C H C

----- UPCOMING -----

Preparing a March for Housing on April 4th 2009
Organizing Meeting: Tuesday November 18 2008, 7 – 8:30 PM

Dear Friends,
Citywide Housing Coalition needs your help. Since we came together in the Spring of 2007, we’ve substantially expanded our base of support, seen some small victories and we’ve been particularly successful these last two months in building the momentum demonstrated in the recent Stand and march at City Hall.

We are now planning our biggest fight: to make housing the issue of the provincial election. We need to demonstrate massive, province-wide support for a change in the government policies that have increased homelessness and accelerated the rental housing shortage and affordability crisis.

To kick off our campaign, we have planned a Grand March for Housing on Saturday April 4 2009.

We need people to help involve everyone affected by homelessness and the affordable housing crisis. We are asking Citywide Housing Coalition supporters to attend a series of monthly march-organizing meetings. The first is on Tuesday, November 18 at 7 PM.

Late last summer, representatives from a few groups met several times, ultimately deciding to hold the grand march in the Spring and to build momentum with a series of actions beforehand. A steering committee was chosen to handle the logistics and oversee the planning. Members of the steering committee are: Rider Cooey, Peter Greenwell, Mel Lehan, Linda Shuto, Laura Stannard and Jean Swanson.

Leading up to the grand march in April will be city-wide and province-wide STANDS for housing once a month. The first STAND will be Saturday, November 29 from 1-2 pm. To join a stand or start your own, contact: CALMhousing@hotmail.com

For future meetings, we will have a more central location and we will let you know the date and place. To allow us to better plan the meeting on November 18, could you please confirm your attendance by email or phone to: Laura Stannard: laurastannard@shaw.ca ; w) 604.637.3317 or h) 604.732.8685.

On behalf of the CHC March Organizer Steering Committee, I thank you for your continued support and look forward to meeting in person on Tuesday November 18.

CHC March Organizers’ meeting
Tuesday November 18 20087 – 8:30 PM?
Jewish Family Service Agency
?#305—1985 West Broadway?
604.637.3317

Sincerely,
Laura Stannard

----- NEWS -----

Slated for demolition: 126 units of low-cost housing

Despite City Council’s assurances that the Rate of Change by-law will protect affordable rental housing, 126 low-rental apartments are slated for demolition if a development proposal from Ledingham-McAllister is approved by City Hall. Tenants from two buildings near Fraser and 29th Avenue are working with Citywide Housing Coalition and their MLA, David Chudnovsky, to find ways to keep their homes.

The City’s new Rate-of-Change by-law requires rental apartment owners to replace any rental unit converted or demolished with another rental unit. But the by-law does not require the replacement units to be rented for the same amount as the previous unit. Furthermore, rental housing in commercial-zoned areas, such as most shopping areas on main streets, are excluded from the by-law.

So the Fraser Street tenants are doubly damned, first, because they will not be able to afford the new rents and secondly, even if they could afford the rents, the developer will only have to replace 48 of the 126 demolished apartments.

Not only does the Rate-of-Change by-law do nothing to protect low-end market rental housing, excluding rental apartments in commercial zones from the by-law flies in the face of the City’s Eco-Density policy, to say nothing of planning policies from the early 1990s, that encouraged higher density in “village nodes”—shopping areas along transportation corridors.

Tenants from the two apartment buildings are planning an event to raise the issue of their plight before Vancouverites cast their ballots for a city government on November 15. Check the CHC website for updates on this issue.
See http://www.canada.com/vancouvercourier/news/story.html?id=c0fa83e7-2801-4f17-8194-829e1ce6305d for a report by the Vancouver Courier

Laura Stannard