Lama Mugabo

Rebuilding Hogan’s Alley through the Black community’s struggle for historical justice

Hogan’s Alley was the only Black neigbourhood that existed in Vancouver’s history. Its official name was Park Lane, an alley that ran between Union and Prior Streets in the southwest corner of Strathcona, from the early 1900s through the 1960s. In 1972, the civic government enacted an urban renewal policy similar to those in many North American cities that are used to destroy poor inner-city Black communities and Chinatowns. In Vancouver, they took aim at both. (…)

City launches more temporary housing on the eve of Quality Inn mass evictions

with Maria Wallstam

Vancouver’s first modular housing building, a housing model borrowed from mining companies, is set to open in mid-February this year. The building, which is located at Main and Terminal, will provide 40 self-contained units for singles. Like the Quality Inn Hotel, which is set to close at the end of this month, the project is temporary and will only be open for five years or so, until the modular housing is dismantled so a condo tower can go up. The premise of the project is similar to the Quality Inn, which the Vision Vancouver-dominated City Council opened to house the residents of the Oppenheimer Tent city, and which is set to close soon. The modular housing will provide temporary housing for low-income tenants until they can move into permanent housing that does not exist. (…)