• About
  • Issue 8, Spring 2017
  • Past issues
  • Downtown East
  • Contact
  • Support Us
  • Events
  • Newsletter

Menu
  • About
  • Issue 8, Spring 2017
  • Past issues
  • Downtown East
  • Contact
  • Support Us
  • Events
  • Newsletter

A 5-point plan to make the DTES a Social Justice Zone: By the Editors

volc8no June 21, 2013     City & community planning, Downtown East Newspaper

Drawing by Diane Wood

Drawing by Diane Wood

We acknowledge that the Downtown Eastside occupies the unceded territories of the Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueam and Squamish Coast Salish nations.

The future of the Downtown Eastside (DTES) is being made by super rich real estate investors and developers who are profiting off changing the neighbourhood from a place where low-income people feel at home into yet another fashionable strip mall. While city planners fuel the engines of real estate corporations by approving boutique condo towers, 5,000 people are living in increasingly expensive SRO hotel rooms that are unhealthy, bug/rodent infested and lacking kitchens/private bathrooms. As these SRO hotels become unaffordable, more and more people are pushed out into the streets and shelters. This housing crisis forces Indigenous women, children and others vulnerable to violence to live in danger and isolation. Gentrification, as a displacement pressure, is making these crises worse and, we fear, soon irreversible. 

For two years, low-income Downtown Eastside residents have been working on a Local Area Plannning Process (LAPP) that the city promised would “improve the lives of those who currently live in the area, particularly low-income people and those who are most vulnerable,” as stated in LAPP’s Terms of Reference. That’s why we got involved. However, after 2 years of consultations, there’s no evidence that the city plans to stop gentrification, which is displacing low-income residents.

Therefore low-income residents have created a set of specific policies for a SOCIAL JUSTICE ZONE that would bring our vision of our neighbourhood to life:

1. NO CONDOS BEFORE LOW-INCOME PEOPLE’S HOMES Use zoning laws to keep all condos and real estate speculators out of the DTES Oppenheimer District until the SROs are replaced and the homeless are housed in social housing. In the Hastings Corridor and Thornton Park, use zoning laws to make 2/3 of all new developments social housing for people on welfare/pension and also the working-poor. Protect DTES spaces for social housing and advocate for senior government housing programs.

2. REVERSE THE LOSS OF HOMES & SHOPS FOR LOW-INCOME RESIDENTS Create and use bylaws to freeze rents and stop renovictions in SRO hotels while improving conditions and making landlords pay for violations. Create a social impact assessment process directed by low-income residents to approve or deny new business applications.

3. ENSURE JOBS FOR LOW-INCOME RESIDENTS Create job training programs for anyone who wants them. Adopt hiring policies for low-income residents with barriers, including languages, for jobs in city-owned, city-supported and city-operated services. Order police to exempt survival work, such as binning, street vending and sex work, from ticketing, harassment and arrest.

4. PROTECT RESIDENTS’ SAFETY Create a resident-directed DTES police and security ombuds office to receive complaints and direct investigations. Provide free public transit passes to all low-income Vancouver residents. Expand, don’t cut, funding to support residents and programs organizing for the safety of women and other people vulnerable to violence.

5. END DISCRIMINATION SO EVERYONE CAN ACCESS THE SERVICES THEY NEED
Adopt policies for language and cultural accessibility, including hiring plans for Indigenous residents, people with disabilities, seniors and women, as well as Chinese and Spanish speaking workers. Create anti-colonial planning and service organizations. Make the DTES a sanctuary zone where all have equal access to health, housing and social services regardless of citizenship status.

This is a call to the City of Vancouver to adopt the policies proposed by low-income DTES residents as the truthful outcome of the Local Area Planning Process. Our DTES community plan turns away developers and protects the DTES as a SOCIAL JUSTICE ZONE where low-income communities can continue to work to build a healthy, safe and just community themselves.

 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)

 Previous Post

Film review – My Brooklyn: By Harold Lavender

― June 21, 2013

Next Post 

Home Turf – A sex worker speaks out against gentrification: By Lu Lu Bordeaux and Shannon Bundock

― June 21, 2013

Related Articles

Progressive Austerity, Canadian Nationalism & the B.C. NDP’s 2018 Housing Plan: By Isabel Krupp
Women supporting Women in the Downtown Eastside: By Dave Diewert
Mayor’s office sit-in nets Demovictions movement its first partial victory against the City of Burnaby: By Zoe Luba
Open letter to the City of Victoria Mayor & Council and Island Health: By No Cops on Outreach Victoria, Lekwungen Territories
The class anxiety of Ridgeilantes – Uncovering the shared roots of homelessness and anti-homeless hate in Maple Ridge: By Ivan Drury
Rebuilding Hogan’s Alley through the Black community’s struggle for historical justice: By Lama Mugabo
Community media and the fight against gentrification in Medellin, Colombia: By Jhony Alexánder Díaz Castañeda – Corporación Mi Comuna, Medellin
Cut the CRAP! Chinatown Concern Group fights Vancouver’s rezoning and gentrification of Chinatown: By Beverly Ho, Chinatown Concern Group
Organized destruction – CMHC data reveals the City of Burnaby is hemorrhaging apartments: By Rick McGowan
Emergency call to action to save 3,000 units of rental housing in Metrotown: By Ivan Drury and the Stop Demovictions Burnaby Campaign
Urban farming fight exposes gentrification, displacement, and colonization at core of Victoria City policy: JJ Ford & Jeanette Sheehy
New report confirms Demovictions are causing the Lower Mainland’s boom in homelessness: By Ivan Drury
The shifting sands of Foundation funding for social housing: By Ivan Drury
Massive port expansion threatens the Downtown Eastside’s only green space & beach: By Barb Daniel
La mission esta cumplida Lucia no era fantasma: Por Byron Cruz
Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside could become condo heaven with homeless on the streets: By Jean Swanson
New St. Paul’s hospital in the Downtown Eastside threatens to displace low-income residents: By Maria Wallstam and Sean Phipps
Access Without Fear: By Byron Cruz
National Conference to End Homelessness 2015 – Expensive lunches while people panhandled outside: By Phoenix Winter
Special online-only articles
Metrotown – A developer’s Heaven: By Rick McGowan
Housing First or Housing Farce?: By Jean Swanson
“We are somebody” – Abbotsford Homeless take the City to Court: By Dave Diewert and DJ Larkin
Voices from the Oppenheimer Tent City: By Herb Varley
Voices from the Abbotsford Dignity Village: By Ivan Drury
Homelessness is Still a Huge Problem: By Jean Swanson
Asserting Our Rights – Oppenheimer tent city challenges the limits of government talk on First Nations legal rights: By Natalie Knight
“Displace and Disperse” – Abbotsford’s Solution to the Homeless Problem: By Dave Diewert
Lippmanopoly! (anti-gentrification art poster): By Kathy Shimizu
昭倫大廈的勝利!
Victory at Chau Leun Tower!: By King-Mong Chan
Sun Tzu (The Art of War) & the DTES Local Area Plan: By Herb Varley
DTES Local Area Plan – What did we get? What did we lose?: By Jean Swanson and Harold Lavender
Aboriginal Healing Centre – we’re a person, not an addiction: An interview with Tracey Morrison
SROs emptied for hip housing, DTES residents left in the cold: By DJ Larkin
We are poor because they are rich: By Bill Hopwood
A perfect storm: why the homeless count is no surprise: By Tamara Herman
The funding cut & displacement agenda behind the PHS scandal: By Ivan Drury
No new social housing from the Province – 3 community views: By Harold Lavender, Jean Swanson and Andrea Craddock
Bud Osborn, DTES poet, prophet, and activist (1947-2014)
What do resource pipelines and building cranes have in common?: By Seb Bonet
The social housing we fight for, the crappy housing we have (Downtown East poster series): By Kathy Shimizu
華人社群在市中心東端與昂貴化的關連
Responding to the government apology for historic wrongs against Chinese British Columbians: Speech by Sid Chow Tan
How a definition can displace a community – defining ‘social housing’ in the DTES planning process: By Jean Swanson
DTES Low-Income Caucus demands versus the City’s Local Area Plan (a quick view)
Consultation is not consent – reflecting on community participation in a city planning process: By Harold Lavender
Gentrification and the DTES Chinese Community: By King-mong Chan
We want an Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Centre…. Now!: By Jean Swanson
Plans and Profiteers: The scoop on the draft DTES Local Area Plan: By Tamara Herman
The Rebel Queen: By Diane Wood
In memory of Lucia Varga Jimenez: By Dave Diewert
Year After Year – marching for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women: By Cecily Nicholson
The Abbotsford Shuffle – Homeless people pushed from park to railway tracks: By Dave Diewert
Women’s Action Group – Women supporting Women in the DTES: By Dave Diewert
Mental Health Crisis?: By Karen Ward
Home Sweet Home… but for how long? (Downtown East poster series): By Diane Wood
Displacement – Past, Present, Future: By Dave Diewert and Mercedes Eng
Japanese Canadian elder Grace Eiko Thomson speaks to Mayor and Council
“My activism goes beyond the personal” – an Interview with Japanese Canadian activist Lily Shinde: By Mercedes Eng
7th Annual Women’s Housing march
City Hall gives developers $71 Million, they cry for more: By Ivan Drury
Condos flood into Oppenheimer area while City stalls on planning process: By Jean Swanson
Storm Brewing – Local Area Plan and the Future of the DTES: By Jean Swanson and Harold Lavender
Homelessness and the Drug War in Abbotsford – Interview with Barry Shantz by Dave Diewert
After the Olympics homelessness in Vancouver is back on the rise: By the Editors
Homeless in the DTES: By Wendy Pedersen
Pushed out – Pressure is building against low-income residents in the DTES: By DJ Larkin
Park-a-palooza and artists at Oppenheimer Park: By Diane Wood
My Thoughts on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: By Robert Bonner
Mayor’s Meeting on Mental Health and Addictions: By Phoenix
Hungry for a Welfare Raise – The 2nd Annual Welfare Food Challenge: By Bill Hopwood
The Stanza Project: By Phoenix
“Save the Waldorf”? A letter to Change.org: By Gena Thompson
Taking a Stand for Social Housing: By Dave Diewert
Power Hour – Shelter Hopping with My Son: By Pearly May
The Myth of the Wealthy Asian Invader: By Sozan Savehilaghi
New DNC Board Elected: By Shannon Bundock
Vancity is Supporting Gentrification Not DTES Low Income Community: By Dave Diewert
Collective Habitat, art show at Gallery Gachet: By Diane Wood
Cops must be accountable for all police violence: By Jennifer Allan
Letter to the editors, unprinted by the Vancouver Sun: By Christiane Bordier
A Very Chilling & Alarming Contrast!: By Therese Lulf
Idle No More! Voices from Indigenous people in the DTES
Accountability and law enforcement – First Nations Perspectives from Northern BC: By Preston Guno
Do we want a Social Justice Zone in the Downtown Eastside?: By Jean Swanson
NO PIPELINES! NO DISPLACEMENT! NO DTES CONDOS!: By Harold Lavender
Idle? Know More! Learning about Indigenous Sovereignty and Land-based Resurgence: By Jean Swanson
Making B.C.’s Housing Crisis an Issue: By Harold Lavender
Oppenheimer Park is the people’s park! (Poster series)
Will Transit changes hurt low-income peoples’ right to move?: By Tamara Herman
Health care services near, but still too far: By Byron Cruz
Life in the Downtown Eastside: By Joan Morelli
“The Hotel Study” – bad scholarship that could further institutionalize low-income people: By Ivan Drury
Sex workers challenge the law – Interview with Kerry Porth about the Bedford supreme court challenge: By Shannon Bundock
BORDERLINES – An interview with Pierre Leichner: By Diane Wood
Emerging (Mis)Directions – Proposals for DTES Plan fails low-income residents: By Jean Swanson and Tamara Herman
Housing in the neighbourhood – a view from the street: By Robert Manning
QUEST – Putting your money where your mouth is: By Diane Wood
Unist’ot’en Action Camp – Connecting the struggles: By Herb Varley

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

   
Support our work by making a donation.
 
   
Subscription options
 
 

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Search

Authors

Browse by author

Categories

Archives

Letters to the Editor

1
Sad Siren Song: By Tracey Morrison

― February 12, 2017

Community Spotlight: Jean Swanson

For our issue on the BC Liberal legacy, Volcano editors turned to our Community Spotlight on a legacy of our own to highlight her over 40 years of anti-poverty work. Jean Swanson is an editor with The Volcano alongside her work with the Carnegie Community Action Project. She previously worked with the Downtown Eastside Residents’ Association (DERA) and is the author of a book titled Poorbashing: The Politics of Exclusion.

You’ve been active in anti-poverty work for a long time. What has been the biggest realization that you have had with regards to poverty in this province? Has your understanding or approach to government changed over time and through experience?

My approach to government has definitely changed. Back in 1979, I actually ran as an NDP MLA candidate because I thought being involved in electoral politics was a way of implementing the things you’ve been fighting for in the community. I ran with COPE for city council too, along with my co-workers Bruce Eriksen and Libby Davies, who were elected. In those days it seemed possible to get city council to do some good things for the Downtown Eastside if we worked hard at it: fund the Carnegie Centre, pass a Standards of Maintenance bylaw, put sprinklers in the hotels.

In the early 90s, after the NDP cut welfare and brought in a whole poorbashing framework to justify it, I couldn’t bring myself to vote at all, let alone run for office.

Read more about Jean Swanson's commitment to anti-poverty organizing here.

The Volcano is published on traditional, ancestral, and unceded Coast Salish Territories.

Alliance Against Displacement: The Volcano is affiliated with the Alliance Against Displacement, a pan-regional anti-displacement network of local communities, organizations, and activists fighting displacement on the ground.

  • Housing struggles
  • Gentrification & displacement
  • Racism & Migrant Justice
  • Indigenous & Colonialism
  • Police & Criminalization
  • Income inequality
  • Sex workers
  • Social Movement strategies
  • Climate & Ecology
  • DTES organizations
  • Women & Gender
  • International struggles
  • Health & Harm reduction
  • Culture, art & poetry
  • City & community planning
Copyright © The Volcano