[Canada] Poverty protesters take over empty building

from The Globe and Mail

SHANNON KARI

VANCOUVER -- About 20 people took over an abandoned building near city hall on the eve of what Mayor Sam Sullivan is billing as an announcement that will include concrete and immediate steps to address Vancouver's growing homeless crisis.

Squatters from an anti-poverty group took control of the low-rise, city-owned building yesterday afternoon in a peaceful protest.

It is the same group that occupied a building in the Downtown Eastside for a couple of days last month, in another homelessness-related demonstration.

Police blocked off the abandoned building at the intersection of Cambie and Broadway Streets, so no one else could go inside, but there were no immediate plans to evict the protesters.

"This is not an adversarial situation," Vancouver Police Sergeant Fiona Weller said.

The officer indicated that police were waiting for instructions from the city.

The abandoned building is scheduled for demolition as part of the continuing construction of the Canada Line rapid transit project.

Social-housing activist Kim Kerr of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association said the squat yesterday was not a protest against the police. He explained it was a protest against the policies of the municipal Non-Partisan Association party led by Mr. Sullivan.

"It is also an action to at least put some walls around some women who would otherwise be out in the street tonight," Mr. Kerr said.

There are at least 1,200 homeless people in the city of Vancouver, and a recent report issued by the Pivot Legal Society projected that the number could increase to more than 3,000 by 2010 because of a lack of affordable housing units.

City council and the mayor have been under increasing pressure to announce steps to combat the problem.

Mr. Sullivan issued a news release yesterday afternoon to say that he will be announcing new measures this morning to increase the number of shelter beds in the city.

The mayor indicated that he will address the need for emergency funding for the aging single-room residential hotels that house about 5,000 people in the Downtown Eastside.

The mayor is also promising to respond to recent comments by B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell related to homelessness.

The Premier promised to increase the provincial shelter allowance, in a speech last week at the annual convention of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities.

The increase will be announced in next year's provincial budget, although the Premier did not provide any details about how much it might rise.

The shelter allowance has remained at $325 a month since 1994 for a single person on social assistance. The provincial government lowered the shelter assistance in 2002 for families with three or more people.

The report issued by Pivot included a survey of dozens of the residential hotels in the Downtown Eastside and could find only one building that had any rooms available for $325 a month.

Advocates for social housing have also warned of an increase in buildings being converted to other forms of housing, such as student housing, so that owners can charge higher rents.

The Single Room Accommodation bylaw in Vancouver requires the owner of any building designated under the regulations to get approval from council and to pay up to $5,000 a unit before it can be converted to another form of housing.

The mayor spoke out publicly against the bylaw before it was enacted in 2003, when he was a councillor. Mr. Sullivan voted with the majority on a city council committee in September to defeat a motion to impose a moratorium on the conversion of any buildings designated under the bylaw.