DNC Monthly General Meeting
April 7th, 2012
Chairs: Jen, Herb
Meeting Minutes: Jada
(Meeting begins at 2:30pm with food and screening of the Beat TV Show and music video on the downtown eastside)
AGENDA
1) Opening
Kelvin
- Does Openings
Board Members introduce themselves
Herb
- Introduces the agenda. Adopt the agenda
- Blaine moves, second by Pat.
- 1 abstention
2) Announcements
a. Plague of Prisons
Ann
- Introduces poster
- Fellow is coming from New York City, involved in methodone in NYC
- Comparing prisons to epidemics of disease
- Having local people who are working against mass incarceration
- We have a committee under the DNC to end prohibition, stop criminalize people who are addicted to drugs
- Show up on Monday, 7pm, stat holiday, at Pivot Office at 121 Heatley
b) Stop Displacement/Stop Pantages
Dave D.
- Sequal 138
- Old site of the Pantages, across from the Balmoral
- 79 condos, $250k each
- 20% social housing, half of that is at welfare, then $800/$900 for rent
- 9 units of social housing would be at $375/month
- This project came in a year ago, the community came together, created a coalition
- We did some street petitioning, talked to artist groups, develop boycott campaign
- Then we tried to slow the project down
- The demolition phase was terrible, affected peoples health
- Terrible dust, so toxic
- The owner has no regard to this community
- We managed to stop that site for a while
- The thing went to city hall for approval, then it went to the urban design panel, was rejected
- Went to the director of city planning, no development permit
- Then the owner needed help, took it to a few people, got the project on track
- Now it went from 100% rejection to 100% approval
- No its going to development permit approval
- The director of planner got fired, and there is a new city council in, and we need to figure out how to stop it
- Tuesday at 11am there will be a rally, groups have written declerations, they want the project stopped
- It’s going to cause massive displacement
- It’s going to allow more condos to come in
- This is where we draw the line
- We have other events coming up
- We are going to escalate our campaign
c) Wonder Palace
Charles
- Moment silence, because we hope George Wolsey dies in hell
Ivan
- Charles is enthusiastic about this!
- There is good and bad news
- George owns the Palace and the Wonder hotel, one of the worse landlords in the neighbourhoods
- Illegally evicting people
- 25 complaints against him
- City has an injunction against him
- $2.5million mortgage for renovations, he just put paint up
- This Sunday his 2 buildings were taken away from him by the bank
- His home was also taken away from him
- Bad news – now they are owned by a bank, the bank doesn’t want to run them as low-income housing, they want to sell them
- IMO group
- Held by a receiver, ability to kick people out of the building
- Tenancy act doesn’t take into effect during foreclosures
- We’re going to organize rally, shame on them to not evict people
- Get the city to buy them and keep them at low-income housing
- Law does not defend low-income people
John Doe
- We’re doing a survey for anyone who has ever stayed in a shelter
- Survey about the shelters
- Steven will help you out
- David will help you out, it will help with our work
- We are doing this to find out how the shelters operate, policies
- This is the best way to find out how they operate
- One more thing, resolution to keep an overnight shelter at First United Church
- Collecting signatures to keep it open, if you have time to sign it, we appreciate it
d) Thank Cooks
Tami
- Thank you Dave and Teresa for the wonderful food!
- Totally awesome
3) Cop/Policing Discussion
Tami
- Beat TV is performing to the camera
- Going to have Jen and Ivan come up for a discussion
Jen
- What do we think?
- The reason the Beat team is done here, the cops screwed up during the missing women
- They want the police to look better
Audience
- It’s working
- I think it’s a good thing
- They’ve always been polite to me
Jen
- I run Vancouver Cop Watch
- Meet with people to do outreach, and people submit complaints to me
- Me and Jon Doe did outreach last night
- Came across the Beat TV team, ask them what they are doing
- Found out that we were handing out crack pipes
- We asked a lot of questions
- One guy got really aggressive, threatened to assault Jon
- By you going around showing our community like this, people are watching this for entertainment, drug addiction and poverty and prostitution is a form of entertainment, people don’t care about our social issues
- I explained residential school system, survival sex trade, and explained that they are putting people in danger by dehumanizing people
- Vancouver Cop Watch wants to shut down the Beat
- Going to battle it out with the media, and embaress them
Ivan
- We want people’s perception of this, and what this does to the neighbourhood, and what experience people are having
- Clearing the streets is a form of gentrification
- Police are playing a front line roll in this
Elvis
- That one cop got promoted, yesterday, Toby, he was arresting someone at Dunlevy and Hastings
- I said I’m from Vandu, even coming here there were 2 cops
- Describes his interactions with cops, there is one really nice cop that is manning at the DNC street market
Audience
- My response, it paints us all with the same brush, we’re al addicts, we don’t kow what to do, we’re in trouble all the time, it’s unfair
- We need balance view of the DTES, people going on trips
Herb
- This is part of the reason why we formed the DT East
Kelvin
- This type of communication for the VPD is very bad
- Portrays us as addicts and alcoholics
- I haven’t drank in 19 years
- Many of you here haven’t drank in 5 years, I lift my hand to you
- I buried my brother in 2003, I don’t see that as much down here
- Each one of you I consider a brother, a sister, a family, my family for this area
- Those pictures that they show on the tv, on the computer, is disrespect
- We’re human beings, I’ll stand beside you as family
Audience/Vandu member
- A lot of the young cops come here because it’s notorious, they get time on their record, helps them get promoted and get time off
- They get rewarded for spending down here, it’s a career ladder for a lot of cops who come down here
- You notice a lot of guys down here are young guys, something to think about
Kevin
- Innocent before proven guilty
Audience
- Makes me really angry when they imply that they are trying to help
- I recognize a few of them in the movie
- Some of those cops beat me up
- It’s bullshit tactic, we need to be really alert to that
- They lie, they are pushing us out of our neighbourhood, they need to be held accountable
- They will twist the truth, we need to take over the television network and play that hip hop movie with a realistic picture, it could be an action
Tami
- Cowboy cops performing for the camera
- It should be our responsibility to take the cops out of business
- We can take care of ourselves
- They are here to protect capital
- Police infringe upon peoples rights everyday, beating people up, taking their things
- The idea is that we’re going to take care of our own
Dianne
- The point of the beat is to present is that there are more nice cops then there really are
- The Beat shows what a great job they are doing, and getting points for it
Rob Morgan
- With Illicit Drinkers Group
- There is a group of us to sit in front of First United to have a gathering
- We feel safe because it’s first united security that saved my life once when my heart stopped
- All of a sudden cop car came up, he dumped my drink out
- That’s how we are treated as a group of aboriginals
Audience
- We’re going to be misrepresented all the time
- We need to use PHS newspaper, Carnegie Newspaper, we have access to do shaw cable, there are lots of tools
- We can video tape the cops
Wendy
- The Portland Hotel let them use their camera at Jackson and Hastings
- We can write a letter to all the agencies to not cooperate or work with the Beat Tv
- The police are being paid millions of dollars a year to criminalize poverty
- When I see my neighbour, how dare the police, they lose their privacy and dignity, they are exploiting dignity
- They are using this as a promotion the get more dollars, instead of putting that money into housing and other services
- The DNC can have a strong roll and a campaign for that
Dave H.
- Last Christmas, we have a cleanup crew at the DNC street market
- Camera crew comes through, I didn’t know who they were
- We did a really good interview with them, how important the market is
- They were filming as I was cleaning, and they got me to sign something
- I didn’t realize it was the Beat
- The I saw them as the Beat, they said they have a lot of footage, and they chose not to show this positive part of the community
- They are filming our community, they should show all sides of it, and show them supporting the street market
Stella
- I stroll around in my scooter
- I was on Gore, and there was a guy running and tripped
- Police officer came over, bent his arm, handcuffed him
- I asked if that was necessary, he told me to f-off
- I asked if he would like his arm bent like that, he didn’t say anything
- This other cop booted him in the face, he told me to f-off
- I said I was going to take a video of them doing this
- They said you can’t do that
- I said why, I want to protect my community
- You guys are allowed to video us, it’s more legal for me then for them
- I watched a documentary last night on TV about drug dealers and drug takers
- They come from all over
- A lot of our drugs are poisoned, it’s killing our people
- It talked about our community, it spoke about people who are suffering and hurting, but nobody is listening to them, why they are here
John Paup
- I watch for any actions by the police that are harmful for our community
- They kick people awake on the streets, at 5am
- Every time I see them in the morning, I’d watch over them
- The cops approached me on the corner, they were trying to clear out the Carnegie
- What law are they using to kick people off the street?
- I represent part of the community
- Cop was instructed by the higher-ups that they have to break up the gatherings of people
- It’s coming from the top-down
- Lots of pressure put on us
- They have it going on both sides of us, squeezing the 100 block
- I’m ready to go to jail, I’m ready for civil disobedience, lets stop construction, lets get together
Ivan
- What we’re looking at the Beat Tv show is not happening all by themselves
- When we see it on 100 block, it’s a critical corner, cops are pushing them off that corner
- Calling for agencies for no cooperation with the Beat TV
- It covers up the oppression
- System has failed people, instead we get a story about crime, and how our community is bad
- When we are organized, they treat us better (like when we say we’re part of Vandu or DNC)
- We are training ground for rookie cops
- (summarizes discussion)
- Cops trick people to sign forms, and get people to sign by intimidation or they are too drunk or too high to know what they are signing
- We need to look after the 100 block, and all low-income spaces, where the community can support each other, we need to look after these spaces because these are all we have left
- This discussion ties into all the other work with what we’re doing
4) LAPP Update
Wendy
- There is a group of us working on getting a plan for the DTES
- Convinced the city to do a planning process here, with half the seats for low-income residents
- The City are recognizing gentrification, and the area around Woodwards is pushing people East
- We’ve been so vocal about it
- They decided to have a new zoning policy, we went into high gear, we argued with them to have strong controls against the developers and high-end chi-chi retail shops
- We heard the most passionate people speak at City Council
- They made a decision at the end of Council
- We won a tiny victory!
- In the Oppenheimer, developers have an imaginary line on how high they can build
- City Council decided that in 5 areas that they can’t build this high unless they include 60% social housing (instead of Chinatown and Victory Square)
- We changed their mind on one thing – Oppenheimer is the last place we can build social housing, every developer who wants to build in Oppenheimer, they have to put in 20% social housing
- The City wanted only 10% (or half of that) to be at welfare rates, we need 100%!
- They said they won’t decide
- We will send the “definition of social housing” back to the LAPP Committee to discuss
- We don’t want developers to have a formula for development, we don’t want 10%, so we kinda won
- What we didn’t win, we did not stop, there are 688 condo units that are coming into the DTES, more than whats at Woodwards, they are still going to come
- We didn’t get the definition of social housing definition at welfare rates
- It’s very technical
- We still have to fight gentrification
- We should strategize, put less energy into the LAPP and fighting the technical, and more energy into the street fighting and the protest
Audience
- Have there been any mixed developments that have actually worked? Olympic Village and Woodwards is poison
Wendy
- Woodwards is 80% condos, 20% social housing
- This is going to start happening in Chinatown
- It could happen in Oppenheimer area, we are trying to save it, and the Pantages at the 100 block
Audience
- I live in Chinatown
- I care about fellow residents in Chinatown
- Compare job we have to do as the greeks do in Grace, they’ve just about been foreclosed as a country
- Suicide rate has doubled, demoralized, they demonstrated, if they have the strength so do we!
Wendy
- Recommendations
- DNC members agree that we should focus most of our energy on street activism to stop the things that we didn’t win at city council
- The second is the DNC will remain as Co-Chair, reduce our coordination of the low-income groups, but continue to participate in the technical side of things
- DJ moves, Stella seconds.
- I’ll organize a discussion strategy group.
- 1 against, 2 abstains.
Jen
- Motion to go to 312 Main Street to protest the Beat TV
Ann
- It drives me nuts that when we do a protest and the policemen get overtime pay for it
- Figure out the people who advertise and make money off of this
Herb
- We’ll table this, organize a motion and bring it back at the next monthly general meeting
5) Pantages
Ivan
- Dave announced the rally on Tuesday, 11am at the Carnegie Theatre, make a strong declaration
- Pack the theatre, Mayor will be there, the media will be there
- 5th great displacemet: first colonial 1887-1913, the city of Vancouver made it illegal for Indians to camp in the city, the city planners destroyed indian tents.
- 1907-1913 women who were working the sex trade in Chinatown ad Japantown, City smashed it, women were scattered over the city and imprisoned, women have been preyed upon since then
- 1941-1947 the Japanese community was displaced out of Japantown, carried out by the City
- The black community, in hogons alley, destroyed in 1970 and paved over for the viaducts, and now the black community is displaced
- Everyone of these displacements happened during a real estate boom, and carried out by City Council
- This is the 5th great historical displacement, matching the language that is matching the historic displacement
- Pantages will allow the 5th great historical displacement
Herb
- Displacement.
- Pantages developer says he’s going to only displace drug dealers and rats
- They are building the rich before the poor
Audience
- Important that we have an overall mission statement or view of what the DTES is about
- It’s about a community, once gentrification comes in, people move in and pushing us out
- Declare that the DTES is a poor neighbourhood, and the stuff that is coming in should be tailored to us the low-income people, the stores should be affordable, housing should be affordable
Audience
- I appreciate the LAPP
- I appreciate the Sequal 138 program also
- I’d like to propose that the property at Princess and Alexander, old Maria Gomez building, it’s been sitting as an empty lot, with fencing around it
- It’s a pit, has garbage in it, they promised it would be social housing by 2015
- It was 590 Alexander Street, then will be 100 Princess street with new address
- We should use that lot as a staging lot to do protest and events
- Directly behind Strathcona Health Centre, use it as a statement point
Delanie
- I live in social housing across Oppenheimer Park
- I think they already did the water and wiring there
- What’s happening in social housing right now, I didn’t think it would affect me personally
- Every year they will evict people out of my building
- Everyone need to be careful so that they won’t get kicked out of their building
6) Shelters Bill of Rights
Jon Doe
- Peoples lives depends on this
- We’ve talked to a lot of people to create a Homeless Shelter Bill of Rights
Roland
- Fighting for the most vulnerable residents in the neighbourhood
- 1) You have the right to feel safe
- 2) You have the right to be treated humanly with respect all times
- 3) You have the right to be free from discrimination of all forms
- 4) You have the right to understand rules under which you live
- 5) You have the right to have written policies and procedures clearly communicated to you
- 6) You have the right to due process
- 8) You have the right not to be discharged without a viable option presented to you
- 9) You the right to privacy and personal property and personal space
- 10) You the right to have your medical needs respected
- We meet every Monday night at Jacobs Well at 6pm, join us if you want to say something
7) New Business?
8) Close.
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