Mayor and Police Chief at Vancouver Police Board (Sept 17th, 2013)

Last week Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson held a joint press conference with the Vancouver Police Department announcing a “mental health crisis” in Vancouver. The press release, and a series of associated reports, could have addressed the barriers and stigma facing people with mental health issues in our communities. Instead, they entrench the worst forms of stigmatization and detrimental stereotypes.

In his press release, the Mayor paints a terrifying picture of violent attacks in the midst of a “public health crisis” on the verge of “spiraling out of control.” Since January 2012, the Mayor writes, “the VPD has identified 96 serious incidents ranging from suicides to random, violent attacks inflicted upon innocent members of the public.” Without specifying the actual number of suicides versus attacks, the Mayor adds, “It is a miracle that many of the people involved in these random attacks have not died.” The City report, which does not attempt to convey a complex understanding of mental and public health issues, resorts to graphic images and anecdotes, repeating the notion that people with severe mental illness are a “threat” to the public.

Vision Vancouver can always be relied-upon to see one thing with clarity: image. While I find many faults with the current city council, their skill as political illusionists never ceases to amaze and entertain. Vision’s currency with the language of façade, symbol, gesture and token won them the last election and makes them formidable adversaries even today.

The scalping of the Ridge Theatre and placement of its iconic sign atop the condos that destroyed it, the greening of the roofs of unaffordable coffin suites built atop once-affordable housing: these are the most physically obvious of Vision’s mastery of these arts. But this artistry extends far beyond the corrupt greenwashing of the assault on affordability and the arts. It is, I would argue, most impressively practiced in the field of civic democracy and public accountability.

Photo credit: Pivot Legal Society

A mass “renoviction” is underway at the York Rooms hotel on the Downtown Eastside. The York is a Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotel at 259 Powell in the Oppenheimer District, with 34 rooms of low-income affordable housing. Here at the York, the connection between retail gentrification and residential displacement is made clear. Long-term tenants living directly above the building’s new Cuchillo restaurant faced the threat of eviction immediately after the restaurant opened its doors.

Over the last two months at least seven residents of the York have lost their housing through eviction or by being paid to leave. Housing advocates have knocked on doors in the building and estimate that half of the rooms in the hotel are now empty, an estimate recently corroborated by current tenants. A spokesperson for the landlord confirmed on Thursday that 14 of 34 rooms are empty, a vacancy rate of just over 40%.  The average vacancy rate in the rest of the DTES is 1%.