Archives Under "vancouver" (RSS)
Issue of homelessness in Vancouver gains critical mass
23 October 2006 | news, vancouver | 1 Response
In the wake of this morning’s news about the Northstar Squat, I wanted to point out this fantastic post from Sean Orr of Beyond Robson. The post links to an excellent variety of resources and campaigns about Vancouver’s epidemic of homelessness. Check it out!
Northstar Squatted
23 October 2006 | news, vancouver | No Responses
From Vancouver Indymedia:
Sunday October 22, 2006 — At 4:30 (PST) one hundred and fifty housing activists turned out to open a squatted building in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside at 5 West Hastings Street. The North Star Hotel had been sitting empty since 1999 since it was ordered shut down by Vancouver City Council.
The Anti-Poverty Committee (APC) squat could provide homes for 30 local residents in a city where hundreds sleep outside each night. APC supporters chanted “Homes Not Games” and are asking the City of Vancouver to purchase the building for housing, rather than spending money on hosting the 2010 Olympics. Large 30 foot banners were unfurled from the top floor protesting the Olympics Games and the lack of affordable housing.
I heard the APC’s David Cunningham on the radio this morning, and I was quite impressed with his version of the APC’s position. According to David, the specific purpose of this squat is to pressure NPA politicians into fulfilling their election promise of purchasing at least one old downtown eastside hotel per year to convert for affordable housing. The year is almost up, he said, and since the NPA has done nothing in the way of fulfilling this promise, the APC is occupying this hotel (on the final day of Homelessness Awareness Week) to ‘get the ball rolling’.
The police are apparently meeting with the City today to decide their official position on the squat. David says the APC has a host of other tactics ready should the police break this squat before there is action from the NPA.
It’s just over 4 years since the Woodwards building was squatted, which was a complicated kind of victory for the homeless (or at least for homeless activists). Woodwards precipitated the opening of the Stanley Newfountain Hotel for social housing, while also pressuring the city into providing at least 100 affordable social housing units in the upcoming Woodward’s development.
I’ll be very interested to see how this squat unfolds, and whether the APC can impact the current NPA-dominated council to the same degree that activists and community members were able to impact the COPE council four years ago.
I won a bool! Hoorah!
22 October 2006 | miscellaneous, vancouver | 4 Responses
Hey, I won a bool! Yippee! Monique from SoMisguided held a bool recently, and I was the lucky winner. Not only was it fun, but it was super-fun. Not only was it super-fun, but I also won a prize! Not only did I win a prize, but I actually won lots of prizes!
You must be thinking what the smuck am I talking about?
A bool is a treasure hunt, a good joke, something fun, that ends in an RC, or a candy bar, or a story.
But Scott was a bit of a nutter himself. There are good bools, like the one he’s left for Lisey, and there are blood bools, like the ones his father introduced to him. Blood bools are bloodletting, when you cut to release the bad-gunky.
Lisey’s Story is about bools: blood bools and good bools.
But Lisey’s Story itself is a mothersmucking good bool.
– Monique, SoMisguided.com
Learn more about bools, and prizes, and other things like books and tap dancing and salmon and marketing over at SoMisguided. Maybe you’ll win something too!
GVRD Legislates Recycling of E-Waste
15 October 2006 | miscellaneous, news, vancouver | No Responses
I mean, I think that’s what’s happening, anyway… According to Dave Watson (of Dot Comment fame), the GVRD has passed legislation that will soon require e-waste to be diverted from the regular waste stream (yeck - a garbage stream) to soon-to-be-created official drop-off facilities.
I did a little research (and I mean a little), and I turned up this article (from my old employer, the North Shore Recycling Program, no less!) that seems to confirm Dave’s good news. According to the article, the GVRD, in partnership with Encorp Pacific & the EPSC, will be implementing an electronic product stewardship program by summer 2007. While the fine details of the plan are still being developed, it looks like the first instance of the program will allow for recycling of the basics: personal computers, monitors, televisions, laptop computers and printers. The program will be financed in part by ‘environmental handling fees’ that will be collected on all electronics products at the time of purchase. (For more info, check out the EPSC website.)
I think this is great news. I used to work at a recycling facility in North Van where one could only recycle computers as scrap metal, while tv’s, printers, etc. were just plain garbage. Obviously there’s a lot of valuable material that can be reclaimed from these things, but there’s never been an infrastructure here that allowed for easy collection & reclamation. This new partnership will mean (literally) tons of waste diverted from the garbage dump. Huzzah!
