In the wake of the latest City of Vancouver "whack-a-mole" action against homeless people, some activists want to open up new areas of discussion about the housing crisis.

At 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday (November 29), the Alliance Against Displacement and Chinatown Action Group will host a panel discussion at the Russian Hall (600 Campbell Avenue) focusing on links between imperialism and the high cost of shelter.

It comes in the wake of the Vancouver Police Department clearing out a homeless encampment yesterday in Thornton Park, resulting in seven arrests.

"Politicians across the political spectrum point the finger of blame at foreign investors," the alliance states on its website. "But their solutions don’t change the profit-driven housing market that leaves renters and homeless people out in the cold. This explanation has trickled down and sometimes we hear low-income, homeless, and evicted people also blaming 'foreigners' for their evictions and homelessness."

The alliance goes on to state that the emphasis on foreigners causing the crisis "reflects a long history of anti-Asian racism in Canada, and particularly in B.C."

"It also buys into the idea that local capitalists are somehow preferable to capitalists who may originate in other countries," it adds. "But foreign investment and its role in the housing crisis is much more complicated than the mainstream media and dominant political parties would lead us to believe. For the great majority of us, the housing crisis means that we live under constant stress, that we work way too much to make rent, that we are always at risk of being evicted by landlords and developers. And it means homelessness."

Moreover, the alliance alleges that "dominant political parties are cynically playing to our anxieties while creating legislation that only represents the interests of landlords, not renters, not those of us crushed by a lifetime of mortgage debt, and certainly not the homeless".

The forum will try to focus far more attention on Canada's role as an imperialist country. In addition, it will explore how that has manifested itself in the dispossession of indigenous peoples, the role that anti-Asian racism plays in current discussions, and why private property and global capital are exacerbating the crisis.

The speakers will be Beverly Ho (Chinatown Action Group), Hessed Torres (Migrante B.C.), Ivan Drury (Alliance Against Displacement), Natalie Knight (Alliance Against Displacement), and Stephanie Fung (Chinatown Action Group).

In the meantime, there's been some outrage expressed over Twitter regarding the police evicting homeless people from Thornton Park. 

https://twitter.com/lady_saoirse/status/802360255803887616

According to the alliance, the tent city residents were previously living in tents at 58 West Hastings Street and Wendy Poole Park before being forced out from those locations.