Strathcona Residents Step Up Their Demands for Safe Housing for All
- Roland Verrier -  
Following a lively early morning demonstration September 29,
in which residents of Vancouver's Strathcona neighbourhood --
which includes a homeless camp in Strathcona Park -- lined the streets
and
carried signs through the crosswalks, the community is continuing
to advocate for a solution to the housing crisis. There are currently
over 300 people camped in the
park.  An organizer of
the demonstration, speaking to CTV News, made
their aim clear: "Homeowners and renters and housed members of
this community believe and want to fight for the rights of people
who are unhoused in our community.... The camp has kept
growing, the support services have not come along with it, and
the politicians have continued to ignore it. Members who are
staying in this park are not enemies of ours. People who are
managing this camp are not enemies of ours. That is not the
enemy. The enemy here is the politicians who aren't doing
anything and seem to think it's just going to fade away."
Vancouver's
housing crisis has being deepening for years and
the pandemic has made things worse. The federal, provincial and
municipal governments continue to 'study' the situation and
accuse and blame one another, with no decisive action taken to
solve the problem which will become even worse as winter
approaches.  Besides
the actions of the Strathcona Neighbourhood Movement
which organized the September 29 demonstration, other community
organizations are active in demanding housing for all. On its
website the Strathcona Residents Association (SRA) notes that the
provincial government is essentially shut down due to the
election and that the federal government's Rapid Housing Initiative
funds are months off at best, so the "ball is currently in the
City's hands." In response to a report by city staff issued on
October 2, Mayor Kennedy Stewart put forward a motion
to allocate $30 million to purchase vacant apartment buildings,
hotels and single room occupancy sites which the SRA points out
will take months and do nothing to alleviate the immediate
crisis. The SRA called on visitors to its website to apply to
address the October 8 city council meeting online and/or
email
city council to support a proposal from two councillors to convert the
City's existing Winter Shelter sites into Disaster Relief/Navigation
Centres as an immediate measure to provide safe housing before winter.
Residents are being encouraged to keep up the pressure on
municipal, provincial and federal officials and for homeowners to
join the tax resistance campaign by withholding property taxes to
the City of Vancouver "by way of deferral, assessment appeal or
other lawful means." 
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 38 - October 10, 2020
Article Link:
Strathcona Residents Step Up Their Demands for Safe Housing for All - Roland Verrier
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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