Cover art by Karen Ward
Together Against Displacement & Dispossession Summit report back
This supplement to the Fall 2016 Volcano newspaper collects discussions and lessons from the “Together Against Displacement and Dispossession” summit held by the Alliance Against Displacement on June 11-12, 2016. (…)
Karen Ward from the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users in the DTES said low-income people on the streets can feel the government’s shift from building social housing to building prisons. (…)
By Ivan Drury
At a Downtown Eastside community meeting a few years ago, a woman stood up in the crowd assembled in the Carnegie Theatre and demanded that we stop using language she didn’t understand. (…)
By Dave Diewert
Politicians, government officials, business owners, real estate developers, landlords, and media pundits shape a common perspective on low-income, homeless, drug user, and low-wage working class folks (…)
By Jean Swanson
So here’s the situation: Almost 1,000 homeless people have been counted in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver. (…)
By Natalie Knight
During our summit gathering communities across southern B.C., we decided that “liberation & decolonization” was a major point of unity among our many groups. (…)
By Together Against Displacement & Dispossession Summit
Our Together Against Displacement and Dispossession summit packed three major accomplishments into one weekend, which together will strengthen the struggles of homeless and evicted people. (…)
Features
By the Editors
How do we soothe human pain? How can we best end the misery caused by isolation and alienation? (…)
By Sarah Sheridan & Ashley Mollison
People across Canada are continuing to die at staggering rates from illicit drug overdoses. (…)
While governments make pronouncements and dither during the overdose public health emergency, who would you think would actually be out saving lives of people who overdose? Police? Ambulance workers? (…)
By Joshua Goldberg & Flora Pagan
We can learn a great deal from the state responses to Super InTent City (SIC). (…)
By Jannie Leung 梁泳詩, Chinatown Action Group 華埠行動小組
The gentrification of Chinatown is a continuation of its history. (…)
By Ivan Drury
It is easy to say whether the home-ownership and home-less housing crises are the same. They are not. (…)
The ceremony of birth and Kanien’kehá:ka Mohawk ancestral wisdom
By Toni-Leah Yake
Imagining Turtle Island prior to Euro-colonial invasion, I am strengthened. (…)
By Gil Aguilar
B.C.’s Minister of Education Mike Bernier recently fired the Vancouver School Board arguing that it had “misplaced focus on political tactics rather than responsible stewardship.” (…)
Housing, Homelessness & Gentrification
By Sex Workers United Against Violence (SWUAV)
Since the Sex Workers United Against Violence (SWUAV) Society formed, we have been working for better living and working conditions for sex workers, primarily through our participation in the constitutional challenge to the previous Canadian laws criminalizing prostitution. (…)
By Jean Swanson
The plot thickens at Vancouver’s notorious Regent Hotel. (…)
By SIC Society
In April after the government hired Portland Hotel Society (PHS) to manage Super InTent City, SIC Society met with PHS to clarify their role at the camp. (…)
By Karen Lane
My name is Karen Lane. I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and I have been in BC since I was 15 years old. My mother is Metís, Cree and French and my father is Black Cherokee. (…)
By Dave Diewert
Over the last month, Alliance Against Displacement (AAD) has been holding organizing meetings on 135A Street in Surrey (aka. the strip). (…)
By Brad
All should have to live the life / That we were forced to do / For just a little while at least / To understand our point of view / No one grows up wanting / To live on some dirty street / And be judged a loser / By the strangers that we meet (…)
Everyone Is An Addict!
By Tracy Scott
Everyone has an addiction / of some kind / Not wanting to admit it / Only playing dear or blind // There’s drinking eating shopping / smoking and money too / There’s gambling gaming sex religion / There’s coffee and weed / To which most people do (…)
JJ Ford & Jeanette Sheehy
This summer, the City of Victoria wanted to change the Official Community Plan (OCP) to undermine urban food production in favor of developers. (…_
Global Displacement & Racial Violence
By Harold Lavender
According to the United Nations there are more than 65 million forcibly displaced people in the world. (…)
By Natalie Knight
On September 20th in Charlotte, North Carolina Keith Lamont Scott was fatally shot by the police. (…)
The Prison of Canada
By Goot Ges
The day after the Federal government approved the Pacific Northwest LNG project on Lelu Island, Chief Yahaan of the Gitwilgyots Tribe from Lax Kwa’laams says that we are in it for the long haul, and we will continue to protect the Skeena River for the future of our children. (…)
By Mercedes Eng
Carole is a ghost mama / whispering into the ears / of the fertile red nation // plant seeds in the ground / and in the womb / ground zero for the revolution // while Jessi is in belly, before Jessi’s bug eyes can open / Carole shows her the world (…)
By Gurpreet Singh
In May of this year Prime Minister Justin Trudeau created history by making an official apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru episode. (…)