Many of you may be aware of the street vending that used to happen along the 000-block of East Hastings Street between Columbia and Carrall streets. For a large number of people living in the Downtown Eastside this was a desperately needed opportunity to earn income by selling things such as used clothing and dishes…
Category: homelessness
Making gold dust out of viaducts
No. 1 issue on City Council’s agenda over the past few months has been the removal of the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts. Last week this issue was finally put to a vote. With 5 in favour and 4 against, Council decided to remove them. At first blush, Council’s decision would appear to be the right…
Are we still in Canada? Or a banana republic?
We’ve all been hearing a lot of disconcerting stories in the last few days about the problems voters have been experiencing at advance polls for the federal election. We also know that, generally speaking, increased voter turnout is bad for incumbent governments. In other words, there’s a very high correlation between high voter turnout and…
The only national housing strategy stands firmly on Green ground
The federal election is now down to the wire. It is time for those of us who have not yet made up our minds on who to vote for to focus on the issues that are the most important to us. We need to take a look at where the parties stand on these issues….
Whatever happened to equality?
As we all know, developers make windfall profits every time their property is rezoned by Vancouver City Council to increase density. Many years ago, Vancouver’s City Council of the day wisely decided that henceforth any rezoning over a certain size would come with a very positive requirement — the developer would have to designate 20…
Never Never Land: Where a boy never grows up and promises never come true
Vancouver’s annual two-day homeless count recently wrapped up, and it’s clear that Vision Vancouver’s promise of ending homelessness this year is something straight from Never Never Land. Critics have missed the point when they say that Gregor Robertson was unrealistic or naïve when he made the promise in 2008, when he first campaigned for office,…
Six Years Too Late
Today Mayor Gregor Robertson issued a vague apology during the CBC debate. We now know what we had been suspecting for a number of days now — Mayor Robertson sees the writing on the wall and is desperate to avoid defeat Nov. 15th. After six years of ignoring community concerns, three days before voters cast…