HOMELESSNESS

GENERAL
“The Olympic Games have displaced more than 2 million people in the last 20 years, disproportionately affecting minorities such as the homeless, the poor, Roma and African-Americans.”
(Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions, www.cohre.org)

“[A]pproximately 300,000 people have been evicted, to date [2007], in New Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.”
(Fair Play for Housing Rights; Olympic Games & Housing Rights, p. 12)

In a 2007 report on the impact of ‘hallmark’ events, and Olympic Games in particular, the Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions (COHRE) stated:
“Hosting of the Olympic Games requires host cities to develop important infrastructure. This requirement, along with gentrification processes… usually result in drastic changes in a city’s urban plan, and lead to people losing their homes, facing increased poverty, the loss of community, and even violence.”
(Fair Play for Housing Rights, p. 15)

Major examples of Olympic displacement and evictions include Seoul 1998 and Atlanta in ‘96. Atlanta is discussed below as a case study.
In Seoul, South Korea:
“Preparations for the 1988 Olympic Games involved large-scale forced evictions from urban areas, Olympic sites and torch relay routes. During the 5 years preceding the Olympic Games, 48,000 buildings housing 720,000 people were destroyed for redevelopment… The practice of forced evictions became more frequent and more violent as a direct result of the city’s preparations to host the Olympic Games.”
(Fair Play for Housing Rights, p. 79)

Most forced evictions were carried out by private security personnel and hired thugs. Large protests and sometimes battles erupted, at times resulting in fatalities, as tenants resisted evictions. The peak of these evictions occurred in 1986. One of the groups organized to fight evictions was the Urban Poor Peoples Movement, a coalition of pro-democracy, labor, students, intellectuals, and journalists, etc. A documentary entitled Sanggyedong Olympics was made, which documents one community in Seoul and their efforts to resist evictions, their fights with hired thugs & riot police, the destruction of their homes, and continued harassment after buying a plot of land to erect temporary shelters on that happened to be along the route for the Olympic torch relay.

Other recent Olympics with large-scale evictions & displacement of poor include Barcelona 1992, Sydney 2000, and Athens 2006. Those most affected were minority groups, such as Roma and Indigenous. The largest Olympic displacement is currently occurring in Beijing, China, site of the 2008 Summer Olympics:
“In the lead up to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, COHRE estimates that over 1.25 million people already have been displaced due to Olympic-related urban redevelopment, with at least another quarter of a million displacements expected in the year prior to the staging of the event.”
(Fair Play for Housing Rights, p. 11)

VANCOUVER & EXPO 86
Vancouver itself has some previous experience with urban displacement & evictions from hosting Expo 86, also referred to as the World Trade & Fair Exhibition:
“The announcement of Vancouver as host city for the 1986 World’s Fair created a market for land speculation in neighborhoods that bordered the site. Landlords evicted between 500 & 850 people in order to use their units to accommodate tourists for the fair. Most evictees were unemployed, elderly, poor, and either handicapped or in a poor state of health… In addition, between 1,000 & 2,000 low income lodging house units were lost to demolition or conversion to non-residential uses, while 1,150 residential hotel units were lost in the few years following the Expo, as the Pacific Place, a giant mixed-use development, was constructed on the Expo site.”
(Fair Play for Housing Rights, p. 25)

Not only did Expo 86 transform a large section of the downtown area at the expense of low-income housing, it also created an improved climate for corporate investment and to greatly expand BC’s tourist industry.

VANCOUVER & DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE

Conditions
The struggle over housing rights & homelessness, which expanded into a larger anti-Olympics opposition in 2003 and after, is centered largely on the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver. It has involved hundreds of forums, protests, and direct action by community groups and residents over the years.
The area is often referred to as the ‘poorest postal code’ in Canada, and has one of the highest poverty rates in N. America. Nearly 75% of residents live below the poverty line, compared to the Vancouver average of 25%. Approximately 15,000 people live here, with an estimated 30 % being Indigenous. Thousands of those living in the DTES have mental health and/or addiction problems. Many of these are among the city’s 2,500 homeless people. The population of the DTES is largely concentrated into ten square city blocks. The DTES is internationally renown for its poverty and social dysfunction. There is also a large number of bars and low-income hotels.

Expo 86
In 1986, Vancouver hosted Expo 86, an international trade fair that caused the closure of many low-income hotels on what would become the Expo site, located just a few blocks away from the DTES. The area underwent massive demolition & construction. The first section of the Skytrain transit system was built for Expo 86. The site also included BC Place stadium, Science World, and large numbers of temporary pavilions. Hundreds of thousands of tourists attended.
As many as 850 people were evicted in the 2-3 years leading up to Expo 86, with as many as 2,000 single-room accommodations being lost in the process. In 2006, PIVOT lawyer David Eby stated the supply of such housing had
“ …dropped to about 5,000 rooms from 13,000 prior to Expo 86, which saw a wave of evictions to make way for more expensive shelter.”
(Maurice Bridge, “Hotel evictions threaten housing for poor, society says,” The Vancouver Sun, August 16, 2006)

As a result of Expo 86, many community, housing, and service provider groups mobilized over the issue of gentrification and its impact on the poor & homeless. Some protests occurred, including a month-long squat of an old BC Hydro-owned building. Opposition to Expo 86 was difficult to organize, however, as government & corporate organizers funneled millions into arts, culture and community groups (creating co-optation & division). While corporate investment increased in the city & region, the situation in the DTES rapidly declined into the ‘90s.

1990’s & Decline
Contributing factors to decline in the DTES include: the impact of Expo 86 & the social dislocation it caused; the influx of new money & business, including criminal organizations, resulting in an expanding drug import market by the early ‘90s (heroin & cocaine); and the closure of institutions for people with mental health problems (i.e., Riverview). In 1994, the NDP government also initiated large cuts to welfare. The result was a growing number of homeless, mental health patients, and drug addicts, who began to concentrate in the only region of the city where there are services, shelters, cheap drugs, etc., for the poor.

Drugs & HIV
Throughout the 1990s, the DTES gained international headlines for the large numbers of heroin overdose deaths, with hundreds occurring every year (by 1998, there was on average one death a day from ODs). Related to widespread drug addiction & overdose deaths was the problem of infection from AIDS or Hepatitis (from either sharing dirty needles or having unsafe sex). Community groups and service providers responded to this human crisis with education and services. Today, one-fourth of the population of the DTES is believed to be HIV positive (the highest rate of infection in N. America). Along with crack cocaine, heroin, & methamphetamine, a longstanding addiction problem in the DTES is alcoholism, enabled by the large number of bars in the area.

Missing & Murdered Women
The Vancouver DTES has also become well known for the cases of over 65 Missing & Murdered Women (predominantly Native). The situation became a hi-profile case after the number of missing women continued to grow into the late ‘90s (beginning in the early 1980s). In the early 1990s, grassroots Native women began organizing an annual march on Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, to honour those missing or murdered in the DTES and to raise awareness around the issue.
In 2003, Robert Pickton, a pig farmer in a suburban area of Vancouver, was finally charged with 26 of these murders after a lengthy and incompetent investigation by a Vancouver Police-RCMP task force. Throughout 2007, the trial of Robert Pickton for six of these killings took place in New Westminster (a suburb of Vancouver). In December 2007, Pickton was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no eligibility of parole for 25 years. He is to be tried on the remaining 20 charges at a later date.
Many of the prostitutes in the DTES are drug-addicted young women, with a high percentage of Native or Metis. Some prostitutes are as young as 11 years old. Prostitution in the area increased during the 1980s as nearby neighborhoods, including West Vancouver and Burnaby, forced prostitutes out. Many moved into the DTES and nearby industrial areas. This is believed to have contributed to the increased rates of violence prostitutes have faced throughout the ‘90s (and today).
In early January 2008, another man was charged with murdering women, most involved in the sex-trade in suburban areas of Vancouver. Mato Butorac, a 29-year old resident of Aldergrove , was charged with two murders and is suspected of killing others. In response to his arrest, women’s groups that work with sex-trade workers emphasized the fact that just because Pickton’s been arrested and convicted doesn’t mean that violence & killing of women has stopped.

Social Movements & Police
In 2002, a movement for social housing grew around the planned demolition of the Woodwards department store, located in the DTES. Vacant for years, the Woodwards building was occupied on Sept. 14, 2002, by homeless & community activists, demanding that any new development be social housing. On Sept. 21, the first eviction occurred involving scores of police, who arrested 54 squatters. The struggle around Woodwards continued into December, with more arrests and evictions of squatters occurring. Many see this campaign as being a starting point for housing struggles and against the 2010 Olympics, for which Vancouver was then in the bid process.
At the center of this urban ghetto sits the Vancouver Police station at Main & Hastings. Their presence in the DTES is clearly not effective at maintaining ‘law & order’. Vancouver police have come under intense public criticism, as well as investigation, for many high profile cases of abuse, assaults, and deaths caused by officers.
An important contributing factor to these revelations of systemic police abuse was grassroots community organizing around the issue, including the collection of over 50 affidavits by the PIVOT Legal Society in 2003. In November 2007, a new Vancouver police chief—Jim Chu—publicly apologized for the conduct of officers. Meanwhile, former chief Jamie Graham remains under investigation for failing to cooperate with an external investigation by the RCMP into the PIVOT allegations.
Among the most controversial cases involving police misconduct are the December 2004 shooting death of Gerald Chenery, a 29-yeard old Nisga’a shot 9 times by rookie police in a back alley near Main & Hastings, and the December 1998 death of Frank Paul, a homeless Mik’maq who died of exposure after police dragged him out of a detox and left him in a back alley. Due to grassroots community organizing, an inquest was finally held into Paul’s death in the fall of 2007/Winter 2008.

As a result of these and earlier struggles (i.e., Expo 86), as well as social conditions, the DTES has both a highly politicized as well as dysfunctional community.

The DTES borders Gastown, a tourist district of the Vancouver waterfront. International tourists shop in expensive stores & restaurants, including Native art galleries, while one block over people are literally dying from AIDS, Hepatitis, alcoholism, drug addiction, and violence. With some 30 % of the population in the DTES Native, a lot of these people are also Natives. The disparity in wealth between the colonized and the colonizer could not be more obvious (yet somehow still not acknowledged).

2010 & Homelessness
Since Vancouver-Whistler was announced as host city for the 2010 Winter Olympics in 2003, Vancouver has experienced large-scale evictions and dislocation of urban poor. This has dramatically increased homelessness.
According to PIVOT Legal Society, the number of homeless in 2002 was just over 620. This nearly doubled to 1,291 by 2005 (estimates on the numbers of homeless are generally considered low). At the same time, hundreds of low-income Single Room Occupancy (SRO) units have been lost in the Downtown Eastside (DTES). Most were hotels forced to close either by owners seeking to demolish or renovate them into upscale hotels for the Olympic/tourist industry, or by City council forcing the closure of buildings that violated fire, health or safety codes.
According to the PIVOT, over 800 people lost their low-income SRO units between June 2003 and June 2006 (Mathew Burrows, “Low-wage housing squeezed,” The Georgia Straight, July 13, 2006). These figures do not include those evicted due to rent increases.
At the same time, there has been an increase in the number of homeless women:
“According to the 2005 GVRD [Greater Vancouver Regional District] Homelessness Count, there has been an increase of 60 % in the number of homeless women since the 2002 count.”
(“Women’s Center shelter extended to July,” Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP Newsletter, Apr 1, 2007)

Housing advocacy groups such as the Downtown Resident’s Association (DERA), Carnegie Communisty Action Project, political organizations such as the Anti-Poverty Committee (APC), and legal groups such as PIVOT, have opposed hotel closures by both owners and the city, citing the urgent need for more low-income social housing (not less).

In 2007, the city estimated the homeless population in downtown Vancouver at 2,000 (PIVOT claims this number to be at least 2,500). It is projected that the number of homeless by 2010 will be as high as 6,000.

Housing rights groups have condemned the practice of ‘slum-lords’ allowing buildings to deteriorate, only to sell them for their property value while ruthlessly evicting residents. In this process, the city is seen as enabling hotel owners to close down buildings rather than enforcing existing legislation. This legislation imposes fines on owners who seek to renovate, while forcing owners to maintain their buildings, which would limit evictions by owners and those ordered by city officials.
According to APC,
“In most cases the city and police have acted as the landlords’ eviction service, brutally expelling residents from their homes. In the Burns Block, hotel tenants who had lived in the building for 30 years were displaced with less than 30 minutes notice. The reason cited by the city was faulty fire alarms—a by-law infraction that could easily have been repaired by the city at the expense of the slum lord.”
(APC Spring 2007 newsletter)

Housing Struggles 2006-07
In 2006, APC began a hi-profile campaign involving rallies in the streets, at hotels facing evictions, at city hall, etc. They also occupied several empty hotels & buildings as political squats to draw attention to the issue, resulting in over 25 arrests from October to December 2006.
On October 26, APC members occupied the abandoned North Star hotel at 5 W. Hastings (six later arrested). On Oct. 31, APC members occupied an empty building near City Hall, demanding it be turned into a women’s shelter. On Nov. 1, over two dozen riot police were sent in to arrest seven of the protesters (previously, 3 were arrested trying to deliver food to those occupying the building).
A Nov. 20 protest at the Vancouver Public Library by city councilors was shut down by APC members, who forced their way past security & police (3 subsequently arrested). On Dec 10, six APC members were arrested after building a makeshift shelter outside an empty government building at Gore & Hastings.
At the same time (November-December 2006), women at the Downtown Eastside Women’s Center (DEWC) began an occupation of their own government-funded institution to raise awareness abut the need for women’s housing, and at the same time to provide shelter to dozens of women during a severe cold spell.

These protests had a big impact on the city & region due to their high profile and public nature, gaining extensive media coverage & raising awareness around both homelessness and the impact of 2010. Although APC was a main recipient of this media coverage, it also paid a price in over 25 arrests being made of their members, as well as increased police surveillance and harassment.

As a result of this ongoing pressure from housing & community groups in the DTES, Vancouver City council, the BC government, as well as VANOC officials, all pledged to take renewed action and to improve social housing in the city. This included government announcements of major reforms and concessions regarding housing & the homeless.
In February 2007, the BC province increased welfare rates by 20 per cent (up to $100/month), and the shelter allowance by $50 (to $375/month). Despite this, welfare in Vancouver remains one of the most difficult in Canada to claim, with an application process & standards designed to deter and exclude many from eligibility.
APC continued to organize protests and played a large role in the Feb. 12, 2007, anti-Olympic ‘Countdown Clock’ protest in downtown Vancouver, during which 3 Natives and 4 APC members were arrested.
Seven days later, on Feb 19, the APC Women’s Committee occupied the office of BC Finance Minister Carole Taylor for several hours, the day before the provincial budget was to be announced. Their demands included immediate funding for women’s low-income housing. Five females were arrested.
On March 12, some 200 protesters disrupted another VANOC event, a public ‘illumination’ of the Olympic flags flying at City Hall. The ceremony was overshadowed by the protest and heavy police presence, including crowd-control fencing, riot police, mounted cops, a helicopter, etc.
A week before this protest (on March 6), members of the Native Warrior Society had stolen the Olympic flag flying at City Hall. Days later, they released a statement that included a photo of three masked persons in front of the giant Olympic flag holding a Warrior Flag.
Although having no relation to the NWS, Vancouver police raided the offices of the Downtown Resident’s Association (DERA) on March 29, allegedly acting on a tip the stolen flag was there. They left after an hour later, empty-handed. DERA called the raid a “political attack” against the “work of APC & DERA around the issue of housing in Vancouver” (“Police raid DERA office, DERA Newsletter, April 2007)
During the month of March, the NPA, the Non-Partisan Association, the governing party in Vancouver, also launched a campaign to undermine DERA politically & economically. NPA councilor’s Peter Ladner and Kim Capri lead a smear campaign against DERA, alleging that DERA staff members had threatened the safety of councilor Capri during a protest. Ladner also lead a campaign to have DERA’s funding cut; as a result, money was cut resulting in the closing down of a Chinese seniors program.
In April 2007, the BC government paid $37 million for 10 SRO hotels in the downtown eastside. This did not create new housing, but instead retained low-income housing in danger of being renovated for condos or backpacker hostels. These 10 SRO hotels, however, are to be renovated in order to become housing institutions for the hard-to-house, managed by non-profit agencies such as the Salvation Army. Almost a year later, the buildings remain empty.
On May 16, 2007, APC organized a protest at VANOC headquarters during a board meeting. The building is located in an industrial area of east Vancouver. APC hired a school bus to transport people from the DTES, early in a weekday afternoon. Approx. 40 people showed up. Over 100 police, including a crowd control unit (riot cops), dogs, crowd-control fencing, and helicopters, provided security for VANOC (dubbed ‘Fort Vanoc’ by media).
On May 19/07, APC organizer Dave Cunningham was arrested for ‘uttering threats’ during the May 14 rally, when he had announced APC’s intention to begin evicting VANOC officials from their homes & offices. His arrest involved police posing as a reporter from a local newspaper (many journalists condemned the practice).
On May 22/07, Ken Dobell (VANOC board member & advisor to premier Campbell) was ‘evicted’ when three APC members gained access to his office in downtown Vancouver posing as a flower delivery ‘team’. They began removing furniture and office equipment until police arrived. All three were arrested as local TV media filmed the incident.

In June 2007, BC Housing Minister Rich Coleman warned the people of the DTES of impending changes, stating:
“The downtown Eastside is going to have to change. Over time, it frankly needs to disperse its problems out of that one particular area of the city.”
(John Bermingham, “Coleman touts new strategy for eastside,” The Province, June 24, 2007)

Coleman is also reported to have said:
“The eventual answer for the homeless of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is relocation—to another BC community. Towns in the Fraser Valley and the Interior offer a better chance at an escape from the addiction cycle that leads to homeless…”
(The Province, June 24, 2007)

Along this line, the government has been publicly contemplating the use of former military bases & camps in the BC interior as ‘detox’ centers, as well as collecting Air Miles donations to fly convicted persons back to their province of origin (similar to Atlanta’s ‘Homeward Bound’ relocation effort of homeless during the ’96 Olympics).
In the Fall of 2007, new Vancouver Police chief Jim Chu announced a plan to return people wanted in other provinces on criminal charges. They would be flown back with frequent flyer points donated by businesses. In Canada, many lesser charges are classified as ‘non-returnable warrants’ for which it is not worth transporting a suspect to stand trial. In 2008, Vancouver police began a pilot project targeting some 2,500 suspects wanted in other provinces.

In October 2007, Coleman announced plans to build 1,200 low-income units, estimated to cost $300 million. At the same time, BC premier Gordon Campbell announced a new $41 million housing program, including provisions to keep emergency shelters open 24-hours a day. Critics responded that there wasn’t any new housing or shelters in this. In fact, many of these announcements are viewed with cynicism. One reported noted the rationale for government efforts to appear to be tackling the housing problem:
“With the world’s attention on its way to Vancouver for the Winter Games in 2010, and the shortage of social housing an increasingly volatile issue in BC, the announcement is another move by Campbell to try to show his Liberal government can… deal with the housing challenge.”
(Johnathon Fowlie, “Homeless shelters to open all day, premier announces,” The Vancouver Sun, October 13, 2007)

The timing of these new government initiatives may have been designed to lessen the impact of grassroots community organizing, along with the visit of a United Nations Special Rapporteur on housing. Community groups had declared October 15-21, 2007, as ‘Homeless Action Week’. Forums, protests, an attempted squat, and a tent city were established.
During this time, UN Special Rapporteur for housing, Miloon Kothari, toured Canada for two weeks on a fact-finding mission regarding homelessness, Aboriginal housing, women’s housing, and the impact of 2010 on Vancouver. As part of his tour, Kothari visited cities such as Montreal, Ottawa, Edmonton, as well as reserves such as Kahnawake and the Lubicon in northern Alberta.
During Kothari’s visit to Vancouver, during Homeless Action Week in mid-October, he described the situation in the DTES as both a major crisis and “very disturbing,” a ‘national emergency’. He stated:
“It’s quite clear that there’s a major housing crisis here in Vancouver… What is striking to me is the fact that you have such incredible wealth and prosperity [referring to Gastown] that’s just a few blocks away from so much poverty and social problems...
“It’s glaringly apparent in Vancouver that for quite some time… successive governments have failed to create the housing that is necessary. You have legacy of misguided government policy that has led to this massive crisis in housing and homelessness.”
(Carlito Pablo, “UN examines homelessness,” The Georgia Straight, Oct. 18, 2007)

Kothari urged Olympic & city officials to commit funding & resources to build 3,200 units of low-income housing. In a meeting with Kothari, members of the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) made more headlines when they requested UN intervention and assistance into the DTES.
On October 14, 2007, APC attempted a repeat of its Fall 2006 squat campaign. Once again announcing a large public squat was to occur (a tactic which had worked twice before), APC were caught off guard when police arrested six members sent in the night prior as an advance team to secure an abandoned building (the Burns Block). Large numbers of police and security guards filled the DTES the next day, guarding empty buildings.
The next day, a Christian group called ‘Streams of Justice’ set up a tent city in a vacant block on the 900-block of Main Street, enduring heavy rains until voluntarily removing it on Oct. 21(ending the week of action).
In November, 2007, the DTES once again drew international media attention when US TV news journalist Dan Rather arrived to do a story about the ghetto conditions of the area.
On January 16, 2008, members of the Impact on Communities Coalition publicly express their frustration attempting to meet & liaison with VANOC & Olympic officials over a period of several years, and warn that they should expect a wave of protests from more radical groups. Am Johal, founder of the liberal Olympic watchdog group IOCC, stated:
“I think the relationship that has deteriorated with Vanoc over time has created a climate where groups that aren’t seeing results on the ground are resorting to more radical tactics… I think we’re going to see some first nations and environmental groups engaged in disruptive protest activities.”
(“Expect a wave of protests, Vanoc told,” by Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun, January 17, 2008)

Rob Van Wynsberghe, chairman of IOCC, said the group might have been “naïve” to believe the Olympics would provide some form of meaningful social sustainability legacy (like low-income housing). Johal later stated that,
“From my personal perspective, meeting with Vanoc has largely been a waste of time, given what the expectations were… I, personally, don’t have any reason to meet with them again. I view these years that have gone by as a missed opportunity” (Vancouver Sun, January 17, 2008).

The IOCC was formed while Vancouver prepared to bid on the Games, produced recommendations on limiting the negative effects of 2010 (in August 2002), and participated in many VANOC sponsored forums. Many in the radical anti-2010 movement saw them as a false opposition group, set up to co-opt resistance and legitimize VANOC.

On January 23, 2008, Governor-General Michaelle Jean visited Vancouver during a mayor’s conference and toured the Downtown Eastside, where she and city councilor Elizabeth Ball, surrounded by police and RCMP, were heckled by a crowd of protesters. The Governor-General is reported as being “saddened” and later cancels a media address. Mayor Sam Sullivan, who was to accompany the tour, cancelled at the last moment.
Later in the evening while the Governor-General was attending an arts & cultural event in the area, a man is tasered out on the street by Vancouver Police, who claim he assaulted a cop and was high on cocaine. The next day, the Governor-General cuts short a planned six-day visit of BC and returns to Ontario. The reception given the G-G receives national media headlines, and highlights the conditions of the DTES.

Sources

Fair Play for Housing Rights; Olympic Games & Housing Rights, Centre on Housing Rights & Evictions, www.cohre.org

Inside the Olympic Industry; Power, Politics and Activism, by Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, State University of New York Press, Albany NY 2000