VAMEOGUVER The First Unted Church at 320 East Hastings Street in Van- couver (that’s the corner of Gore and Hastings) has just published a report on the hous- ing crisis in Vancouver and its “impact on the Downtown Eastside area. It is a thoughtful yet hard-hitting report that pulls no punches, in keeping with the tradition of this particular church which doesn’t waste its time calling on people to repent their sins and reform, but rather has, since the days of the Hungry Thirties, functioned as a community service trying to make life better for the residents of the area. The report notes that in Van- couver, where 53 percent of all accommodation is rental, “‘in- creasingly people who could af- ford to pay affordable rents have begun to find that affor- dable rents are a rare and en- dangered, if not extinct, species”. With skyrocketing rents, tenants have become ““ur- ban ‘surfs’? at the mercy of landlords. Dealing with the Downtown Eastside area it notes the follow- ing: @ The Downtown Eastsideis the only area in the city where people on low incomes and social assistance can still find “affordable, if lousy, accom- modation.”’ , e@ In 1978 a housing study (DERA) found that there were **10,000 violations of city stand- ards of maintenance bylaws in 23 of the area’s approximately 100 hotels and rooming houses.” houses owners in the area are refusing to upgrade their premises and closing them down instead. @ The Downtown Eastside, next to the Dunbar area, is the most stable area in Vancouver, with the average length of residency a remarkable 13 years. @ Some hotel and rooming _ @ The population of the area has been declining steadily, hav- ing dropped 50 percent in the last 20 years. The United Church report says prime causes for this are the above average mortality rates of the area and the substandard housing ‘and poverty of the inhabitants. The report predicts that B.C. Place and the Trade and Con- vention Centre on Pier B.C. will ’ have a disastrous effect on the 2,000 residents in the Downtown Eastside. * Harry _ Rankin B.C. Place has now been ex- tended as far east as Pender Street. High density, luxury ac- commodation is to be built serv- ing mostly single or married adults with very few family units planned. The United Church "predicts that in preparation for Expo ’86, hotels and roooming houses in the Downtown Eastside area will evict their tenants, and upgrade their premises for the lucrative tourist trade that is expected. It expects that in the near future at least ~ 800 low and fixed income residents will be evicted! The Trade and Convention Centre, it suggests, will have a similar effect on the Downtown Eastside area and it castigates Grace McCarthy, minister of human resources, for her part in the project. ‘‘In the cast of Pier B.C.”’, the report says, ‘“‘in- asmuch as she is the prime mover behind the project as well as being the minister of human resources, there is a definite case of a conflict of interest for the current Minister. Her over- whelming concern for Pier B:C. and her underwhelming interest in what it will do to the lives of Will Downtown East be made into new high rent district? those in her care is already evi- dent.’’ The report also notes that “the Provincial Goverment is the one level of government that seems to be the most reluctant to do anything about providing af- fordable housing.” At this point I would like to say that all the evidence available points to the fact that the failure to build any substan- tial amount of low rental ac- commodation for the residents of the Downtown Eastside is no accident. Those who planned B.C. Place and Pier B.C. know that it will profoundly change the whole character of the Downtown Eastside and that the property owners there will make a killing as the area builds up into a hotel, office and high- rental housing area. Already _ condominimus are being built at Beatty and Pender and at 148 Alexander that will sell for up to $300,000! If the present. infla- tionary surge in housing con- tinues those condominimus ~ could soon sell for $500,000! The United Church is trying to do its part to counter this trend, by actively supporting the building of non-profit housing in the Downtown Eastside for the people who live there now. City council should do the _same. There. can be no moral justification for sacrificing the welfare and lives of 2,000 people just to promote the develop- ment schemes of the provincial government. Housing marchers hear appeals for militant action | Chanting ‘‘housing for people, not for profits,’’ 300 tenants, young and old, marched from Vancouver’s city hall, across the Cambie Street bridge, to the B.C. Place site Sunday, in a major show of strength by the tenants move- ment. Slogans on the numerous, color- ful picket signs and banners pointed to affordable housing, beefed-up rent controls, family-: oriented housing, a halt to demoli- tions and an end to real estate speculation, as the issues. that brought the marchers out. The Greater Vancouver Renters Association, which spearheaded - the action along with the Red Door Rental Aid Society, chose the pro- posed 60,000 seat stadium con- structin site at B.C. Place for the rally because it brought into focus the provincial government’s spen- ding priorities during the current housing crisis. “The present government is go- ing to pour $160 million into that shitty hole in the ground,’”” COPE alderman Harry Rankin charged, pointing across to it from the back of a flat-deck truck. He reminded the'rally that the bridge they had just walked over will be replaced to service the sta- dium traffic, *‘and they are going to ask us to ante up between $50 . million and $80 million for it.”” - Dispelling illusions that the pré- sent city council, provincial or federal government were going to” change their spending priorities to meet social needs, he said ‘‘the only way to get housing built is by get- ting rid of the bastards. ‘And you may not realize it yet, but you have massive allies,’’ he added. ‘‘The housing crisis is work- ing its way up the social ladder; not just the poor are hurting.”’ B.C. Place has been the location ‘for two demonstrations by tenants in as many weeks. Last week, dur- ing the official dedication ceremonies, GVRA president Tom . Lalonde denounced Premier Ben- - nett from the guest platform the premier had invited him to share — for five minutes. Lalonde delivered the same message Sunday, criticizing the premier and his government for — ‘‘not building a single unit of social — housing while thinking nothing of _ building multi-million dollar monuments to themselves.”’ He underlined Rankin’s conten- | tion that tenants would have to — become far more organized in br- inging effective pressure to bear on the government, and pledged that the GVRA will be going before city — council “‘every week if necessary” to win demolition controls, and will organize ‘Shuman picket lines to stand between the bulldozers and the people who refuse to be — moved.”’ ; 3 “NDP MP and federal housing critic Margaret Mitchell proposed four steps the various levels of * government could take to solve the © housing crisis. “First, they could keep publicly-_ owned land and make it available for public housing, rather than sell it off. “And they can start right here, with the land we are standing on,” she added. She also called for the reviving of — a public housing corporation, .4 double tax on real estate specula- © tion and measures to be taken in : curbing excessive bank profits. ‘Interest rates should be brought down, and banks should be made to cough up their profits _ and put them into inexpensive mor- tgages for first time home buyers.” _ Other speakers included NDP MLA Colin Gableman, Red Door ‘director Pat McLain, Ellen Woodsworth from the YWCA housing registry and Kathy Hunter from the Welfare Rights Coalition Phil Vernon and Michael Pratt entertained with tenant protest — songs. ribune readers have long known that the Trudeau Liberal government is remote — and more often than not, aloof — from the problems of working people but the comments of consumer and corporate affairs minister An- dre Ouellet in confirming that fact are incredible. Last month, when he was asked to meet May 25 with a delega- tion to Ottawa from Women Rising Prices, he refused, claiming that he was ‘‘too busy with a project on the law of convergence.”’ Asa result, the lobby to Ottawa, which will be bolstered by representatives from La Ligue des Femmes in Quebec and from the group in this province, Consumers Against Rising Prices, will take place June 16. Already an estimated 50,000 cards demanding that the federal govern- ment roll back food prices have beén sent to the prime minister. ee _ Certainly the increases in food prices demonstrate the urgency of government action. According to official figures from Statistics Canada, the and the June figures have not yet been released. But accor- ding to the Tribune’s own price check — based on food prices at a major east Vancouver supermarket — the rate is much higher. — - As we announced earlier in the year, we are conducting a Unlike the StatsCan survey, however, which is based on an area average of prices, our survey is intended to reflect more closely the experience of working people who have to go to the same store ¢ach week to get their groceries. When we checked the prices June 1, the cost of our basket of goods had risen from the May 1 level of $49.77 to $50.88 — an increase in one month of 2.2 percent. That works out to over 25 percent annually. ta annual rate of inflation is already nearing 14 percent —’ monthly check on prices for a 30-item basket of goods. . Statisticians would undoubtedly raise any number of arguments for the increases — lateness in local vegetable crops, shortages of peanuts, pushing peanut butter prices up, and so on — but the fact remains that people are pay- ing the highest prices ever for food. - Ouellet should find some time to do something about it when the lobby arrives in Ottawa June 16. + Sek WwW; had a note last week from Max Shoebottom, a long time Tribune supporter from Gibson’s — and enclos- ed with the note was a fascinating piece of history. The accompanying Liberty Bond was issued by the Workers’ Defence Fund in November, 1919 as part of the: extensive defence campaign organized on behalf of the hundreds of workers arrested and indicted in the after- math of the Winnipeg General Strike. Several thousand such bonds were issued in the campaign which was endors- ed by the Winnipeg Trades and Labor Council, the Central Labor Council of the One Big Union, the Soldiers and | Sailors’ Labor Party, the Winnipeg Branch of the Domi- } nion Labor Party and the Labor Church. ‘ This particular bond was issued to Shoebottom’s wife, Ida Helen Inglis, who contributed to the defence fund asa | young woman. Like Max, she was a supporter of the Tribune and the ' progressive movement until her death in January of this year. * * * e were very glad to hear that Rita Tanche, the business manager of the paper from 1953 to 1957, anda leading fund-raiser virtually every year since, is now out of inten- sive care in Peace Arch District Hospital after narrowly averting a stroke. Cas She was rushed to hospital last Friday and spent the next three days in the intensive care unit but when we saw her Monday, she was resting comfortably, waiting for her blood pressure to come down in order to get on with her activities. At this time of year, that invariably means rais- ing money for the Tribune drive —'and she has already turned in well over $1,000. : § We join with many others in wishing her a speedy recovery. * * { W hen Communist Party provincial leader Maurice Rush returned last week from a lecture tour of the German. ’ Democratic Republic which he undertook on behalf of the Canadian CP, he found himself literally ‘‘removed from office.’’ In his absence the CP provincial executive decided to relocate the party’s provincial offices from 193 East Hastings St. to new premises at 2747 East Hastings St., Vancouver. The move will be effective July 1. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 5, 1981—Page 2 - | ] } i