Downtown East March 2013

Downtown East March 2013: Special Issue on Pidgin Picket

This special (half-size) issue of the Downtown East was published quick to answer some of the major media attacks on the Pidgin Picket and on the low-income community in the Downtown Eastside. The editorial collective of the Downtown East stands with the Pidgin picket for dignity, justice, and housing for low-income communities and for an end to the gentrification forces that threaten these communities. – The Editors

Why Picket the Pidgin restaurant

By Wendy Pedersen and Homeless Dave (HD)

Determined picketers have been opposing the very pricey gentrifying Pidgin Restaurant since it opened in early February. Pidgin is located on Carrall Street right across from Pigeon Park which for many years has been an important public space for DTES residents. (…)

We need homes

By Jean Swanson

The City and Province are trying to create the impression that lots of housing for low-income people is being built in the Downtown Eastside. Councilor Kerry Jang says that hundreds of new units are coming. Here are the facts: (…)

Ada Dennis: Evicted and replaced with condos and Pidgin Restaurant

Speech by Ada Dennis

Many of you know Ada Dennis: Carnegie kitchen volunteer of 5 years, winner of the City of Vancouver’s Volunteer of the Year award several years ago, familiar face on the 2nd floor and in other parts of the hood. She and 31 other people and families were evicted on Feb 29, 2008 from 334 Carrall Street. (…)

How do we know gentrification is pushing up hotel rents?

By Jean Swanson and CCAP

How do we know that gentrification is pushing up hotel rents? In 2005, before Woodward’s was developed into 536 condo and 125 social housing units for singles, there were 8 hotels with 404 rooms within a block of Woodward’s. They all rented to low-income people. (…)

Pigeon: a recent peoples’ history of a peoples’ park

By Ivan Drury

The view of Pigeon Park that gets shown on the media is an outsider’s: gawking from the window of a commuter’s car or through the blue lens of a police reality TV show. The stories these narrators tell are cruel and condemning melodramatic tales of misery, desperation and disease. There are no human beings in their stories, and no human histories of struggle, love, family and home. (…)

Unpublished letter to the editor of The Province about Pidgin Picket

By Sid Tan

This letter was written to the editors of The Province newspaper but not published. We are publishing it here as a record of community responses to mass-media. – Editors. (…)

Questions and Answers about Pidgin Picket

By Jean Swanson

Question: Why are you protecting drug users/ misery? Answer: Drug users are human beings with dignity. They deserve to have their health issues addressed in effective ways. A fancy restaurant won’t help drug users. Being pushed out of their hotel rooms because of high rents won’t help drug users. Being pushed into other communities won’t help drug users. (…)

Displaced and then replaced

By Terese Lulf

We, the displaced, and about to be displaced, are wondering what happened to some of our neighbours. We feel totally disconnected from some of them, and for all we know, they could have been beaten, become sick from exposure, or locked up. We visit Pigeon Park for some companionship, and also in the hope to hear some news about our evicted, now lost friends. (…)

Downtown East March 2013