The Dominion - housing

Housing Activists Reclaim Olympic Village

Tim McSorley — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:21:51 +0000

Housing activists and their supporters reclaimed Athlete's Village in a carefully planned action on the afternoon of Saturday, May 15.

The False Promises at False Creek rally disrupted the open house event, and made the demands of poor and homeless people in Vancouver impossible for investors to ignore.

Scroll down to view video.

This video report was originally published on the Vancouver Media Coop site.

Cameras: Gregor Jahn, Franklin Lopez
Editing: Franklin Lopez
Writing: Dawn Paley

You can also view more images from this action in a photo essay by Isaac Oommen.

False Creek action 2

Apples, not applause, for AFN chief

Van Ferrier — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 04:37:44 +0000

Assembly of First Nations national chief Phil Fontaine's news conference in Vancouver on Feb. 18 was disrupted by an anti-Olympics native protester who dumped red apples on the podium. The red on the outside, white on the inside B.C.-grown fruit symbolizes aboriginals who adopt white peoples' values and culture.

Homes not podiums, say Poverty Olympics organizers

Van Ferrier — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:50:22 +0000

The first Poverty Olympics were a light-hearted affair with an important message at Carnegie Centre in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside ghetto on Feb. 3. Activists used the satirical event to warn organizers of Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympics that time is running out to fulfill the five-year-old housing and environmental promises.

Toronto Housing Crisis

Tim McSorley — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 05:03:57 +0000

TORONTO-The City of Toronto is struggling to cope with an ongoing housing crisis, according to The Toronto Report Card on Housing and Homelessness, published by the City of Toronto. The study reveals that 550,000 residents are living in poverty—that’s roughly 25% of the city’s population. With few options available to them, thousands find themselves living on the streets. In 2002, 32,000 people stayed in Toronto’s emergency shelters; 4,779 of these were children. Well-over 500 people have died on the streets as a result of being homeless. With the financial crisis being felt around the world, there are no indications the situation is improving. For one of the wealthiest cities in the world, how is this allowed to happen?

The following photos tell the stories of a few of the people who have found themselves losing control over their lives, living in government housing or on the streets, as well as some people who are raising questions about the City’s priorities and looking for solutions themselves.

Abandonment Issues is a coalition of housing activists fighting to have abandoned buildings converted into affordable housing. According to the group, "Toronto is in the throes of an affordable housing crisis that has seen thousands of citizens made homeless [...] Property that could house people is going to waste.

"When communities assert a collective right to their own neighborhoods, municipal policy should support them, not oppose them."

Allan Lissner is an independent photojournalist based in Toronto, Canada. Some of the organizations Allan has done work with include Amnesty International, GlobalAware Independent Media, Oxfam Canada and Make Poverty History.

Shantytown, USA

dawn — Thu, 21 May 2009 05:39:38 +0000

Nickelsville residents demand permanent land for the homeless

NICKELSVILLE (RENTON), SEATTLE–"Thank God for Nickelsville." That's how two women living at the site summed up their feelings towards the "permanent homeless shantytown" currently set up in the side lot of the Bryn Mawr United Methodist Church in northeast Seattle, WA, USA.

Its existence has provided a safe place to people who would otherwise have nowhere to live, allowing residents to "provide for themselves a basic level of safety and sanitation when their government steadfastly refuses to do so for them," according to the Nickelsville website.

Nickelsville got its start on city property on September 22, 2008, in response to a lack of city action in response to growing of homelessness. Days later, the site was raided by police, and 22 people were arrested. Nickelsville has moved five times since it was founded.

Every so often, residents of Nickelsville, who call themselves Nickelodeons, have to pack up and move. The City of Seattle sets time limits for how long Nickelodeons are allowed to stay in one place. Nickelsville has been located in Renton since March 5, and residents will be forced to move on June 5.

Residents of Nickelsville are working to secure a permanent site where long-term housing for 1,000 people can be built.

Nickelsville IIX

Nickelsville VII

Nickelsville VI

Nickelsville I

Nickelsville III

Nickelsville II

Nickelsville IV

Nickelsville V

Nickelsville IX

Controversy rocks lead-up to 2010 Olympics

Van Ferrier — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:08:27 +0000

With more than a full year before the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics begin, the games have already encountered stiff opposition. A range of groups have expressed their disagreement with the way that the Olympics are being run on Canada's west coast. Their concerns include: environmental destruction, the rights of low or no income residents, lack of transparency and consultation in decision making, and development on indigenous land that has never been surrendered to Canada.

Home, Moldy Home

Moira Peters — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Victoria paper investigates West Coast Indigenous housing crisis

TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, BC)–Coming quickly on the heels of a seven-part exposé of an Indigenous housing crisis in Victoria-based newspaper Times Colonist, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) Minister Chuck Strahl promised $50 million for Indigenous housing on British Columbia reserves. It is part of the $400 million over the next two years already committed to on-reserve housing.

Stahl noted, "Some communities can't access enough capital to build and renovate homes while others lack the capacity to manage the housing stock effectively." He added, "We are far from finished with this task."

Assembly of First Nations BC Chief Sean Atleo responded to the annoucement cautiously: "What this means is we're moving from talk."

He alluded to the informative "Native Housing Crisis" series from February 8-14 as having spurred the action.

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The West Coast of BC is a very rainy, moist climate. This presents challenges for healthful housing. Poorly constructed houses, overcrowding, and lack of proper sanitation provide prime conditions for the growth of molds that pose health risks to the occupants.

Reporters Judith Lavoie and Lindsay Kines of the Times Colonist compellingly wrote that a glaring number of homes on reserves are ill-suited for habitation. In "Native Housing Crisis," they did convey a crisis; however, the series was scant on background information and presented a 'mainstream' perspective, stating that reserves are Crown land. It did not delve deeply into the fact that most of BC is unceded First Nations territory.

The series identified a shortage of on-reserve land for housing as a problem. The federal government has a fiduciary responsibility for First Nations as well as a responsibility for Indigenous housing. Does the crisis compel the federal government to act?

"Native Housing Crisis" dispelled the myth that Indigenous peoples receive free housing. It noted that they receive a "grant" of between $20,000 and $40,000 per house.

On February 9, Times Colonist ran "Ugly reality of many reserves: Dirt and neglect" as a headline. Despite the "ugly reality" of "mess and uncleanliness on some reserves," the series pointed out how this overshadows serious issues, such as lack of incentives to maintain clean homes.

Lillian Jones of Snaw-Naw-As First Nation said, "There are run-down homes, and there are great homes. Unfortunately, run-down homes are more common. Dirty – now, that is a standard. Whose standard are we talking about and why is that an issue?

"The bigger picture," she said, "Is that First Nation people weren't born the way most are today. Today’s is a condition that is a result of gradual genocide. And, there are so many lies out there that First Nation people have their houses paid for, everything is paid for. Well, I'd love to invite the media out to say, hey, this is what is being paid for!"

"Native Housing Crisis" identified the reserve system to be at the core of the housing problem. It pointed to other contributing factors, such as the disrupted lifeways of Indigenous peoples; that assimilationist pressures are in place; and that the State fosters dependence in Indigenous peoples.

One solution the series pointed to is instilling a pride of ownership. However, the push to ownership might be contentious. KAIROS – a Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiative – finds the federal government promoting a municipalization of First Nation communities "designed to release the federal government from its fiduciary responsibility to maintain reserve infrastructure and housing."

Health complications such as allergies, asthma, respiratory illnesses and tuberculosis were cited as results of poor housing. BC's Indigenous health physician adviser, Dr. Evans, found substandard housing to be a major reason Indigenous peoples’ health is poor compared to other Canadians. "Poor housing means poor health," said Dr. Evans.

Access to funding is necessary. Repairs are necessary. Better-built housing is necessary. Tang Lee, an architecture professor in the faculty of environmental design at the University of Calgary, commented that government bodies are not responding adequately to recommendations made to improve shoddy, overcrowded housing and acknowledge its direct impact on the health of residents.

There was also bright news emerging from the Indigenous housing crisis. Kines reported how government money and a unique partnership between an Indigenous community, government, and contractor led to the construction of 30 new low-rent, mildew-resistant houses in Nanoose Bay. Snaw-Naw-As First Nation fronted $3 million for the project that rents for less than $400 a month. Jones praised her community and the integrity of the builder.

Also identified was the need for good housing inspectors. Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) currently does not provide a list of recommended local housing inspectors for First Nations, nor does the department train community members to do housing inspections.

Jones said, "I guess that the government continues to be the way it's being because they hope that First Nations people will clean up their mess, and there will be no government accountability called to question."

In the final part of the series, solutions were proposed to the First Nations' housing crisis. John Duncan, parliamentary secretary to the minister for INAC, talked about an investment "to assist the transition of market-based housing." This sounds like acculturation. He announced a Conservative Party pledge of 25,000 new housing units over 10 years. Yet, Grand Chief Stewart Philips, president of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, stated the on-reserve housing shortage is now 20,000 units and growing at 4,500 units per year.

Doing the math, this solution does not augur the end of the Indigenous housing crisis anytime soon.

Kim Petersen is the Original Peoples editor at The Dominion.

Housing a "Huge Issue" in BC Politics

Geordie — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:56:32 +0000

BC is currently in the midst of a huge election extravaganza. After the Federal Election this month, BC has faced two important provincial by-elections and will soon see municipal elections in Vancouver. A provincial election is set for next year.

Whew!

In the mean time, housing has been creeping in as an important issue.

The NDP made it a major part of their platform in the provincial by-elections calling it a "huge issue" for voters. Mayoral candidates are facing off against condos to address the lack of rental housing. Special groups are pushing for better tenants rights, similar to those in Ontario.

At the same time, the death of a homeless man who was one week away from assisted housing and homeless tent cities have drawn more attention to homelessness in Vancouver.

Missing Election Issues: Housing

Geordie — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 01:26:14 +0000

The Liberals released their election spending plan on Monday with promises on health care, education, infrastructure, environment and aboriginal affairs.

But what about housing?

Though housing concerns have been major in certain parts of the country, the Grit plan was mum on the word.

But surprisingly this might be the norm. According to Howard Tessler of the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations (of which this author is an employee) none of the parties have released any sort of housing plan to date.

"It's one of the most important issues for all Canadians", he said. "There's nothing."

The Hexayurt

dru — Sun, 30 Dec 2007 01:52:03 +0000

800px-Hexayurt_sa.jpg

The Hexayurt project is an attempt to create an extremely efficient, easy-to-construct, versatile and sustainable dwelling that can be affordable for people who live on around $1/day... in addition to the obvious structure, the project deals with heating, water purification, and sewage treatment. This is combined with an "open source," no-intellectual-property, globally collaborative approach development. The results are pretty interesting.

Here's a fascinating interview with the project founder, wherein he explains the difficulties in getting institutions to support something so obviously compelling. Here's his basic ethos:

:My goal is pretty simple: by the time I die, everybody in the world has a place to sleep and a bowl of rice a day. No starvation, no poverty of the kind that forces men and women to live like beasts of the field. We can do it: we are well past the point that Buckminster Fuller said our technology had to pass before it was possible.

Most people envisage making the poor rich: this is a social and economic approach. The rich fight it like hell all over the world.

So instead, I decided to focus on cutting the price of essential goods and services to the point where the poor can afford them. Nobody seems to be against that, and if we all agree, then the work will go so much faster than if I had to waste effort arguing with people who don’t think what I’m doing is a good idea.

For Many Women, Alberta's Boom a Bust

dru — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:30:15 +0000

Rising housing costs, lack of alternatives lead to precarious situations

Driven by the tar sands, Alberta's white-hot economy continues to make headlines. But the gendered repercussions of the province's boom are often neglected, understated, or altogether denied.

Alberta's tar sands operations have made the province an attractive point of relocation for many in the last couple of decades. A large number of jobs have been created, many paying six-figure salaries. Other industries, most notably the service sectors, have had to compete with these salaries in a struggle to retain workers. As wages have been pushed higher in order to lure employees, rent has increased as landlords capitalize on the increases in income. Those without the resources or skills to tap into Alberta's renowned boom and profit from it are the most likely to have to deal with its negative consequences.

In the case of the tar sands, women have often been discouraged from pursuing the very resources and skills necessary to capitalize on the booming industry.

This is due in part to many female workers' experiences with sexual harassment, gender discrimination and unequal wages. Sixteen years ago, Mobil Oil's first female landman, Delorie Walsh, submitted a claim of gender discrimination, a poisoned work environment and unequal pay. She was finally compensated in October 2007.

Those benefiting most from the oil and gas workforce are male. For example, current male/female ratios are 79 to 21 per cent for geoscientists and 96 to 4 per cent for trades.

The significant gendered imbalance of access to jobs means unequal access to housing. Observers say this has led to a steady decline in quality of life for women. "The boom is great if you're a CEO in downtown Calgary," says Edmonton NDP MLA Ray Martin. "Saskatoon is now experiencing a mini-boom too. But this means that more and more people are falling behind." The "successful" economy has created an urgent lack of affordable housing, transitional housing, and shelter spaces, particularly for women.

Women tend to be more susceptible to losing their homes due to abuse or conflict with a spouse or caretaker upon whom they are financially dependent. Because women are more likely to have children to look after, and are less likely to feel safe on the street or in shelters where men are also present, many return to abusive relationships when there is no alternative shelter available.

This is one of the reasons why men make up the more visible segment of homeless populations, says author Susan Scott. Earlier this year, Scott interviewed over 60 homeless women across Canada about their lives. She is critical of the limited definition of the term "homeless."

"If a woman is sleeping with her landlord to maintain a roof over her head, then she is homeless," says Scott. "Other women will do it for money for drugs, to medicate a trauma that they've suffered which has gone untreated--they are also homeless. Others will hang out in a bar, hoping for a bed and a safe place--they are also homeless."

The Women's Emergency Accommodation Centre (WEAC) in Edmonton is the most well known of less than a handful of women's shelters in the city. It can accommodate just 75 women per night, and there are generally 25 to 30 women staying there for a longer term, which means fewer beds available for those seeking emergency shelter.

Amy Gillis, an inner-city physician in Edmonton, says there are few other options for women seeking shelter. "There's the George Spadie Centre, but you usually have to be intoxicated to go there. There's the Hope Centre, but they have far fewer spaces available for women than men. There are not enough absolute spaces for women, and there is little stability in these places."

The shelter situation in Fort McMurray is grimmer still. Currently, none of the shelters there accept minors. A report released this month by the region's Homelessness Initiatives Steering Committee found that some teenagers are resorting to prostitution in exchange for a bed or couch for the night.

Jan Reimer, Provincial Co-ordinator of the Alberta Council of Women's Shelters and a former mayor of Edmonton, says the need for spaces far outstrips supply. "Last year, we served 13,000 women and children. On top of that, 25,000 could not be accommodated and 15,000 simply could not find a place to stay. Only four shelters in Alberta have all of their beds funded by the province. The capacity really needs to be increased."

Part of the reason there are so many more women and children in need of shelter than there is shelter space is that Alberta has no transitional housing program. As a result, there is often nowhere for them to go from the shelter, except back to the street. Establishing a good transitional housing program would help women dealing with trauma, or legal issues, but more importantly, it would buy time, which is what many need most. "A lot of women can't find a place to live, due to a lack of references, or a bad history with landlords. What they need is physical support in the community," says Gillis.

Affordable, quality child care is one indication of a community's support of women. A lack of child care can result in women's inability to access social services necessary to get out of shelters. Alberta is the only Canadian province that has not added child care spaces over the last 15 years. In fact, it is the only province that has seen a decrease; between 1992 and 2004, the number of spaces dropped by 7.2 per cent.

Despite a serious lack of child care spaces, Alberta's population is growing at five times the national rate, and faster than anywhere in the Western world. The strong economy has encouraged migration to the province, which has contributed to a 10.4 per cent increase in total population since 2001, and a rental vacancy rate of 0.9 per cent--the lowest in a generation, and a third of the national average.

If current economic growth continues apace to 2025, the province could face an estimated shortfall of 332,000 workers, many of whom are expected to come from other countries, and will also need places to live. Already, housing formerly considered affordable has been purchased for "worker housing." There now exists a new group of workers that cannot afford to pay rent. In Fort McMurray, for example, it is common to pay over $1,000 for one room.

"Not enough money is being spent on infrastructure to keep up with the speed of tar sands development," says Ray Martin. "I think that there are just too many tar sands projects going on right now. There should be fewer projects."

Federal Liberal cuts to social infrastructure in the 1990s and decades of provincial Conservative inaction on social housing have together set the stage for Alberta's current housing crisis. Alberta's Affordable Housing Task Force, which toured in the spring of this year, found that Calgary's 2006 homeless count indicated a 32 per cent increase over the past two years. Edmonton showed an increase of 19 per cent, while Fort McMurray's homeless population rose by 24 per cent. Housing prices in Calgary have soared by 50 to 60 per cent in the last year alone, and by an average of 14 per cent in all of Alberta.

Alberta has yet to adopt rent-increase guidelines similar to those employed in Ontario or BC. Of all the recommendations made by Alberta's Affordable Housing Task Force, the most controversial item by far was the proposal to introduce rent control. According to Martin, who supports the recommendations, the Task Force, for the purpose of proposing effective measures, presented a package deal which would have to have been accepted in totality or not at all.

For example, a law stipulating the amount of legal increases, and a law limiting rent increases to only once a year, are complementary, whereas picking and choosing from the recommendations creates loopholes. "There is resistance to approving the whole package," says Martin.

"One of the main arguments is that accepting rent controls would provide even less incentive for the government to create much needed affordable housing. But the fact remains that there are no limits on rent and I still haven't seen more affordable housing being created."

A tenancy law passed in May that promises tenants a full year's eviction notice (when landlords plan to convert their apartments to condos) is being avoided in practice through a number of loopholes. The full year's notice only applies to periodic tenants, whose leases are renewed without notice. For everyone else, the majority of whom are fixed-term tenants, the lease ends on the date indicated, and no notice has to be given by the landlord to end the tenancy.

Dania Kochan, an Edmonton resident whose lease had expired, had made an agreement with her landlord to rent on a month-to-month basis. In June, she was given one month's eviction notice, and told by Service Alberta, the government branch that oversees and enforces tenancy laws, to "get a lawyer" when she complained.

Jim Gurnett of the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness (ECOHH) finds the situation tiring. "Poor tenants are not a high priority," says Gurnett.

"Just as long as the government can point to a law that's there to protect them," they feel that's enough. There were 4,100 condo conversions in Calgary between January and May of this year, and the number keeps rising.

Alberta's housing crisis is massive and affects people across demographic boundaries. "Employees at Calgary women's shelters are as in need of affordable housing as the women they serve," says Reimer. "What's worse, the salaries being paid in the oil industry are so high, they can't find people to work in donut shops, let alone shelters."

The province has resorted to hiring government employees from the service sector and has successfully recruited employees from women's shelters. Women's shelter workers see this as adding insult to injury. Reimer cites occurrences of workers from women's shelters being lured from their jobs for positions at Dunkin' Donuts, a company known to offer 'signing bonuses' of $1,500 to increase their chances of acquiring staff.

"What needs to happen immediately," says Reimer, "is a government investment that will allow the [human services] sector to provide competitive wages and benefits that will attract and retain a workforce. Frontline shelter workers need to be respected by the government."

Susan Scott says that there is no substitute for a real strategy for dealing with homelessness. The responsibility, she says, lies with the government and with the people of Alberta.

"Alberta is really good at band-aid solutions," says Scott. "People will give at Christmas, and Thanksgiving, so you can see it's really not a thorough process; we give, and we turn right around and blame the victims. No housing means that people will be homeless. Shelter is a right. Society has set it up so access is limited to those who can afford it."

The Edmonton Small Press Association contributed information and contacts to this article.

Housing Demonstration

Housing Demonstration 2