July 1, 2015 carnegie newsletter

CaEEi1nSe 路路ie t1.2015 NEW S LE TT ER路 401 Main Street, Vancouver

V6A 2T7 604-665路2289

Left to right: Sandy MacKeigan, Michael Narducioni, Paul Taylor, Yasushi Kurashima, Sharon Belli.

Below is Mr. Yasushi Kurashima's speech in English.

Thank you very much for publishing my comments on your January 2015 issue. Since then, I have been receiving a lot of thank-yous from Oppenheimer Park patrons.

I also would like to say thank you to Oppenheimer Park staff and the Carnegie Community Centre Association. I feel very fortunate to be in

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Canada and receive a pension from the Canadian government. Thanks to this financial backup, I could continue volunteering.

Please accept my donation not only from myself, but also from the Canadian government as I've saved up my pension to support your cause.

[Kurashima-san is too formal.. This gentle man is Yasushi to everyone & he loves to volunteer. His thanks for the simple respect shown him by people here makes us all glad. Ed.]

Carnegie Community

Centre

Director's Annual Report:

Reporting year- June 1, 2014¡ May 31, 2015

The last year has seen great upheaval in the neighbourhood as we all struggled with the effects of gentrification and the consequent loss of a number of SRO rooms available to low income residents. We all fear losing the neighbour hood to development and at the same time have experienced pressure to support our neighbours who are homeless even when their situation infringes on the enjoyment of a peaceful community. The encampment at Oppenheimer Park called on us all to be supportive and kind with those who insisted on the right to a home and, in the end, through the cooperative actions of many; the residents there were housed in decent lodging.

In 2014, Camegie Community Centre provided social, cultural, educational & recreational programs & a variety of direct services to the community. 5536 patrons purchased their $1 annual membership to the Centre. Other patrons freely accessed the Centre, at no cost. There are approximately 2000 visits each day by patrons accessing programs, services, low cost meals or simply enjoying the Centre as the "living room of the DTES" The Carnegie Outreach Team played a pivotal role in finding homes for the tenters at Oppenheimer Park. They oversaw the tenanting of interim housing at 1535 Howe St., found housing for most of the winter shelter residents and continued to provide support to others who are homeless to find income and housing. In total they housed approximately 600 people in this period. .

The Volunteer Program At any given time there are 400 active volunteers! In 2014 volunteers contributed 60,000 hours of program support, including 25,000 hours of kitchen work. The majority of volunteers are local residents and patrons ofthe Centre. Volunteers are the reason we are able to provide most ofthe services we do. In February, 2015, the Volunteer program took on the stewardship of the Seniors Coffee Seller Program. This has been a very productive partnership as the Volunteer Coordinators are generous with their support of volunteers and very tuned in to what their work consists of. They have also put together a new set of guidelines for supplies management and did a mammoth cleanup of the storage areas.

Computer Lab - Entirely run by volunteers, the computer lab has been upgraded by the Vancouver Public Library with all new equipment. The lab offers access to computers for members of the centre for personal & work-related use. It is on a sign up basis, available for one hour per visit and, like other areas of the centre, it is much needed and missed ifnot available. Thanks to our dedicated volunteers this is seldom the case. There were approximately • 37,000 visits to the computer lab in 2014.

The Kitchen is the heart of the Carnegie Centre and could not offer its huge contribution without the support of the volunteer base. In 2014 the kitchen served a total of256,320 customers, approximately 720 people per day. As well as providing three hot meals, soup, sandwiches and baked items daily, the kitchen staff and volunteers also catered for over 300 programs and events. 2014 saw the addition of "Lunch with the Chief, a popular interactive lunch with local residents, patrons ofCarnegie and members of the VPD including the current chief. The kitchen continues to support the many people in the neighborhood who have struggled with mental health &/or addiction and have found that volunteering in the kitchen and belonging to the DTES community has been a dynamic part of their recovery.

Arts Programming, In 2014 regular ongoing programming included jazz band, ballroom dancing, writers groups, Chinese choir, Carnegie Choir, cabaret, music jam, popular and documentary movie nights, poetry night, karaoke nights, monthly live band dance, women's gatherings, sewing circle and Art Room workshops & drop-in were ongoing. Workshops this year included flamenco dance, performance dance, theatre, Shakespeare, and fabric art. 7 local artists offered workshops in the Art Room. 11 exhibits by local artists were featured in the Art Gallery.

DTES Small Arts Grants received funding from the Vancouver Foundation for its fifth year, allowing us to allocate $100,000 in grants of up to $1000 per artist.

Carnegie Theatre upgrade was completed in the fall of2014 making theatre use much more accessible to all.

Seniors and Coffee Seller Programs 24-30 Seniors participated in monthly trips (2 trips/month of 12-15 Seniors) in an around Vancouver including, Pacific National Exhibition, Stanley Park, the Cannery in Steveston and the Vancouver Aquarium. Seniors programming is funded by the Coffee Seller Program, which also contributes to February 14th Women's Memorial March, National Aboriginal Day & the Carnegie Newsletter. A group of seniors also attended the annual camping trip; this year at beautiful Camp Luther. The seniors program hosted the 10th annual, Chinese New Year Celebrations for 120 seniors at the beginning of2015. Lion Dancers welcomed guests with a colourful performance, a magician dazzled the crowd and Carnegie Centre's very own

Chinese Choir followed with beautiful songs.

Cultural Sharing Programs The Cultural Sharing Program continues on Monday evenings, with participation aimed at increasing knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of Aboriginal cultural traditions. In October, Cultural Sharing hosted a Big House Feast during the Heart of the City Festival with drumming and entertainment for over 100 guests. The program supported or led other annual events including, HomeGround Festival in February, National Aboriginal Day on June 21 at Oppenheimer Park, and in November the 10th annual Aboriginal Veterans Day march to the Victory Square Cenotaph ..

Oppenheimer Park, Oppenheimer park organizes annual events including National Aboriginal Day, which hosts over 400 people - showcasing our rich Aboriginal culture free for residents of the DTES; Endless Summer Festival is a carnival type setting for children and families of all ages including entertainment.by local talent; HomeGround - Art workshops and social entertainment. Our Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show collaborated with Gallery Gachet in its 7th successful year. The spring saw some staffing changes at Oppenheimer as Sandy MacKeigan took a medical leave but we are very happy to have her back full time.

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The Security and Information Team's goal is to provide a safe, welcoming & inclusive environment for patrons and staff. The Team continues its commitment to Violence Prevention & hands off approach in response to incidents. The team also serves the community by providing a vital information and community resource referral service, mail and message services, administering First Aid and gathering and reporting statistical information relating to Centre usage and Security. Since the upgrade of the theatre they have taken on a new role with audio and visual technology and are providing great support to programs.

The Administration Team, led by Deleine Chamberlain, continue to provide support in a professional, friendly and respectful manner to the Association by keeping the books & minutes of meetings and to patrons by providing member services such as booking rooms and issuing mail. This year we have had some extraordinary reporting requirements for the Association; Deleine rose to the occasion and, with the support of Pat McSherry the Association treasurer, worked very hard to pull together everything required. They also did a great job of successfully appealing to Gaming when the Association funding was initially turned down.

The Learning and Literacy Centre The Learning Centre is a partnership with Capilano College, theCamegie Community Centre Association and COV. Together with about 60 volunteers, the Learning Centre and associated literacy outreach programs assist over 400 community members with literacy &路upgrading. Volunteers contributed over 8400 hours. The program receives financial support from Capilano University, the Carnegie Association and Ministry of Advanced Education through the Community Adult Literacy Programs. Capilano funding is in question and we will be doing all we can to find alternate sources of funding for the program in the coming year. Over the past three years, Capilano, in partnership with Neighbourhood Houses and DTES organizations, created the "Everything Present in the Seed Community LeadershipTraining" aimed at building the skills, confidence & capacity of volunteers working in community organizations.

Carnegie Library The Library continued the trend of being the third highest branch for patron visits with the average growing ts 1300 visits in a typical day, even though we are one of the smallest in size. 20,604 books and 75,925 DVD's were circulated in 2014. We continue to distribute books through weekly giveaways on Hastings Street, and to other organizations and programs in the Downtown Eastside, as well as hosting a number of author readings and workshops. Carnegie is also the only library with a Seed Library, due to our collaboration with the Hastings Urban Farm and Hives for Humanity. In May, we partnered with dozens of local and health organizations to hold the sixth annual Alley Health Fair.

Carnegie Community Centre Association has dedicated volunteers in two programs; the Carnegie Newsletter, now I its 29th year, is produced twice a month (except for the briefest concession to holiday at New Year's) & put together by volunteers who faithfully contribute 2575 hours to content, collation & production/distribution. The newsletter has an annual subscription list and is read by residents all over the community due to the efforts of Paul and others. The newsletter is funded in part by gaming funding & necessary private donations. Paul Taylor works with the support of Lis a David and the CCCA to fundraise as needed. Help in the Downtown Edsiside, the free resource guide in English, French & Spanish, was fundraised for & updated in both June 2014 and June 2015. The 20-page booklet is now in its 48u1 edition.

Carnegie Community Action Project, coordinated by Jean Swanson, organizes residents & offers opportunities and education that promote the ability for residents to speak in ways they can be heard on issues of vital importance

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to them including housing and the future of the neighborhood. Volunteers contributed 2400 hours to CCAP in 2014. The Action Project has had a cut in funding, and while we will greatly miss Tamara Herrnan, the project will carry on with reduced staff capacity and enthusiastic volunteers.

My thanks go to the Carnegie Association Board for volunteering your time to make sure that the business of the Association is carried on in a timely & meaningful way, and for the support you provide to me by offering advice on relevant community issues and concerns. It is an honour to serve this community.

My own expanded role regarding advocacy for services for the homeless at COV has been reconfigured and shared and I am very happy to be able to focus my efforts on Carnegie and 0 enheimer programs. Speci 1 thanks to Assistant Director Sharon Belli who supports all programs and seems to able to be everywhere at ce!

Humanities 101 Community Programme (Hum) offers four free university-level courses for people who live on low incomes in and around the Downtown Eastside and Downtown South. The courses are for people who have encountered financial and other barriers to university education and who wish to expand their intellectual horizons in an accessible, challenging and respectful environment.

Applicants must have a love of learning, basic literacy skills and be willing to attend classes, complete assignments and participate in group discussions. Applications for these non-credit courses are accepted not on the basis of past academic history, but on the applicant's desire and ability to be part of the Hum Programme. Classes take place at USC point grey campus 01) Tuesday and Thursday evenings, beginning in early September.

You can apply for an eight-month interdisciplinary course where you will study a different subject in the arts and social sciences each week, including history and politics, art, music, architecture, philosophy, literature, sociology, first nation studies, economics, gender studies, popular culture and more.

Or you can apply for a three-month hands on writing course where a new genre and style of writing will taught each week. Participants receive school supplies, UBC student cards, bus tickets to get to & from class, meals, and childcare if needed. Note that this year Hum is offering Writing 201 for the first time.

This course is only open to alumni of Writing 101.

Please attend an upcoming information and application session for more details on how to participate in the Programme. You must attend one of these sessions if you want to apply. Information is also available at humanities 10 l.arts. ubc.ca, or email h.u.m@ubc.ca with any questions.

Carnegie Centre, Main & Hastings St. (3rd fl classroom) Saturday August 15th at 11 a.m, for Hum 101 & Hum 201 Monday August 17that 1~ a.m, for Writing101 & 201 Wednesday August 19th at 11 a.m, for Hum1 01 & 201 + Writing101 & 201 Gathering Place Community Centre, 609 Helmcken St. (meeting room) Saturday August 15th at 1 p.m, for Hum1 01 & 201 Tuesday August 18th at 1 p.m, for Writing101 & 201 Crabtree Corner, 533 East Hastings St. (3rd floor room) Monday August 17 at 1 p.m, for Hum101 & 201 + Wriing101 & 201 Vancouver Recovery Club, 2775 Sophia St. Tuesday August 18th at 11 a.m, for Hum 101 & 201 + Writing 101 & 201 Downtown Eastside Women's Centre, 302 Columbia St. (women only) Wednesday August 19th at 2 p.m, for Hum1 01 & 201 + Writ ing101 &201

tel. 604-822-0028 http://humanities101.arts.ubc.ca/

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About Pivot Legal Society: Pivot Legal Society is a leading Canadian human rights organization that uses the law to address the root causes of poverty and social exclusion in Canada.

Pivot's award-winning work includes challenging laws & policies that force people to the margins of society and keep them there. Since 2002 Pivot Legal Society has won major victories for sex workers' rights, police accountability, affordable housing, and health and drug policy.

Pivot Legal Society is representing a group of homeless people in Abbotsford in a landmark lawsuit that will seek to protect their constitutional rights to security of person.

The BC Supreme Court will hear BClYukon Association of Drug War Survivors (DWS) v City of Abbotsford in a six-week trial beginning June 29.Pivot Legal Society is representing DWS, who are challenging 3 city bylaws that have been used to displace the homeless population from public spaces throughout Abbotsford. •... The DWS lawsuit argues that the city's actions in displacing homeless people violated their rights under Section 7 (right to life, liberty & security of the person), Section 15 (equality) and Section 2(c) and 2(d) (Assembly and Association) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Never before has a group of homeless Canadians been able to challenge the constitutionality of how they are treated and displaced by government authorities or police. If successful, municipal governments could be compelled to shiftz,away from policing and criminalizing homelessness and begin working towards longterm and sustainable solutions for housing those without homes.

"The City of Abbotsford, and municipalities across the country, have enforced bylaws inan effort to make homelessness invisible in their communities," says DJ Larkin, housing lawyer at Pivot Legal Society. "Our clients represent a group of people who, through enforcement of these bylaws, effectively have had their rights taken away from them. It's important for the court to hear their stories & understand the life-threatening impacts of enforcing laws that leave people with nowhere to go."

The City of Abbotsford's Parks Bylaw, Consolidated

Street and Traffic Bylaw, and Good Neighbour Bylaw prohibit sleeping in a park overnight, erecting a basic survival structure, or even sleeping in a car. The challenge to the bylaws stems from a series of actions by city officials against the homeless people in the community, including spreading chicken manure on a Gladys A venue encampment & allegations that police slashed and pepper-sprayed tents at another encampment.

"If we do not allow people the right to sleep at night then how can Canada claim to have any human rights standings at all?" says David Wotherspoon, partner at Fasken Martineau and pro bono counsel representing DWS. "No one wants to be homeless. These people have no choice and sending them away won't solve Abbotsford's problem."

Homeless residents of Abbotsford have argued that there is insufficient shelter space available and that barriers exist preventing many people from accessing it, leaving public spaces as one of the few options available.

In an earlier case related to the eviction of homeless campers from Jubilee Park, BC Spreme Court Justice James Williams agreed, finding there are "persons whose difficulties make the matter of finding acceptable shelter & other fundamental services profoundly challenging. "

Economy Personified - A Tax on The Stupid I rarely buy lottery tickets anymore. But when the prize rises to over 5 million, I fantasize about what I would do with such wealth.

Over the years the fantasy has boiled down to words I've read & movies I've seen about wayward villages in Scotland & England that do not take kindly to strangers & totally ignore such interlopers. I would go to a village such as this & gain residency for a time.

I would flash my money at the Inn and grocery store to see if I could purchase service; whether it be rude or not.

I would walk the streets and lanes each day, and feel certain comfort that no one bothered me.

I would walk for weeks & months until I was a familiar face to be ignored, & my comfort would increase.

Then, with permission of the village council, I would put an advertisement in the local newsletter every week for a month inviting everyone to the town square for a party of free food & drink. On the afternoon of the party, before the food & drink were made available, I'd take the stage & make a short speech.

"Dear neighbors. Living among you these past months has taught me the true meaning of privacy. I've felt safe and secure in my room and on the streets. And now I've come to realize why you shun strangers; it's because in the last 30 days the economy of this quaint place has risen a great deal to a point of wanting more of it.

"Thus, I have taught some of your business people the essence of greed. These business people will soon take out ads in the international newspapers to attract tourists. After a decade or two, you'll put in bids to International Expositions and Olympic games such as Vancouver, BC did, & swarms of strangers will come, and a powerful few of them will like your place to the point of buying up property as an investment for selling at a great profit. Soon there will be absentee landlords who will rent to your growing population. And when you once could buy a house at an affordable rate, within a decade you'll find new blockades such as mortgage rates, and in 3 decades, you'll never be able to afford a mortgage in your once modest village.

So, let the lesson be, don't give a free card to your ambitious leaders.

Garry Gust

... Special Class ...

VOICE

Workshop

with Trish Alien

Friday July 17 1pm-3pm in the Carnegie Theatre EXPRESSION of Self, FREEING the Voice Unlock the body, the sound, the ear, the emotions and the imagination ;---.'ffP'

Trish Allen has been teaching Voice, Speech, DiaLects and Text for

20 years in university and

private training facilities.

One of Canada's top

Voice coaches, Trish is aLso an accomplished actor and director.

No experience necessary Free, everyone welcome!

Watch for more theatre classes Fridays 1pm-3pm July 24, 31 , Aug 14, 21 And on Aug 7 - back by popular demand special guest teacher Nathan Slattery For more info: Teresa 604-255-9401 thirteenojhearts@hotmail.com

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Chris Hedges on C-S1: They have won this battler now it is up to us. .

There are no internal constraints left to halt totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics is a sham. The media is subservient to corporate power. The working class is being disempowered and impoverished. The legal system is a subsidiary of the corporate state. Any form of dissent, no matter how tepid, will soon be blocked by an intemal security apparatus empowered by anti-terrorist laws that will outstrip anything dreamed of by the East German Stasi state. And no one in Ottawa or Washington intends to help us. Opposition parties, such as the Democratic Party, may cry foul when out of power, but once in power they bow to the demands of the omnipotent military and security organs that serve our corporate masters.

Any state that has the ability to inflict full-spectrum dominance on its citizens is not a free state. It does not matter if it does not use this capacity today. It will use it, history has shown, should it feel threatened or seek greater control. The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Hannah Arendt wrote, is not, in the end, to discover crimes, "but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population." No one who lives under constant surveillance, who is subject to detention anywhere at any time, whose conversations, messages, meetings, proclivities arid habits are recorded, stored and analyzed, as ours are, can be described as free.

The relationship between those who are constantly watched and tracked, and those who watch and track them, is the relationship between masters and slaves.

With the passage of C-51 there will be no checks left on state power. State Security will operate outside the law. Citizens will be convicted on secret evidence in secret courts. Citizens will be subject to arbitrary searches & arrests. Due process will be eradicated.

Intemal security organs will serve as judge, jury and executioner. The outward forms of democratic participation -- voting, competing political parties, judicial oversight and legislation -- will remain, but become meaningless forms of political theater.

Once the security services become omnipotent: those who challenge the abuses of power, those who expose the crimes carried out by government are treated as criminals. Totalitarian states always invert the moral order. The evil rule. The righteous are condemned.

Societies that once had democratic traditions, or periods when open protest was possible, are often seduced into totalitarian systems because their rulers continue to pay outward fealty to the ideals, practices and forms of the old systems. This was true when the Emperor Augustus dismantled the Roman Republic. It was true when Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized control of the autonomous soviets and ruthlessly centralized power. It was true following the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of Nazi fascism. And it is true today in Canada and the United States. Thomas Paine described despotic government as a fungus growing out of a corrupt and decayed civil society.

Try to defend the treaty rights of First Nations people & you'll go to prison. Try to halt the tar sands, fracking, or the bitumen-carrying pipelines and you will go to prison. Try to oppose Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and you will go to prison. And once you are seized by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service you can be subjected to sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, the disorienting poles of extreme light and darkness or extreme heat and extreme cold, along with stress- position torture, waterboarding, beatings and pressure-point torture. And it will all be legal.

Those singled out as internal enemies will include people of color, immigrants, gays, intellectuals, activists, feminists, Jews, Muslims, journalists, union leaders and those defined as "liberals." They will be condemned by reactionary forces, fed & sustained by corporate propaganda and money, and blamed for our decline. The looming economic and environmental collapse will be pinned by these demagogues and hate-mongers -- some of whom have found a perch within the CBC -- on vulnerable scapegoats. And the random acts of violence, such as the attack by a lone gunman on Parliament Hill, will be used to justify even harsher measures of internal control. Fear will be relentlessly orchestrated to manufacture paralysis and consent.

How do we resist? How, if this descent is inevitable, as I believe it is, do we fight back? Why should we resist at all? Why not give in to cynicism and despair? Why not carve out as comfortable a niche as possible within the embrace of the corporate state and spend our lives attempting to satiate our private needs? The power elite, including most of those who graduate from our top universities, academics, politicians, the press and our liberal and intellectual classes, have sold out for personal comfort. Why not us? Albert Camus argued that we are separated from each other. Our lives are meaningless. We cannot influence fate. We will all die. Our individual beings will be obliterated. And yet Camus wrote "one of the only coherent philosophical positions is revolt. It is a constant confrontation between human beings and their obscurity. It is not aspiration, for it is devoid of hope. That revolt is the certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it."

"A living person can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object," Camus warned. "But if he or she dies in refusing to be enslaved, he or she reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object."

The rebel, for Camus, stands with the oppressed -- the unemployed and underemployed workers, the people of the First Nations whose land and lives are being exploited, Palestinians in Gaza, the civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, the disappeared who are held in our global black sites, the poor in our inner cities and depressed rural communities, immigrants and those locked away in our prison system. And to stand with them means a refusal to collaborate with political systems that mouth the words of justice while carrying out acts of oppression. It means open and direct defiance.

The elites and their liberal apologists dismiss the rebel as impractical. They brand the rebel's outsider stance as counterproductive.

Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) )]Q )mÂĽfÂą

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NEWSLETTER http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com

Ji§1\ July, 2015

Tenancy Branch fails to stop illegal eviction Mohammad Valayati won an important decision at the Residential Tenancy Branch in June. The RTB arbitrator said that Mohammad had been evicted from the Clifton Hotel illegally.

Mohammad was the last tenant to leave the Clifton Hotel on Granville St. All 73 other tenants had already left, with the last 25 or so agreeing to accept a $3000 buyout from the owner.

But Mohammad didn't get a buyout offer so he challenged the eviction.

Mohammad was working with the new SRO Collaborative. The Collaborative is trying to get more tenant rights in hotels as well as better maintenance and low rents.

The amazing thing about the RTB decision is that the arbitrator ordered the landlord to restore water and other services that had been turned off in the building. But by the time of the decision the building was in really bad shape.

The City moved in and declared in unfit

for human habitation. But neither Mohammad nor the SRO Collaborative are giving up. They have another RTB hearing in July where they will be asking the landlord to restore all the services necessary to make the building habitable and will also seek compensation for Mohammad for. having to put up with so much trouble and stress.

Below: Wendy Pedersen and Mohammad Valayati.

Global TV apologizes, sort of

Above, people walk for higher welfare rates on March 31 in Vancouver.

Global TV has apologized to Raise the Rates for its coverage of the Walk to Raise Welfare, sort of. On March 31 Global ran a story about the march in which they said "Taxpayers don't like paying more-and tax takers, which include welfare recipients-want more."

There was no coverage in the story about the need to raise welfare rates which haven't gone up for 8 years. The story falsely implied that people on welfare are the main 'tax takers' and that they don't pay taxes also. After Raise the

Rates made a formal complaint to Global and to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, the station's news director, Jill Krop, sent the following apology: "Use of the term 'tax takers' in a story about poverty was insensitive. We sincerely apologize if we offended you or anyone else in the television audience. 'Taxtakers' will be removed from our journalistic lexicon."

Raise the Rates has asked the station to make the apology public, since the Continued on next page

Continued from previous page

stereotyping of people on welfare was broadcast throughout the province several times. " To lump all aspects of a person who happens to need welfare or disability into "tax taker" is a false stereotype and encourages

discrimination against them. Media stereotyping like this is one reason the government is able to get away with not raising welfare and disability rates for 8 years," said Raise the Rates in their complaint letter.

City may change bylaw for SRO hotels The city's housing staff are planning to propose changes to the Single Room Accomodation Bylaw (SRA Bylaw) that might make it a bit tougher for landlords to kick out low income people, renovate, and increase rents to the $550 to $1100 range.

Staffs report may go to City Council on July ih although that date is only tentative.

In a meeting with the Camegie Community Action Project's Jean Swanson and SRO Collaborative's Wendy Pedersen, on June 12, City Staff Abi Bond and Celine Maboules outlined some possible changes that Council will consider. They include: # 1. A change to the SRA bylaw that

could require permits for repairs that require tenants to move. This provision could then mean that the city could

require landlords who get renovation permits to provide tenant relocation at rents within 10% of what they pay. #2. An increase to the $15,000 fee per unit that council may impose on owners who convert or demolish SRO hotel rooms. #3. More supports for tenants in privately owned SRO buildings. #4. A possible arrangement with a credit union that would let privately-owned SROs get city money and credit union loans to renovate units in exchange for affordability, good management and good maintenance.

Vancity Support for this project does not necessarily implY..Vancity's endorsement of the findings or contents of this newsletter

How do we protect hotel tenants from renovictions?

What should the city do?

What can you do?

The City is planning to change the Single Room Accomodation Bylaw to make it harder for landlords to evict extremely low income people. Come to a meeting to see what changes are planned. Are they good enough? What else could the city do? What can we do?

Come to a Town Hall meeting Where:

â&#x20AC;˘I I

,

253 E. Hastings

(next to Ovaltine cafe) When:

noon, Saturday,

July

Light lunch provided Sponsored by the SRO Collaborative and the Carnegie Community Action Project

4th

They condemn the rebel for being inflexible, unwilling to compromise. These elites call for calm and patience. They use the hypocritical language of spirituality, compromise, tolerance, generosity and compassion to argue that the only alternative is to accept and work with systems of despotic power. The rebel, however, is beholden to a moral commitment that makes this impossible. The rebel refuses to be bought off with government and foundation grants, invitations to parliament, television appearances, book contracts, academic appointments or empty rhetoric. The rebel is not concerned with self-promotion or public opinion. The rebel knows that, as Augustine wrote, hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage -- anger at the way things are and the courage to see that they do not remain the way they are. The rebel is aware that virtue is not rewarded. The act of rebellion defines is its own virtue.

"You do not become a 'dissident' just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career," Vaclav Havel said when he battled the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. "You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society .... The dissident does not operate in the realm of genuine power at all. The dissident is not seeking power. The dissident has no desire for office and does not gather votes. The dissident does not attempt to charm the public. The dissident offers nothing and promises nothing. The dissident can offer, if anything, only his or her own skin -- and the dissident offers it solely because the dissident has no other way of affirming the truth he or she stands for. The dissident's actions simply articulate his or her dignity as a citizen, regardless of the cost."

We have the capacity to say no, to refuse to cooperate. Any boycott or demonstration, any occupation or sit-in, any strike, any act of obstruction or sabotage, any refusal to pay taxes, any fast, any popular movement and any act of civil disobedience ignites the soul of the rebel and exposes the dead hand of authority. It is only this refusal to cooperate that will save us. "There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop," Mario Savio said in 1964. "And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

Rebellion in the face of tyranny is its own justification. Rebellion allows us to be free and independent human beings. Rebellion chips away, however imperceptibly, at the edifice of the oppressor and sustains the flames of empathy, solidarity, hope and finally love. And in moments of profound human despair these flames.no matter how dim, are monumental. They keep alive the capacity to be human.

We must become, as Camus said, so absolutely free that "existence is an act of rebellion." Once we attain that freedom we discover that rebellion is not defined by what it achieves, but by who we become.

Those who don't rebel in our age of totalitarian capitalism, those who convince themselves that there is no alternative to collaboration with corporate tyranny are complicit in their own enslavement. They commit spiritual and moral suicide. They extinguish hope. They become the living dead. No one Ottawa or Washington will halt the rise of the most sophisticated security and surveillance state in human history. The corporate coup is over. And they have won. It is up to us. We are the people we have been waiting for. I do not know if we can build a better society. I do not even know if we will survive as a species. But I know these corporate forces have us by the throat. And they have my children by the throat. I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.

And this is a fight that in the face of the overwhelming forces against us requires us to find in all acts of sustained rebellion the embers of life, an intrinsic meaning that lies outside of certain success. It requires us to at once grasp reality and then refuse to allow this reality to paralyze us. It is, and I say this to people of all creeds or no creeds, to make an absurd leap of faith, to believe, despite all empirical evidence around us, that good always draws to it the gobd, that the fightfor life always goes somewhere. We do not know where. The Buddhists call it karma. And in these sustained acts of resistance we make it possible to reclaim a future for the generations that come after us, a future that the corporate state, if not overthrown, will obliterate.

Ohh, Canada?!

SHAKESPEARE CLASSES WITH THEHONEST FISHMONGERS Kevin Bennett has just returned from working at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London England and will be teaching a Shakespearean classes for any age and all experience levels. It will run every Sunday evening for the next three months.

Sunday evenings in the upstairs classroom from 7:30pm-9:30pm. Requires no previous experience or commitment to multiple classes. Be prepared to get on your feet with Shakespeare's beautiful words even if you have never read a Shakespeare play before! All are welcome! Pop by and check it out!

Starts Sunday, July sth Ends Sunday, September 27th 3rd

7:30 - 9:30 PM Floor, Classroom 11

Feel free to e-mail kevinbennett88@gmail.comifyou

have questions.

Kevin Bennett (director of The Honest Fishmongers' hit productions of Hamlet, King Lear, and Measure for Measure which played at the Carnegie in addition to theatres around Vancouver) will be leading these classes. He has just returned from working as an Assistant Director at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London England, one of the most renowned theatres in the world specializing in Shakespeare and other Elizabethan and Jacobean plays. Prior to his work with the Globe, he was at the Stratford Festival in Ontario where he was on a two year directing apprentice/assistantship working with some of Canada and the world's finest directors of Classical theatre. He is back in town for three months and is thrilled to be back at the Carnegie sharing his experience and love of Shakespeare with his favourite community!

Dear Beatrice - Our Star

from the Library

Evelyn told me of your passing. I am sorry that I did not know you were in the hospital; I would have visited you, like years ago. I remember your whole family was in the room & you said, "just passin' thru?!"

Bea, thank 'you for being such a good friend. You always told me if there was something you thought I should know. You worked faithfully on Women's Issues herein the underbelly of North America.

I wondered what had happened to you, and Carol Martin, Audrey & other ladies who used to vist Carnegie's patio in the early evenings ... we danced in the Theater (you never refused to loan me money when I was short). We'd slept in the same room for months in the FUCM due to your room being continuously overrun by cockroaches. You finally found a nice clean suite and I was so glad to hear that someone was going to deliver your stuff. Then you had another blast of the lung problems that continued to plague you. I hope that you'd find some peace & comfort.

I will mis you greatly. A Star has fallen from our sky

The summer months will bring the Carnegie Library some exciting changes! We are anticipating an upgrade to our shelving, as the dated chipboard will be replaced with metal shelving similar to the Central library. We're planning on having the maintenance happen in the early morning to avoid any disruption, but apologize in advance for any inconvenience.

We'll definitely keep you posted as things evolve.

We also wanted to congratulate the Thursday's Writing Group for another excellent publication, Voice to Voice launched last month. For more local poetry, take a look at these classic DTES titles: The Ballad of Mrs Smith by Jancis M. Andrews

With love & respect, Wilhelmina Miles

It tOOK me

a

long

time

To come to this Who am I? I'm a British Columbian from a British colony via Halifax, Nova Scotia.

My " belongs to Nova Scotia My existence is in the majestic rain forest country.

Flying back & forth, coast to coast I felt in limbo - then Eureka! Circling Vancouver Intn'l I had that homecoming feeling The sea salt of the Atlantic the harsh wind & weather will forever by in my soul & body but I am here and it is nice.

In gratitude, Wilhelmina

Miles

Being True to Ourselves: Downtown Eastside Poems of Resistance by Sandy Cameron Oppenheimer Park by Bud Osborn The Return of the Downtown Eastside Poets (edited

by Diane Wood)

Subway Under Byzantium by Maxine Gadd Thursdays: Poems and Prose from the Downtown Eastside (edited by Elee Gardiner) And, our newest poetry acquisition is called Wind by the late Gerhardus H. Schievink, who passed away recently in our community. From his poem "All There," Schievink wrote: Friends are loved in many ways, Members oflife's many plays.

Straight or stoned a bond is there, No matter what we always care.

Your librarian, Natalie

Vocal Recital by Cliff Ridley Friday, July 3, 1:30 PM Carnegie Theatre Performing music of Schumann, Wieniawski & Ludwig accompanied by

Alina Knveeova, violin Tatiana KhVatoVa, piano

•

NEWS FROM OPPENHEIMER

PARK

NEW HOURS!

~~~

Monday to Sunday 9: 15am - 5:00pm

COMMUNITY

FISHSTIXPROJECT

• REGISTER FOR KIDS SUMMER SOCCER CLINICS (FREE)

July 6 - August 24 Every Monday lOam - 12pm Ages 5-12 years. for both boys & girls Call 604-253-8830 or drop by at the Park office to register • THE 8TH ANNUAL OPPENHEIMER PARK COMMUNITY ART SHOW: IN BETWEEN!

This years theme is "In Between!" The application will be available after Thurs.

July 2 at the Park.

Join us to make papier mache salmon props for the Vancouver Taiko Society's Salmon Project, Against the Current (a.k.a. FishStix). Create colourful coho and other artworks to display or carry alongside drumming and songs by Chibi, Katari, Sansho and Sawagi Taiko groups at the 39th Powell Street Festival!!!

Workshop at Oppenheimer Park: Sat, July 11, 2-4pm (painting) We will have some additional salmon props to paint.

Come and paint our salmon props for the performance!

Those who participated in the workshop, we'll let you know more details about the performance at the Powell Street Festival soon! .

Project

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604-253-8830

ART WORKSHOP

POWELL ST.

PICTURES FROM THE BACKYARD An exhibition of amateur nature photographs by Matthew Matthew will be in the 3rd floor gallery.

Exhibit will run from July 3·31.

An opening reception will be held the evening of July 3 at 7pm. All are welcome to attend.

Thank you to Carnegie Centre, the CCCA & Rika.

In partnership

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Supported by:

van..ouver foundation

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Choices & Rainbows I focus on: beginnings not endings bridges not graves people or animals as heroes time as a mirror, not escape white clouds not worries moons not eclipses personal peaks not valleys fun not neuroses love not fear building not destroying peace not war muses not enemies .lohn alan douglas

[Poem about transgender] The first time I uttered a prayer was in a glass-stained cathedral. i was kneeling long after the congregation was on its feet, dip both hands into holy >,vater, trace the trinity across my chest, my tiny body drooping like a question mark all over the wooden pew.

I asked Jesus to fix me, and when he did not answer I befriended silence in the hopes that my sin would burn and salve my mouth would dissolve like sugar on tongue, but shame lingered as an aftertaste.

And in an attempt to reintroduce me to sanctity, my mother told me of the miracle I was, said I could grow up to be anything I want.

I decided to be a boy.

It was cute. l had snapback, toothless grin, used skinned knees as street cred, played hide and seek with what was left of my goal. i was it The winner to a game the other kids couldn't play, ! was the mystery of an anatomy, a question asked but not answered, tightroping between awkward boy and apologetic girl, and when I turned 12, the boy phase wasn't deemed cute anymore.

It was met with nostalgic aunts who missed seeing my knees in the shadow of skirts, who reminded me that my kind of attitude would never bring a husband home, that I exist for heterosexual marriage and child-bearing.

And I swallowed their insults along with their slurs.

Naturally, I did not come out of the closet.

The kids at my school opened it without my permission.

Called me by a name I did not recognize, said "lesbian," but I was more boy than girl, more Ken than Barbie.

It had nothing to do with hating my body, I just love it enough to let it go, ! treat it like a house, and when your house is falling apart, you do not evacuate, you make it comfortable enough to house all your insides, you make it pretty enough to invite guests over, you make the floorboards strong enough to stand on.

My mother fears I have named myself after fading things.

As she counts the echoes left behind by Mya Hall, Leelah

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Alcorn, Blake Brockington. ~_She fears that I'll die without a whisper, that I'll turn into "what a shame" conversations at the bus stop.

She claims I have turned myself into a mausoleum, that I am a walking casket, news headlines have turned my identity into a spectacle, Bruce Jenner on everyone's lips while the brutality of living in this body becomes an asterisk at the bottom of equality pages.

No one ever thinks of us as human because we are more ghost than flesh, because people fear that my gender expression is a trick, that it exists to be perverse, that it ensnares them without their consent that my body is a feast for their eyes and hands and once they have fed off my queer, they'll regurgitate all the parts they did not like.

They'll put me back into the closet, hang me with all the other skeletons.

I will be the best attraction.

Can you see how easy it is to talk people into coffins, to misspell their names on gravestones.

And people still wonder why there are boys rotting, they go away in high school hallways they are afraid of becoming another hashtag in a second afraid of classroom discussions becoming like judgment day and now oncoming traffic is embracing more transgender children than parents.

I wonder how long it will be before the trans suicide notes start to feel redundant before we realize that our bodies become lessons about sin way before we learn how to love them.

Like God didn't save all this breath and mercy, like my blood is not the wine that washed over Jesus' feet.

My prayers are now getiing stuck in my throat.

Maybe I am finally fixed, maybe I just don't care, maybe God fina!!y listened to my prayers.

Thank you. (Applause) Lee Mokobe

Mirror, Mirror

" Spills and scratches" Shelters are just boxes full of people nobody wanted, Midnight blackout drunks piss in hallways that are haunted, Backyard flowers cry neglected in dusty windows, Weathered peeling porches give away old rusty widows, Overflowing ashtrays tipped on carpets shades of sadness.

Needles litter bathroom floors with the residues of madness, Listerine John and clonazipam Kate, Died under a disability cheque's emotional weight, Wolves in sheeps clothing hand out styrofoam soup to noisy lines of loathing Latex gloves to disinfect damnation.

And the sorrow of the lost under hyper-inflation, You won't see their faces on the news at five.

Maybe in the yellow-pages if they make it out alive.

Those that should not have been but were.

The faceless pain of an unwanted November.

Dirty alleys, the color of depression.

And the ghosts that ache in them.

Crying out to apathetic and yawning ocean, Sure hope must be somewhere beyond the rim of the dawn,

mirror mirror, by the sink, tell me what you truly think am I fat or am I thin? will I lose or should I win? am I short? Perhaps too tall? are my ears a bit too small? is my nose exactly right? do I have a too-big bite? am r weak or super-strong? is my hair too short or long?

Am I smart or rather dumb?

Can you say what I'll become?

Am I ready? Am I cool?

Am I awful? Do I rule?

Am I great or do I stink?

Mirror Mirror, by the sink Digna y de Castro

My Mouse is Misbehaving (a funny Computer

poem)

My V\ouse is misbehaving And my keyboard's on the fritz The computer's not computering It's dropping bytes & bits.

The and The The Dear Carnegie people, It's nice when someone helps you with all the jerks who take advantage of your person-hood & practically rob you of your self- respect & dignity. To be a woman in this community is not the easiest as we all know, and we need to think together of all the women who believe & feel this way so all of us can have the same consideration.

It is my wish & my desire to aspire to that end and I will always be indebted to other wmen who feel this way, and in turn hold each other in high regard.

Thankfully, Joyce Morgan

hard-drive is cJick ..click ..clicking the printer is spitting inks COs started stuttering screen is on the blink.

My memory is failing Things are grinding to a halt and even worse, I realise, it's probably my faul.

I thought it would be funny, It was really just ajoke, I never thought the whole corn puter might go up in smoke!

I guessed I learned my lesson When it comes to your PCs It's best if you don't ever try To find the mouse some cheese.

Digna y de Castro

CLAWGRAMMAR Like a flesh-eating disease weight loss contest or a hanging party 'Bring Your Own depression belts & shoelaces' nothing but the best Mankind keeps discovering more ways to distribute hate, you could give disgruntled postal workers second-rate used-up stamps & soon-to-be-gone jobs then begin turning their depots into Nazi-ish training camps will we ever try to find a way to live where no one discriminates grim findings are happening every day with no end 'in sight human traffickers burying their clients I could be wrong but is any of this horrificness right?

Sometimes I want this entire planet to explode, like a terrorists Air Miles Savings Card that reads "Have Atrocities Will Travel" -how swell -That distant display of rage tries to crawl inside of me but I use every muscle to leave it in hell like holding a dead man's hand (a pair of aces & 8's) I think I shall fold, I try to find beauty in every act god &/or the devil put in our way as Darwin the Apostle has seen from the start at first it had a shaky beginning as mankind's stormtroopers decided unrest was best & thus it

continues to completely fall apart as the drone sunsets end another day in black, don't you think the creation of global warming which we made emits enough if not more central heating but we still have enough energy for never-ending human beatings have we discovered nothing else other than to stumble upon, anticipate then attack, like a fetus killing itself before it can get born or the Truth Fairy leaving a pair of flyers under a child's pillow so many alone with lives bloody & tom trying to pretend they can handle the strain, sorrow & tears as popular as they are can also be used as weapons because hate like fear is free & can be covered up in seconds before it comes down in blood I wish all this madness could be washed away with a nice heavy rain, Like people using sign language during an auction with very expensive objects & bigger mistakes then they start throwing punches not caring they're being filmed Anger is a money-maker on television flowing blood in yur living room is all it takes this generation wouldn't know the king of hearts from King Lear...

Do we wait for another holocaust or two or will mankind grow up I doubt it very much our impact is always at maximum velocity to everything we touch I am afraid it is ourselves we must fear, can we claw our way out of this 'Yreckage called life probably not but in another's eyesight we have already been caught knowing your ABCs just doesn't mean anything any more & we are to blame, like a promising young Jewish-German violinist whose life is about to be destroyed committing the first anti-Semitic act by walking off-stage midshow Oh how the hatemongers get so cranky when people do things they've been told not to this is a potent soon-to-be-enlarged fact ifhate were a sound we'd all be clutching our heads trying to keep in our brains, like he was playing Brahrns' Violin Concerto in D-stroy Major with a couple of flats thrown in all culture monetary & historical shall be reduced to smear their kind always thinks it will win one day these will be bedtime stories told while tucking their kids in their bed, The hate we have now will continue to grow I mean after eating & mating it's the only thing we know & we are the sweepings; you will continue to let it fester inside your head.

By ROBERT McGILLIVRA Y "I have met every shade oJ terrible made by man-like creatures." -Andy Partridge

Carnegie~ NEWS LETTER

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We acknowledge that Carnegie Community Centre, and this Newsletter, are occurring on Coast Salish Territory. . ->- ..:.~ -<.-= .....

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. THIS NEWSLETTER IS A PUBLICATION OF THE CARNEGIE COMMUNITY CENTRE ASSOCIATION Articles represent the views of individual contributors and not of the Association. -

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Meade Next issue: SUBMISSION

WANTED Artwork for the Carnegie Newsletter

• • • • • • • •

, MONDAY, JULy' 13TH

Small illustrations to accompany articles and poetry.

Cover art - Max size: 17ctn(6 'I:)wide x 15cm(6')high.

Subject matter pertaining to issues relevant to the Downtown Eastside, but all work considered.

Black & White printing only.

Size restrictions apply (i.e. if your piece is too large, it will be reduced and/or cropped to fit).

All artists will receive credit for their work.

Originals will be returned to the artist after being copied for publication.

Remuneration: Camegie Volunteer Tickets Please make submissions to Paul Taylor, Editor.

The editor can edit for clarity, format & brevity, but not at the expense of the writer's message.

Jenny Wai Citing Kwan MLA Working for Y.ou

ext2. 705-333 Terminal

DONATIONS 2015

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• • • • •

AIDS POVERTY HOMELESSNESS • VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ABORIGINAL GENOCIDE ,TOT AUT ARIAN CAPITALISM IGNORANCE and SUSTAINED FEAR.

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Barry M.-$250 Anonymous -$110 In Memory of Harold David - WiII/Sharon C.-$50 Barbara M.-$200 Gina F.-$100 Lori 1B0rys -$100 Catherine B.-$50 Yukiko T.-$50 taylor s.-$20 Solidarity Notes Labour Choir -$25 Kevin & Richard 0.-$100 CHIPS -$500 Radiation Therapy Clerks -$40 Jacki S.-$15 Laila B.-$50 Aiden S.-$25 Aideen McK -$10 Roger C.-$100 Dert~~-$60 1Ydla McK.-UJ)Q

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