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Photos: Affordable housing demonstration in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside
Demonstrators blocked the Main and Hastings intersection on Saturday (September 17).
Yolande Cole
Women’s groups and housing advocates walked through Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside Saturday (September 17) to call for more safe and affordable housing in the neighbourhood.
The 5th annual women’s housing march, which was organized by The Power of Women Group at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, was also intended as a protest against condo development and gentrification in the area. A group of organizations recently launched a boycott of a proposed development in the 100-block of East Hastings.
“We want to see affordable housing, we don’t want these condominiums coming in, and we don’t want the rich pushing out the poor,” said Stella August, a member of the Power of Women group who has lived in the area for 40 years.
“We need safe housing for our women especially."
The march came a day after the body of 50-year-old Verna Simard was found on the sidewalk below her sixth-floor suite at the Regent Hotel. Vancouver police are investigating her death.
Demonstrators paid tribute to the Downtown Eastside resident during the march Saturday. Members of the Power of Women group described Simard as very friendly, and said the aboriginal woman had worked in the community for years and was well-known among residents.
Demonstrators walked through the Downtown Eastside and Gastown on Saturday (September 17), calling for safe housing for women in the community.Yolande Cole
Protestors blocked the Main and Hastings intersection on Saturday (September 17). Some demonstrators held signs boycotting a proposed condo development in the area.Yolande Cole
Protestors held up anti-gentrification signs during a demonstration at Main and Hastings.Yolande Cole
Yolande Cole
Various Downtown Eastside groups brought their banners to the annual women's housing march Saturday (September 17). Yolande Cole
Recently a guy approached me in my neighbourhood asking for money. I asked him where he lived and he said he’s homeless. I asked him why he doesn’t go to a homeless shelter and he said he’s scared to go there because there are dangerous people there.
I’m tired of the many powerful women’s groups that continue to take ownership on victimhood. Powerful women and feminists can keep marching on the streets for media attention and creating one-sided false perceptions, but until we start focusing on helping troubled and emotionally disturbed men, we will start making progress towards making women safer.
The province took out the only 'organized' group capable of putting up any determined & organized or meaningful resistance, DERA.
The community allowed DERA to become bloated & corrupt, leaving it an easy target.
This project is the quid pro quo for many of the things that VV wanted to accomplish. The DTES as it has come to be known since the 70's will cease to exist in under 5 years.
W2TV: Solidarity Notes Choir - Women's Housing March and GentriFUCation Tour - September 17, 2011
The performances by Solidarity Notes Choir directed by Earle Peach quite inspiring. The singing and subject made it perfect for music track for a quick edit for Women's Housing March and GentriFUCation Tour. Consider this the first of several pieces I hope to cut on this.
Let's keep it the way it is...
Maybe if some of these protesters funneled their energies into actually changing things for better in the DTES instead of making anti-gentrification stickers and marionettes, we would see some real change.
But then again, the poverty pimps would be out of a job. What a JOKE.
So all you right,self righteous and pompous asses stop judging people by your stanards and help with a real solution then you have nothing to say,remember Judge not lest you be judged.
Regarding your comment about mainly seeing men on the street; there are a lot of homeless women as well, but they may not roam the streets as much due to the fact that it is even less safe for them to do so.
To Christbel. I disagree. The problem is that we don't hear about violence towards men to the extent that we hear about violence towards women in most media outlets. A woman victimized is headline news. A man victimized most likely won’t make it into the news that day. Sometimes media reports are misleadingly framed to show women as victims. For example, 50-year-old Verna Simard was found on the sidewalk below her sixth-floor suite at the Regent Hotel and we don’t know yet if there was foul play, yet media reports like this one http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Marchers+pause+site+deaths/5423340/... leave an impression in the mind that she was victimized - even though this very well may not have been the case.
I'm constantly amazed at how many vocal and powerful women's advocacy groups we have in the lower mainland and this also creates the perception that there’s more need to help women than men. Women have voice and are more willing to seek help, but men are socialized to remain silent in their suffering and there are few resources available for their specialized needs.
I've been speaking up as an advocate for men, but I think this is something new that people are not used to nor understand. I think that's unfortunate because we’ve become conditioned not to care about their welfare.