Olympic | Village | Tent | City

‘Rally for Housing, Take Back our Village’ | Saturday Feb 26, 12pm Noon | Meet at Pantages Theatre (Main and Hastings), march to Olympic Village

In the midst of a housing shortage and affordability crisis, community groups are redoubling efforts to secure the promised affordable units at the Olympic Village. The 2005 SEFC Official Development Plan promised that 66% of the units would be affordable. Today that number has been reduced to less than 10% while a majority of the promised units remain empty, awaiting to be sold. 

In the lead-up to February 2011, the one-year anniversary of the Olympic Tent Village established at 58 West Hastings, our campaign will work to attain a moratorium on the sale of the promised units by use of petitioning, letter-writing, condo boycott campaign, squats, and other strategies.

On February 26th, community groups will establish a Tent City at the Athletes’ Village under a general call to “Reclaim Housing.”  In the second week of the tent city, if the sell-off of promised units continues, residents of the tent village may expand the direct-action by occupying the empty units and/or City Hall.

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TAKE BACK OUR VILLAGE – FEB 26

TAKE BACK OUR VILLAGE!
A Rally with all our neighbours and allies to support the 10 Sites Campaign and the Olympic Village Tent City!
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Stop the Sell-off!
Reclaim Housing!
Not One More Condo!

WHEN: Saturday, FEBRUARY 26th 2011, NOON
WHERE: Start at Pantages Theatre, 152 E. Hastings (South West corner of Main and Hastings), Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Coast Salish Territory.
Organized by: Tent City Council
Endorsed by: Van.act, Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council, Transformative Communities Project Society

*Support the 10-Sites Campaign to secure 10 sites in the DTES for resident-controlled social housing before the municipal elections of 2011.*
*Support the reclamation of housing at the Olympic Village by protesting the sell-off and establishing the Olympic Village Tent City.*

We Demand:
1. Resident-controlled 100% social housing for ALL unsold units at the Olympic Village.
2. The purchase of a minimum 10 sites per year in the Downtown Eastside, and the creation of resident controlled 100% social housing on all those sites.
3. An END to the criminalization of poverty by immediately abolishing Project Civil City, overturning anti-street vending by-laws and all anti-poor discriminatory legislation and by raising welfare rates.

All over the city, residents are being pushed out of their neighborhoods, whether it be the West End, Mount Pleasant, or Chinatown/Downtown Eastside. People are being forced into poverty as Vancouver becomes one of the most unaffordable places in the world. Others are being pushed out the bottom and onto the streets. Homelessness in Vancouver has tripled in less than a decade while the City responds by hiring more police and criminalizing the poor.

The rising costs of housing, the lack of social housing, accelerated gentrification, and years of aggressive cuts to public services have created a crisis in Vancouver and across British Columbia. At the same time, Downtown Eastside properties are under intense speculation from uncontrolled development and the city has not taken action to buy property for member-run social housing. Condos are outpacing social housing development in the DTES at a rate of 3:1 between 2005 and 2011 and no social housing is planned for the DTES after 2013.

Meanwhile, the affordable housing component of the Athletes Village has been reduced from a planned and promised 66% to less than 10%. The units promised to the poor and working poor remain empty and unsellable, but the city refuses to allow anyone but the richest to call them home. On February 17th, Bob Rennie and the City relaunched their condo sales campaign at the Olympic Village for the third time, trying to offload promised social housing in a bid to sell “60 condos in 60 days.” The Take Back our Village Rally will protest the social housing sell-off and launch the upcoming Feb 26 tent city, a direct action to reclaim the site.

The Rally will begin at Pantages Theatre, which has stood empty for years while investor owners allowed it to decay. Investors now plan to build a massive condo development at the site, a gentrification bomb in Heart of the Downtown Eastside community. The 10 Sites Campaign will fight to secure land for much need social housing in the neighbourhood.

Contact information:
Email: tentcity2011@gmail.com
Phone: 604 700 2309
For a backgrounder on housing at the athletes village see: http://falsecreekpromises.wordpress.com
Facebook: join us at ‘Olympic Villlage Tent City, Feb 2011’ and ‘Take Back our Village’