income housing has to be built. This means people who need \\·elfare should be able to get it; welfare rates should be high enough that recipients can afford decent shelter, food and other necessities: adequate services should be provided for people v;ith mental health and add iction i ssues~ and the fede ral and provincial governments should fund a program to build at least 2000 units of housing (plus more Assisted Li\'ing units for seniors) a year for lo\v income and homeless people in BC. (For n1ore i nfon11ation, contact CC AP at 604-839-03 79)

Kids March for Housing From this writer's perspective, the Pied

Piper I\.1arch yesterday was a resounding success! It began for me around 10:30 AM when some of us n1et at the V ANDU offices at 380 East Hastings. We all brought something that was going to be needed: from sandwiches to banners to balloons. Most of alL we brought ourselves.

Starting at V ANDU, the first group marched to the Neighbourhood House on East Hastings to meet with another group of protesters who were waiting for them there. This larger group traveled back along Hastings to pick up the group I was waiting with at Carnegie Centre. We had a fellow who raised his voice on the corner of Main and Hastings inviting anyone who wanted to join us to come along and we crossed the street to make an even larger group. The next stop was at the Women· s Centre on Cordova where we again had a speaker who

" . .H "' · c-: J-JC. oo:f

•

explained \vhat we were doing and '

invited con1munity tnetnbers to join us in

w•

5

making as loud of a statement that we were able to. "WE WANT HOMES NOW! " We shouted. Our ranks had grown to almost full numbers by this point and I rioticed that we picked up some others as we marched

' . ••

I

along through Gastown to our final destination of Canada Place. People with shopping carts joined us and greetings ·~- ~ were shared

l i\! .1 L i ..w!'l ·f'

'

among us as well as placards. One of our original group \Vho had started \\OM f.

If~) out at a rallying point placed a placard on a shopping cart that had joined us that said,

(C'vnhf\~P J ~ i'\ Pc_-:)v. (;)

•

(c c 1 \h ~\V t LA h .., ...... \ r l...:j '- '))

'·Check out n1y RV ! .. which had a picture of a shopping cart on it. The cameras took note of this sign and focused on it at one point. There were stops along the way at significant points such as Storyeum where DERA has requested that it be set aside for an emergency shelter because it has been vacated by its former owners. Son1e of us estimate that there were anywhere from 150 to 200 people marching through the streets of Vancouver yesterday w ith many TV cameras and Newspaper reporters trailing along with us. It was a little hard to count the attendees because many of us were so small. You see, the children were the symbolic leaders of our parade. I guess they were best represented by Hanna Walker who came to the rallying point at Canada Place under the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre \Vhere she added her voice to the collective appeals to .. Build 3200 Homes Now .. . This is only what the Olytnpic Partners of V ANOC and the three leYels or go\·enlment promised to do when the bid was vvon for the 2010 Olympics to be hosted here in Vancouver. There was a

6

great deal of camaraderie during the march. which was evidenced by the peacefulness of our group. We were \Valking softly but. carrying a big message. ··HOMES ARE A HUMAN RIGHT'' read one of our signs. My favourite one was perhaps, ''ITS ALL FUN AND GAMES ·TIL SOMEONE

LOSES A HOME" with the Olympic logo under the word games and "HOMES NOW" at the end of the sign. The procession arrived at its final destination of Canada Place to the sound of Solidarity Notes Labour Choir singing songs like HWe Shall Overcon1e". The first person to speak was a Shoshone Elder, Old Hands who thanked the Host Nation for allowing us to be there, prayed and said, "The greatness of a country is seen by ho\\r it treats its people." His message was accentuated by the fact that we have a great country so we need to begin to act I ike we are great by treating our people right.

Our organizer in this neighbourhood, Wendy Pedersen spoke next with the focus being the children and quizzing us on vvhat our message is and \;v·hy we have come to this place at this time to say what we were saying. For instance, the answer to \vhy we were at his particular place

( ( c ~" h 1'\ li2 t.\ ~Vl'\11 1 ''-)~ t) was that the BC Union of Municipalities had begun to arrive there to meet for the duration of the week and we wanted to get our message across to them. She also

1..-:d. ,_,.,.._ .. ~'

•""' ' . \ / • >

1./

,.(, -. I \ I .,..

---~- .........

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pointed out that there was a $868 mil new convention centre being built right behind her and yet we only needed $640 mil to build 3200 new homes for homeless people. As welL there are surpluses in the provincial and federal governments at this time that are more than sufficient to begin to solve homelessness so, why aren't we doing this yet? Wendy announced the 1000 letters that had been written and children sitting on the stair read some letters out­loud. At this point another one of our organizers, Robert with Carnegie Community Action Project spoke and a board rnember of V ANDU. Carn1elita Joe. followed hirn. There was then an opera song that had been written

7

specifically for the event and the DTES. There were speakers from the Citywide Housing Coalition and Streams of Justice before the Raging Grannies took the steps

to sing their , songs of protest.

' The youngest speaker, Hannah

i Walker, a 15--.. year-old girl who was born near Oppenheimer, concluded the speakers. Then we all moved over to the Convention and Exhibition

Centre steps to hold up our banners and take pictures . ...... fred Daigle, CCAP volunteer

.

" •

---

Carnegie Action Petition Dear Friends,

We are an action group made up of low-income people who live in hotels, outside, in shelters or social housing.

This is an appeal to join us in requesting that the United Nations take some action to enforce human rights in Canada in regards to the lack of housing and growing problem of homelessness in our neighborhoods, city, province and country. The United Nations is sending UN Special Rappateur on Housing, M iloon Kothari to investigate in the middle of October of this year. He plans to meet with various NGOs in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver on the topics of 1) housing and women 2) housing and aboriginal people 3) the Olympics and homelessness. The following summarizes our appeal to them:

Summary of United Nations letter: Homelessness and similar symptoms of poverty continue to plague Vancouver. For instance, homelessness is increasing in Vancouver with I ,500-2,000 people sleeping outdoors and 700 in she lters despite BC having one of the most prosperous economies in Canada, and despite Canada being one of the richest countries in the world.

According to a joint report written by the Olympic Partners in March 2007, the legacy of the games is to end homelessness "in the City of Vancouver" by building 3,200 new social housing homes, raising welfare rates by 50 per cent and getting rid of the barriers to welfare. Instead, our governments, which have the capability to end homelessness and poverty, are taking only token steps.

The provincial government is running a budgetary surplus this year of $4.1 billion. The federal government had a surplus of$6.4 billion in the first quarter of2007. To get a start on endi ng homelessness in Vancouver by 2010 would cost $640 million, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Canada has been reprimanded numerous times by the United Nations for human rights violations. Of al l the UN treaties and conventions that it has ratified, Canada has not incorporated any of their critical social and economic elements into provincial or federal jurisprudence.

As vvas done in the UN·s State of the World Population report of2007~ we ask for intervention by the UN to help us solve this most pressing problem. ACTIONS REQUESTED:

If you would like to join us in this request, please fill out your name, address and phone number on this document and return it to us before Oct 15-07. Th is will allow us to shov,· the UN envoy that other people in the overall population of our communities support this request. We believe that we are not alone in this and your participation \\ill add \\·eight to our argument. NAME: ADDRESS: PHONE:

8

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: I l f

I

Vancouver Moving Theatre with the

Carnegie Community Centre and the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians

present

The 4th Annual Downtown Eastside

Heart of the City Festival Wednesday, October 24- Sunday November 4, 2007

More than 50 events at over 25 locations throughout the DTES

The Heart of the City Festival celebrates the creative and committed artists and activists who thrive in the heart of Vancouver with twelve exciting days of music, theatre, film, poetry, forums, workshops and art shows. This year's festival highlights Asian Canadian artists and comedy!

" • One of Vancouver's premier blues singers and DTES resident Dalannah Gail Bowen jumpstarts the festival with joyful song at the Festival Launch. The Seymour Taiko Drummers will join in the celebration (Carnegie Theatre, 401 Main, Wed Oct 24, 2:30pm) .

• The festival is pleased to present a number of special concerts this year by some of Vancouver's finest 1 world artists and musicians, including Canada's first all-women taiko group Sawagi Taiko, co-presented

with the Powell Street Festival at the Carnegie Theatre ( 401 Main , Fri Oct 26, 7:30pm) and the magic of Silk Road Music (Qiu Xi a He and Andre Thibault) at the beautiful setting of the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, (5 78 Carrall, Sat Oct 27, 3pm).

• In association with Gallery Gachet and LIVE Biennial of Perforn1ance Art, we are excited to present Grand Slam Evening of Performance Art+ Hip Hop, a night of Filipino Perforn1ance Art, African Spoken Word, First Nations' Hip Hop and Chinese electronic remixes that address Canada's colonial heritage (Gallery Gachet, 88 E. Cordova, Sat Oct 27, 8pm-lam).

• Two of this year's walking tours include: A Homeless Tour with Wendy Pedersen and Jean Swanson of the Carnegie Community Action Project (meet on steps of Carnegie, Sat Oct 27, I lam); and Pantages and the . Neighbourhood: A Tour in Three Parts (Pantages Theatre, 150 E. Hastings, Sun Oct 28, 12pm-4pm) which includes Chinatown and Japantown: a shared but separate history, a history walk with John Atkin (meet on steps ofCarnegie, 1:30pm- 3:30pm).

For more information contact 604-254-6911 or www .heartofthecityfestival.com

Please note: If the civic strike continues during the festival, please visit www.heartofthecityfestival.com for altemate locations of events scheduled at the Carnegie Community Centre.

The Carnegie Community Centre and Vancouver Moving Theatre are members of the Downtown Eastside Community Arts Network

23 September, 2007 Occupied Coast Salish Territory

Statement of Harry Wilson, age 54, Hesquait nation, Survivor of United Church's Alberni Indian Residential School {1959-1967), Witness to the discovery of a corpse at same school, Plaintiff against the United Church 1998-2000 (editor's italics)

My name is Harry Wilson. I went to the PortAl­berni residential school and found the dead body of a young native girl there in 1967, right outside Caldwell Hall. She was from Prince Rupert, sixteen, all covered in blood with no clothes on. I got raped by Mr. Plint and Mr. Andrews the Principal and they put me in a hospital in Nanaimo after I reported the gi rl's body. 1t was like a padded cell; I was in there for months and they had me on drugs there and did electric shocks to my head.

Right now I am homeless and live where I can on Hast ings street (in Vancouver). There's lots of my friends down here too, they all went to Alberni school and a lot of them are dying from alcohol and diabetes. I' m sick and disgusted with how the United Church

has gotten away with the murder of my people. They

~. tlu..L I(WA t<'wA I(~ WA'<W ~oop

get the government to throw a bit of money at us and think that gets them off the hook for murder. I

, am also disgusted with the picture of the native boy ·on that church's website (B. C. Conference). They raped and killed lots of kids like him and they don't even say where these kids are buried, like the girl I found. So what gives them the right to use our pic­ture like that? I want them to take it off their web­site, they should be ashamed. I got compensation money in 2000 but it's all gone

now and I'm told if I talk about me finding the gir l's body anymore I can go to jail. Mostly I live off the bottles and cans I get out of garbage cans along the street. But my lawyer made over $1 00,000 off me. I want the United Church put on trial for all the kids

they killed at Alberni. Their top boss should be in jail and until he is I don't think there's any justice.

Harry Wilson 23 September, 2007, Vancouver

Editor's Note: This statement was given by Harry Wilson today, September 23, 2007, and recorded at Vancouver Co­op Radio in the downtown eastside. Our International Human

""

Ri~hts Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC) is gath­enng and publishing such statements in order to show that nothing is settled by the farcical "settlement" to survivors offered recently to survivors of Indian residential schools by the Canadian government. If anything, the settlement's at­tempt to legally gag survivors and absolve the churches re­sponsible for genocide from any /ega/liability constitutes nothing less than a crime against humanity, and compels us to redouble our efforts to bring this government and the Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada to trial for their crimes. We therefore call on residential school survivors

to join with us in telling the full story of crimes in residential schools and hospitals, and bringing those responsible to justice and public triaL

Jeremiah Jourdain, Cree-Metis Nation, on behalf of the Elders of the IHRTGC

genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca h. h.

COMMUNIQUE Re: Canada's Minister of Indian Affairs, Chuck Strahl's racist statements supporting the opposition to the UNITED NATION'S " UNI­VERSAL DECLARATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES RIGHTS"

On September 13, the United Nations tabled a dec­laration that would enable justice to prevail for the indigenous people of this world who have suffered centuries of genocide, at the hands of ruthless mur­derers. This declaration is the manifestation of the collective conscience of the people of the world. It is an attempt to correct the crimes against humanity which have been inflicted upon the indigenous peo­ple, in the name of progress and the advancement of modern civilization ... a civilization whose very exis­tence is synonymous with the oppression, murder and genocide of indigenous people. For the United States, New Zealand, Australia and

Canada, who fancy themselves as advanced democ­racies, voting against this declaration solidifies their place in history as thieves,, murderers and the largest criminal organization on earth, under whom the United Nations are being manipulated.

Canada's Minister of Indian Affairs, Chuck Strahl, stated that if Canada did not oppose this " the rights

of non-native Canadians would have been threat­ened". This racist statement confirms that in order for citizens of democracy, like Chuck Strahl, to ex­ist, the rights ofNative people must be oppressed -exposing the true nature of democracy. It is not about equality, or justice, or basic human rights. Rather it is about criminals creating mechanisms to legitimize their criminal activity.

This is affirmed by Mr. Strahl's claim that "the declaration is inconsistent with Canadian legal tradition ". For it is Canada's official tradition to steal land, to commit genocide through residential schools murdering children, to oppress Native hunt­ing and fishing rights, to force us off our land into Nazi style concentration camps and to deny our ba­sic human right of our identity through enfran­chisement, all inflicted with blatant out-right crimi­nal intent sanctioned by the constitution of Canada. Nowhere is the self-serving, criminal mind more

evident than in Mr. Strahl's claim that " it would have given Native groups an unfair advantage ". To have native rights recognized and justice prevail is not unfair. It's called JUSTICE. To have crimi­nals run rampant, free of any retribution, is lawless­ness. For a government to protect, encourage and defend such criminal acts is criminally insane.

However, sanctioning crimes against humanity through a constitution, which Chuck Strahl so sternly defends, is not indicative only of Canada. As he states ~'it was significant that the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, all advanced democracies with significant indigenous popula­tions, joined Canada in voting no".

Each of these four countries is guilty of genocide. It is also significant that each country originates within Britain, still forcing colonial land theft and oppression of indigenous human rights. With this action clearly exposing the genocide un­

der which these four countries operate, the United Nations must take action on every level to remedy this situation. The responsibility of educating and correcting this genocide lies within each country of the world. For the countries carrying out the de­struction of indigenous human rights, by voting down this declaration, are populated with people from every country on earth. In Peace and Friendship

, Stuart Myiow ' Mohawk Traditional Council Box 531 , Kahnawake Mohawk Territory

Here is Chuck Strahl's contact info: Chilliwack Constituency Office: 102- 7388 Vedder Road Chilliwack BC V2R 4E4 Phone: (604) 847-9711 l-800-667-2808 Fax: (604) 847-9744 E-mail: riding@chuckstrahl.com Lillooet Constituency Office 657 Ma in Street, Lillooet, BC Phone: 250 256-2677 Fax: 250 256-2678 Email: riding@chuckstrahl.com Hours: Tuesday and Thursday each week from 9.00 a.m. unti I 12 noon Ottawa Office: House of Commons Ottawa, ON KIA OA6 Phone: (613) 992-2940 Fax: (613) 944-9376 E-mail: ottawa@chuckstrahl.com CHUCK'S HOME PAGE: http://www .chuckstrahl.com/view _page.php?id=4 71

To Supporters of Bruce Allen.

.. it's funny and so utterly obvious that supporters of Bruce Allen don't see any wrong-doing in stating his personal viewpoints while in a position of global importance.

'Canadians' as far as the indigenous vent goes .. are still'visitors' and the FIRST, at times, unwanted settlers to this OUR beautiful country whose lead­ers did not bother to have their people follow OUR Indigenous protocol and visions for our territories. Kanata is Occupied Territory.

Obviously through well-known genocidal actions and leglislation, we lost our ability to be as strong of mind and heart as we were, had our very human rights infringed upon .. lost our land and ways of life etc etc. Hmmm .. I'm beginning to understand the fear-mongering. Back in the day .. the Hudson's Bay Trading Com­

pany abetted with colonists to form man-created fascist governments thus retaining control of indige­nous resources, the First People - and· begetting the racialist ideology for new white settlers, new 'cana­dians' to comport to. Today it is the multi-nationals who incite, collabo-

ratin~ :vith governments and media, manipulating, conn1vmg and controlling the mainstream to their hype ... so much so, citizens are desensitized to the inhumane treatment of a people .. Anyone with a normal level of emotional intelli­

~ence knows there are two sides to every equa­tiOn yet that racism in any form is, to put it simply, wrong.

Unfortunately .. the politicians media spin doctors have been p~id mu~ti-nationalist salaries to subju­gate dogmatists to JUmp and bark at their every beck and call and saying, "Good boy all you Bruce AI len's out there ... good boy."

Kat Norris Coast Salish

Bruce (\lien, Radio Host at CKNW980 Dear Mr. Allen,

I am writing to share my concerns, along with hun­dreds of others, about your controversial editorial of September 13th about immigrants.

I agree with your claim that your comments may have been "too harsh" or a "wrong choice of words" - but they also go well beyond that. Not only did your words betray an astonishing ignorance and in­tolerance, but they also caused great offense to the immigrant community.

Immigrants have chosen Canada to be their new ho~e, and they have greatly enriched our country by domg so. The examples are too numerous to docu­ment, but I invite you to just look around to see all the benefits we have enjoyed from the immigrant community. Of course at times there will be tension and conflict among the different groups, and we must all bear the responsibility of dealing with these situations in a positive and enlightened manner. Un­fortunately you chose the opposite route.

Obviously, I do not agree with what you said, and th~re are far more constructive ways to get your pomt acr~ss_. Your comments caused unnecessary hurt,. so I J?m many others in expressing my anger and m askmg for an apology. I've been in public service for many years and I've learned to fully re­spect and honour the public that both you and I choose to serve.

Sincerely, Original signed by

Libby Davies, MP (Van East)

Libby Davies, M.P. for Vancouver East 2412 Main Street, Vancouver, BC V5T 3E2

I

Just Kats personal viewpoint ... Wow! What a landslide vote for Indigenous

people. I'm still of the standing, in part, that we as the indigenous people of this soil, now called Canada, do not recognize the 'Canadian' govern­ment, nor do we recognize the man-created bor­ders, as well as the jurisdictions of the various departments of justice, Unfortunately we are liv­ing in a land ruled by such oppression, we needed international support and input. Even then Canada would not liberate nor vote for our collective hu­man rights. Canadian leaders were seeking to broker a higher return for their irrevocably bigoted, colonialist stance, to once again priest-smack us in the backs of our heads, in the world eye, that we may finally bow our little brown heads down in compliance to sovereign influence. It proves that our land and its resources are entrenched in global enterprises. Their decision HAS to prove what we've known

all along, that the colonial powers are continuing ,.. their stance of domination over our land and its

resources. We HAVE changed as self-governing nations,

.~ we have the Indian Act which acts as the govern­ment's ICBC, the government has it's own legisla­tion which rules our lives, we ARE suffering the aftermath of lost land, roles, traditional leader­ship; residential school genocide, the reservation system; ensuing racism in all aspects of our lives and more ... government sanctioned media and em­ployer acquiescence.

... as little children, our ancestors, meaning our great-great-great and great-great and great, and our grandparents were dragged by the RCMP, priests, independent contractors and the Depart­ment of Indian Affairs agents into the torture chamber called the Residential School to suffer for the people's sin of not comforming, not as­similating, not giving up the declaration that this land is our land, this land's not your land ... and these are the people that we must take a stand for. .. these broken people and their next genera­tions who are today living in poverty, living in addictions, I iving in the streets and on reserva­tions NOT ONLY as a testament to colonialist dictatorship and their utter disregard for us as human beings but to the strength of our people to survive as a 'minority' people. We know our

rights. As little children and as youth in school, and for

the past fifty years, we have dealt with racism and as children and youth today, our children suffer from racism in school and in the post secondary level as wel l.. because of the government's stance on our piece of the pie: crumbs flouted as 'native privilege.'

. TAXATION, EDUCATION, 'FREE' LANDS. '.

• • I Techmcally, we are the have-nots, but we are nch in the knowledge of what is rightfully ours. "Canada's' decision has to prove for something.

It proves to society that we as indigenous people are, indeed, living under 'Canadian' oppression, as what was laid out in the master plan by the Euro­pean powers that desired our beautiful soil and rich resources. This attitude is what we, as activ­ists and community leaders, have been rallying against all along .. and now it is there for all to see. We as many nations, will never forget. Countries

around the world now know the totalitarianism we live under.. And we say "shame!"

And as my banner reads .. CANADA IS OCCUPIED TERRITORY

Kat Nonis Coast Salish Indigenous Action (604) 682-3269 extension: 7718

Freedom

Walking through the war Such a vain attempt to die There is nothing here can stop me God knows how hard I try.

Each time is another story Another puzzled piece of mind Like a web within a spider Eyes wide open flying blind .

One seems like so many strands In the weave a fly was lost Yet the web presents its yield In the maze of scattered thoughts.

And the war is not yet over The bombs still crave the dead My craft soars ever higher While I sleep soundly in my bed.

Freedome

Love, Light & Healing Ceremony Held The Spirits Rising Memorial Society held the second Love, Light and Healing Ceremony, at II am on the autumn equinox -Sunday, September 23, 2007 in Pigeon Park on the corner of Main & Carrall Streets, in the Downtown Eastside. Skiljaday Merle Williams, a Traditional Haida Healer, Teacher and Cranial-Sacra Therapist who lives on Tsawwassen First Nation, and Veri (Morn­ing Star) Ferguson were inspired to initiate the Love, Light and Healing Ceremony to help the area on the autumn equinox. 'Light Workers' from all cultures, races, religions and creeds were welcome to participate in the spirit of unity. The Love Light and Healing Ceremony is one of

many innovative and empowering initiatives of the Society, which includes the Missing Women's Me­morial Totem Project, a sixteen-week educational course designed to empower women and youth fi-om the Downtown Eastside through Traditional Abo­riginal and Contemporary Education, with a strong focus on strengthening the inner core. Components of the curriculum include innovative classes ranging from Life Skills to Traditional Aboriginal Culture, History and Arts - carving, painting, tool making, etc. Students of The Project wil l witness, learn and assist the Carvers, Siya7pl'tn Jordan Seward (Haida & Squamish) and Morgan Green (Tsimshian) on the Totem, which will be raised in April2008 at Wendy Poo le Park in East Vancouver. Spirits Rising Memorial Society was created to act

as a catalyst for positive change, offering innova­tive, empowering educational initiatives that will have a real effect on the lives of Aboriginal women, youth, families, and all people in our world.

Spirits Rising Memorial Society is kindly supp­orted by Canadian Heritage (Aboriginal Women's Program), Margaret Mitchell Fund for Women, BC Gaming Commission, Vancity and the Aboriginal Division of BC Health. Forfurther information, contact:

JB (Joseph) Belong- 604 723 0640 Spirits Rising Memorial Society 2019 Dundas Street (atWall Street) Vancouver BC V5L 115 T: 604 254 1139 I 778 329 6037

www.spiritsrisingsocietv.com 0

E: jb 12{a),shaw.ca -

The Past Has Got a Hold on Me

Why is that you ask And verily I say again The past sho nuff does clutch me ' art An' what is a person witout an ' art, I ask thee HE said about those ex-wives

(foine, brave souls they be lady) " I went from the frying pan to the FIRE" 'From Portugal to Sweden' Three babies there and three babies here ­Half his or wholly maybe even I wonder what he pictures me az What a miserable cup of torture .. what " Bitchin ' Brew I figured I could fix his sorry starving existence on Skid Road with my money & my charm You know what I' m talkin ' chillums? SEX and sticky rice, lots of roasted chickens Creature comforts on my couch ' ud heal the hurt

Homeless & Rejection

Somewhere along the four-year road I lost control and obsession took over An' I' m not j ust talkin cologne, baby A trip to Mephisto many bucks later Ihad te poifect present

What man, mere mortals that they are, Can resist a willing slave Even the gods show a certain pred ilection

for sidekicks and cronies

Logically I did not blame him But I still weep when my bed is cold

and no one can erstand me and My weakness.

Wilhelmina

.;..

Attention 0[ VAS Members:

The Downtown Eastside Youth Activities Society Annual General 1\leeting

Will be ht.!ld on

Monday October 15th at Spm 612 Main Street

The current officers will propose a resolution to amend the bye-laws of the Society to repeal ar. j replace Section 28 of the Bye-laws. The section currenUy reads : 28.a. At the annual general meeting to be held in 2005 directors shall be elected in accordance with section 26 (1) and shall be etected as follows:

i. four directors shall be elected to serve until the annual general meeting in 2006: and ii. four directors shall be elected to serve untH the annual general meeting in 2007: and iit four directors shall be elected to serve until the annual general meeting in 2008.

b. Upon the expiry of each directo(s terna, as described in section 28 (1). succBssors shall be elected for a period of three (3) years. c. Election procedures at the annual general meeting shall be determined by the

members presenL d . Officers shall serve for one officer tenn, upon election .

The proposed language for the sectJon is as fo/Jows: 28. All directors and officers shall serve one term upon election.

The History Lesson II "Set Your Clocks"

When elbow room becomes a thing of the p~l:-it HOLD ON .. sorry, just making sure that minisale slice of the present is now and forever part of my friend the past, set your clocks for the magical moment something in space not much bigger than ourselves, but when a smaller "planeC crashes and falls in the forest with all the pies and flashbulbs and oohs and ahhs set your clocks and everybody goes will anybody hear it crashing down on the forest's floor, no more bridge: Just another reason to be afraid to smile, first

impressions and wrong impressions are made :o be shattered like Olympic records and the dope i~ simple; they honestly are very flattered into tl: ·-! face of the future + the birds hate you too you' rc absolutely splattered this ain't no marathon htt please keep up the pace I'm afraid this falls just short of dignity so decide,

agonize, apologize or disappear before our very eyes the sick and the lame shudder beneath door fr~unes

Contact Pamela Wilson at (604)685-c:.s :.

beneath them boys and girls, suck those te~u·s in thi s is not the Army, this is Life: life at all costs ami all, colours as long as they're Red light medium or dark I just remembered where there is a qui~t pari-:. ~li ive

with air and trees, ironically you will be the ot.licial death of me Tear down my cities pluck the homeless (hop~ less?)

right out of that empty house They want you ~ ieep­ing on the streets remember set your clocks in the dark where the t\VO wi II never meet except tl 11.:

speedh'g car that sends you head over'' hec Is :1 •

hundred feet or so down this once somber ~t rL· ..:t . If there was a god who serves what h~ dishc:. out

and has the nerve to call it a treat, no one I k11 1l\V of just the ones I read my eyes awake me their rr~ neti c 360 degree dance complete, of course they rm:st remind me that we are quickly running out ol· :oom. roads and highways are killing us when '"tis t:.c last time you saw a vacancy sign on Sesame Strec!'? !

Robert McGillivra\· ~

[Editor's note: In the Sept.15 issue The History Les5 on with a quote by L.P.Hartly was authored by Robert McGill:· ,ray.]

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DOWNTOvVN NEEDLE EXCIIANGE VAN -l Roufu: 60 ·1-685 -6561 CU1:- 5:45pm -II :45f1m

ACTIVITIES

SOCIETY

o 12 Main Street 604-251-3310

WW\\ .carnnC\\ s.org carnnews@vcn. bc.ca

TilE NEWSLETTER IS A PUBLICATION OF THE CARNEG IE C0~1M lJNITY CENTRE ASSOCIATION

Articles represent the \·icws of individual contributors and not of the Association.

2007 DO NATIONS Libby D S 100 Rolf A SSO Barry for Dave McC $1 25 Christopher R $50 Mar garet 0 $~0 Penny G $50 Janice P -$35 Wes K SSO Gram ·$400 JohnS $GO les lie S $?0 Michael C $80 Shei la 8 S?O Wilhelmina M $25 CEEDS $ ~0 Saman S20 Phyllis L S200 Pa(idy S 175 BobS $1 00 Barry M $1 25 Mcll S.2ll l he Edge $200 Greta P $?0 The Rockingguys -$25 Jay a 8 $1("1\J

S u h rn iss ion De a tJ I i n e Thursday, October 11

Contact

Jenny JVai Ching

K" wan IV1 LA

\\'orking ·for You 1070- lfd I Cornrncrci<JI Dr V(\f 1Y 1 . .. . . .

Phone: 77."·07QO Fax : 77)~0RR I ,

pvernl~hl - I 2:30am -8:30am Downtown Eaulslde- 5:30pm- I :JOam

1

The Downtown Eastside Residents Association

DERA helps with : Phone & Safe Mailboxes Welfare Problems; Landlord disputes; Housing problems & unsafe living conditions.

J At 12 East Hastings St. or call 604-682-0931

Would You Like to SING?! You're welcome to join InC hoi ring Minds, a

community choir based in Mount Pleasant. We're a non-audit ioned choir, conducted by me. Practice CDs are available, and music reading is not necessary (though of course usefu I!).

We're starting up again on Thurs Jay September 13 at 7:30, at Mount Pleasant Nei~;,hbourhood House, 800 E Broadway. The se~sion is 13 weeks long, and at the end we perform for fri ends and fam ily. Cost is $72.

Hope to see you there! Earle Peach

UO YOU IIAVE A LEGAL PROBLEM'?

Come to our FREE CLINIC On Carnegie's 3rd floor

UUC Law Students' Legal Advice Progr-dm

Monday to Friday, 1 Oam-4pm Tuesdays also 5pm-9pm

Editor: PauiR Ta\' lor -'

Cover art and lavout - Lisa Dav id J

•• .... l

I

7

•• •

To the editor Caution!!!!! In my thirty some years as a peaceful

activist this has been my experience. How great movements are destroyed when a plant,

may be two, is put in? They cause disruption, they manipulate and they are trained for this. They know how to create havoc .... sometimes the government would throw in a few bucks for a project, then eve­ryone would fight over who got it.. .. This happens to movements that are protesting the gov't or are seen as a political threat. The Downtown Eastside is under attack from the

condo money monsters. I always asked myself when will they start to destroy Carnegie??

Our newspaper and our board are a threat.. they have always been there for the Carnegie members; together, we have all achieved many victories. If the board and our newspaper are torn apart I predict we could lose so much ..... .

I have been a member for 20 years. We created an honest board, not perfect of course, and some folks got pissed off if they didn't get their own way.

I truly don't trust the condo developers/monsters and I know they would like to get their hands on the Carnegie center and turn it into a program for pay as in the other park board centers that low income peo­ple can't afford.

KEEP CARl\TEGIE FREE. Sheila Baxter

. ; Dear Directors,

I read with dismay that the editor of the Carnegie Newsletter has pissed someone off. That is to say, the editor seems to have pissed

someone off who is not a member of the vast legion of rent-gougers , racketeers, racists, reactionaries, mealy-mouths, misogynists, political and bureau­cratic hacks, poor-bashers, false-friends, opportun­ists, naysayers, goons, leeches, wheeler-dealers, and sundry other enemies of the Downtown Eastside, whom he has regularly pissed off for the past 21 years.

Clearly, something must be done. Perhaps an Edi­torial Team could be assembled.

If so, I humbly submit a puzzle for their considera­tion: Where on Earth could they ever find another editor as passionate, obstinate, opinionated, annoy­ing, thick-skinned, and so-damned-sure-of-himself as the current one?

And let me assure you, my friends, no one less than that could do the job. The Downtown Eastside needs fire-breathing champions, and Paul R Taylor is among the greatest of its champions.

I trust that wisdom will soon prevail at Main and Hastings, and I look forward to reading about it in the next issue of the Carnegie Newsletter.

Yours truly, Glenn Bullard

Former President of DERA (1983-1986), founding President of DEY AS

Was it a case of shooting myself in the foot? In the last issue (September 15) an article appeared on the back page talking about a sequence of events

that had been built up to the point of Motion: Form an editorial committee by next issue or shut the newsletter down. MIS

It was a point that was ·desired and the manipulation required to reach it had been going on for some months. From the 1st of August, 2007 through to the 12lh of September, 2007, the Carnegie Newsletter has gone from a great paper to one that can no longer be tolerated unless and until this recommended Editorial Board/Team/Committee (boondoggle) is in place and working.

--------- ---------------I left the "Emergency Publications Committee Meeting" shortly after this motion was made and the usual

suspects began speaking strongly in favour. Unbeknownst to me, the motion on the floor was not voted on (apparently due to the simple fact that even an emergency meeting cannot but recommend a proposal or course of action to the Board of Directors for consideration at their next meeting). Not to be dissuaded, then came a Motion to replace previous motion: Publications committee recommends the development of an editorial board to work with and support the publication of the Carnegie newsletter. MJS/Carried

The September 15 issue was in progress and I'd hoped to get it to the Printer before 5:30 in the late afternoon of the 12th of September. For some reason the emergency meeting was scheduled for 1 pm on the same final layout day. It wasn't possible to finish everything that afternoon so I worked in the office of the Four Sisters Housing Co-op, where I live, until 4:30 in the morning. I got it to the Printer on that Thursday by 8:15am and they then had that day to print the entire paper and deliver it the next morning.

Reasons for my opposition to such a team/committee/board approach is that it just doesn't work. Having every article and submission to the paper reviewed and edited by 3-4 people is a non-starter due to the almost impossible task of getting that many people to agree unanimously on a word-by-word basis. The idea has been presented as a " working group:' with each person responsible for a ' department' and somehow it all gets consolidated for publication- in effect having 4 editors. This structure was what was attempted at the Gathering Place for the last few years to copy or use the Carnegie Newsletter as a model. Over the space of 3 years they managed to get 2 editions of their paper published. The Carnegie Newsletter has come out twice a month since 1986, with 4 or 5 editions not coming out due to hospitalisation of your truly.

Having 2 or 3 people look over a final copy of each newsletter, before it goes to the printer, has happened at various times during the last 21 years. Such a body was formed in response to a controversial action on the part of the editor and the oversight went on for 2-5 issues until everyone attending was fairly satisfied that the aberration didn ' t constitute a continuing example. What is implied with this Editorial Board is that the core structure of the paper is completely altered so that now each member of this "Board" will have input on every aspect of the paper from start to finish. This is completely unnecessary and not a way to spend volunteer time. I or anyone doesn't need to have a work atmosphere where clash and contention are the order of the day. The matters that have been used to aggravate the moral superiority of those calling for my head and putting themselves in charge are minor, but have since been made to sound like life-or-death issues. The small squad of those so aggravated are making a mountain out of an anthill.

In this issue are several letters sent in support of myself and the current structure of the paper. A few dozen people have voiced their support for me and the newsletter in person and tell me to hang in there. Praise for the appearance or contents of the Newsletter have come from everyone. Of course there will be the most horrendous examples of my perfidy that individuals will attempt to expound on at the meeting on the 4th of October at 5:30 in the Carnegie Theatre. It' s not possible to run a newsletter or anything for that matter without pissing someone off, given enough time. Some submissions are not suited, some argue one way for something for a page or more and then come to a conclusion exactly opposite of what they've just written about.. . and complain bitterly because I've edited the ending to reflect what they were arguing for. While I strive to let each person's voice and ideas be recognised, I assume that those submitting writing are aware that their work is subj ect to editing for space or clarity. Some people have submitted what they euphemistically call poetry, and hold that the length of every line, every comma, every grouping of words are all sacrosanct, sacred, not to be changed or altered in any way under penalty of death!

'

What is being called for now, under the rubric of "democracy" "complete objectivity" and "presentation of both sides of everything" and, of course, no editing of anything this crop of people submits, is to make a travesty of the Carnegie Newsletter and what our community holds to be good. If you want to hear ' the other side' to most of the stuff being written about, why, just get the Vancouver Sun or The Province or watch CTV or even CBC and you'll get the other side, but as the only side: If this Editorial Board is approved, the Carnegie Newsletter as we've all known it will be no more.

Respectfully submitted, PaulR Taylor