Canada's Slum - A Globe & Mail Perspective

The Globe & Mail is looking at the DTES - offering a riveting multi-media exploration of "Canada's Slum". The material is ... provocative. A good thing. Right?

We'd appreciate your on-line participation. If that's not your thing ... consider coming to ...

On March 24 at 7 p.m. PT, The Globe, in partnership with CTV and the University of British Columbia, will bring together experts with fresh solutions for the Downtown Eastside at a public forum at UBC’s Robson Square campus.

For tickets, call toll-free 1-866-545-0016

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Interested in learning more about social enterprise? Take a browse through the Vancouver Social Enterprise Book Store (Vancouver | United Kingdom | United States) and see what other social entrepreneurs recommend reading.

Tags for information about: for:vsef, Social Enterprise, Social Economy, DTES

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UN Agency Invites Pivot to Geneva

Very pleased to hear that Pivot's David Eby will be presenting to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE).

Here's Pivot's announcement:

A United Nations-funded housing rights agency has invited Pivot Legal Society lawyer David Eby to Geneva to make a presentation on the impacts of the 2010 Olympic Games on Vancouver’s most marginalized residents.

Eby’s presentation to the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) in mid June will be part of a larger workshop presenting final results from COHRE’s two-year study of the housing rights impact of international events, with a specific focus on the Olympic Games.

“I am honoured that this internationally recognized research agency has chosen Pivot to present on homelessness and the Games,” said Eby. “I will do my best to provide this international audience with a comprehensive report on Vancouver’s progress, or lack of progress on these issues.”

Eby has spent the last two years with Pivot studying the state of low-income housing in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Canada’s poorest urban neighbourhood. In 2006, he was co-lead author of Cracks in the Foundation, Pivot’s comprehensive study of housing issues facing low-income residents in Vancouver. In 2007, he was an editor of the Impact of the Olympics on Community Coalition’s Interim Report Card and is a member of the Board of that organization. Experts from the UN High Commission on Human Rights and UN-HABITAT are also scheduled to present.

“Given Vancouver’s experience with Expo ’86, I would have thought our governments would be more concerned,” said Eby, “but with just over two and a half years to go before the games, the affordable housing legacy promised in the bid process has yet to appear and through Civil City our city council is poised to harass and displace Vancouver’s most vulnerable citizens.”

Stops at the World Health Organization, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS are on Eby’s itinerary.

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Tags for information about: for:vsef, Social Economy, Housing, Pivot

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Pivot Launches Housing Solutions Contest

Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside provides low-income housing and a network of social services to more than 5,000 of the Vancouver’s poorest residents. However, the neighbourhood is facing rapid erosion of that housing as a result of development and gentrification pressures.

Today, Pivot Legal Society announced it will award $2,000 for the winning essay in a contest to find the best and most practical solutions to the housing crisis in Vancouver.

The top six papers, as judged by a panel of professional developers, government planners, and academics, will be published by Pivot in a Special Report on Housing Solutions for the Downtown Eastside. The report will be presented at a public meeting to discuss solutions to the housing crisis in Vancouver in the Fall of 2007.

According to one of the judges, SFU Professor, Nick Blomley, "Homelessness is one of the most challenging issues facing today's Vancouver. These essays will hopefully allow us to think outside the box a little, and offer practical as well as innovative ideas and solutions."

The housing solutions contest is looking specifically for policy proposals that:

have been implemented and are successful in other jurisdictions;

involve partnerships between government and developers; and,

respect the needs of the existing low-income community in the area and do not displace, either directly or indirectly, that community.

The essay contest deadline is Monday April 30, 2007. For more information about the contest, visit the Pivot online.

For more information call Pivot Legal Society on (604) 255-9700 or e-mail.

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Tags for information about: for:vsef, Social Economy, Nonprofit, Housing

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A Home of One's Own

Housing is an everyday news story in Vancouver. It's a story populated with groups ranging from Habit for Humanity to the more grassroots Anti-Poverty Committee.

So today's post at Social Catalyst, "Housing + Social Enterprise", got me thinking.

The post refers to Chris Hill's documentation of the opportunity available to UK housing associations to nurture the growth of social enterprise. The work is clear and concise with sectoral case studies.

Here's a link to Chris' document Enterprising Associations.

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Tags for information about: for:vsef, Social Economy, Nonprofit, Housing

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