In the wake of political events erupting across North America over the past month, we are now at a moment in history when Vancouver City Council can end police street checks for good – if it has the will.
Police
It’s the end of “Gregor’s decade.” Are we standing at the possible threshold of a new era in Vancouver municipal politics? Mainlander Editor Andrei Mihailiuk sits down with COPE Council candidate Anne Roberts to talk ward systems, movement journalism and how the Coalition of Progressive Electors has evolved.
WIKILEAKS |
Earlier this week The Guardian released a Wikileaks cable that discusses logistics and security concerns surrounding the Vancouver Olympics. The cable also contains speculations that the mismanagement of the Olympic Village likely decided the 2008 municipal election that left the city with a Vision majority. Gregor Robertson ran on a platform strongly condemning the NPA decision to reduce the social housing commitment at the Olympic Village. Robertson and Vision Vancouver won the election claiming that they “strongly opposed the previous NPA administration’s cuts of middle and low-income housing from the Southeast False Creek Olympic Village site,” but have since tried to run away from their own promises.
Also appearing in the Wikileaks cable is reiteration of the facts that original security cost estimates of $175 million ballooned to almost $1 billion; that the city paid only $50m for the Olympic Village land (subsequently trying to sell the land to the Millenium corporation for $200m); and that the City of Vancouver currently has a $3 billion fund for property acquisition and social housing, called the Property Endowment Fund (PEF). For years people have been trying to determine the size of the PEF. The original intention of the PEF was, according to May Brown, to benefit the people of Vancouver: “The city was selling land every year, putting money into general revenue to keep taxes down. [Mayor] Art Phillips said this has got to stop. We’re cannibalizing our land . . . The value of the PEF in those days was $100 million. The rationale was simple: citizens should share in the profits from any increase in land value.”
POLICE BRUTALITY |
The BC Civil Liberties Association has stated that the decision not to charge the Vancouver Police Department officer who shot an already neutralized mentally ill man 8 times should be reviewed. This is another case of the archaic policy of police investigating themselves on alleged misconduct.
TENT CITY |
Documents leaked shortly after the Olympics revealed that the provincial government’s main concern prior to the Olympics was the emergence of a Tent City in Vancouver during the Games. There are “Athlete’s Village Tent City 2011” posters covering every corner of the city. Last Sunday, housing activists officially announced the February 2011 tent city by serving a free pancake breakfast in the public plaza of the village, where the tent city is planned to take place.
In related news, the first tenants began moving into affordable housing at the Olympic Village this week. The first building contains 84 units, 75% of which are non-market housing. Among the twenty-one units of affordable housing, none will contribute to ending homelessness because zero will be going to Vancouver residents with “deep core” need, even though 33% of the overall project was originally promised as “deep core” and another 33% as “core need.” The twenty-one units, finally filled years after the city proposed over 600, have recently been deemed tokenism.
SHELTERS INCREASINGLY HOUSE WORKING POOR |
Homelessness is not just a problem in the Downtown Eastside, or even just the municipality of Vancouver. Housing is an issue throughout Greater Vancouver, and things are getting worse according to a recent Georgia Straight article, which reveals that an increasing number of the working poor are relying on shelters, unsettling the common notion that homeless shelters are only used by people on social assistance and unemployed.
In addition to rent increases caused by the upscaling and renovation of dozens of low-income buildings around the city, Vancouver is losing affordable housing through the outright demolition of buildings. Last month, City Council approved the demolition of the Cecil Hotel. Two months ago, Vancouver City Council approved the loss of almost all low-income housing at the American Hotel, whose tenants were illegally evicted in 2006. Last year saw a drastic loss of housing, with City Council allowing for the closure of low-income hotels surrounding Woodward’s while granting the demolition permit for the 224 housing units at Little Mountain.
Today, however, the provincial and municipal governments jointly proclaim a “partnership of excellence” in the fight against homelessness. Some journalists have written of the “tight bond” between the Province and City under Mayor Gregor Robertson, and it has recently been reported that many Vision councilors were favorable towards Rich Coleman’s leadership bid for the BC Liberal Party because of “all the progress he has been able to make with the City of Vancouver on social housing during this Vision Vancouver term.”[i]
More than anything else, the proclaimed successes of the “partnership” revolve around the construction of fourteen sites of social housing in Vancouver, known as the ‘Vancouver sites.’ The myth of these fourteen sites can be traced to the destruction of housing at Little Mountain.
Vancouver City Council will hold a special meeting this Tuesday, Dec 12, to look over the proposed municipal budget. An administrative report distributed November 15th outlining the budget can be found here. Last Thursday, December 2nd, a public meeting was held, with 18 of the 20 speakers speaking against the proposed budget.
Over the past few months, the city has been engaging the public through telephone, web and paper surveys (around 1300 were completed). According to the report, the most pressing issues in the city for residents are Homelessness, Affordable housing, and Public Transit. The popular focus on poverty and affordability was one of the reasons Vision Vancouver concentrated so much on homelessness during their campaign. Over the past two years, there has been a significant increase in homelessness and more communities are feeling the pressure of a lack of affordable housing. The most valued city services for residents, according to the survey, were Public Libraries, Fire Services, and Garbage Collection.