Nikpay: Children gain whatever their parents teach them

Sara Moghadamjoo is a young well-educated Iranian-Canadian, who recently graduated with two masters degree from Simon Fraser University and is only a year away from getting her PhD from the University of British Columbia.

She decided to stand in the upcoming municipal elections for the district of West Vancouver as she wanted to represent the thousands of Iranian immigrants who live in the area.

But after only three weeks of campaigning, she withdrew her candidacy, disillusion at the lack of support from the community.

“I wanted to be their voice,” she said. “But when I saw that they had very little interest in seeing what I was trying to do, I figured that I could use the time I was spending on my campaign to do my own work.”

The triennial municipal elections will be held on Saturday the November 19th. This would not be the first time Vancouver has Iranian-Canadians candidates for council, but it could be, however, be the first time having someone elected within this community.

Listen: Moghadamjoo on why she decided not to run

A wariness of politics

An estimated 30,000 Iranians live in and around Vancouver according to the 2006 census. The figure today could be over 50,000, estimates Behshad Hastibakhsh, an award-winning political scientist who is senior director of public relations at   TIO Networks.

Many immigrated to Canada after the 1979 Islamic revolution and many brought with them a mistrust of politics.

“The first generation of Iranian immigrants are more likely to be skeptical towards politics and politicians,” said Hastibakhsh, “because they come from an environment where basic human rights are denied, corruption is common, democracy is non-existent, and elections are fixed.”

“People can’t break the old mold,” he said.

Hastibakhsh believes that the ethnic media can help change attitudes.

“I envision a positive role of Persian newspapers, radio, television stations, and online media in explaining the rights and privileges of active participation in the democratic process,” he said, “by creating clear distinctions between the theocracy in Iran and the democracy in Canada, the mass media can help newcomers overcome their fears, phobias and mistrusts towards politics.”

This wariness of politics appears to have been passed onto the children born or raised in Canada.

“Children gain whatever their parents teach them,” said Max Nikpay, a council candidate for the district of West Vancouver. “Most of those parents come from a place where people are unable to use their voice.”

Another is Araz Rismani, an Iranian candidate in Coquitlam, who is grateful for the support from the community.

“I have a team of 50 people helping me with my campaign and there are a lot of Iranians among them,” he said. “At a fundraiser held in Red Robinson Show Theatre, a lot of people showed up and I think 80% of the were Iranians.

Yet even he acknowledges that Iranians who were raised in Canada remain detached from politics.

“We should understand that the reason Canada has stayed a democratic country is because of these elections and we shouldn’t take that for granted.”

There are many Iranian-run businesses in Lonsdale.

Local politicians point to a more concrete reason why Iranians should care about civic politics.

“Lonsdale wouldn’t do this well if it wasn’t for successful Iranian businesses,” said Darell Mussatto, the mayor of city of North Vancouver. There is at least one Iranian-run business at every intersection in Lonsdale.

Reaching the young

Encouraging young people to vote is not just an issue in the Iranian community.

Advocacy groups like Get your Vote On say there is a gulf between the youth and politicians.

“The biggest problem is that young people feel that politicians don’t speak to them, and politicians, on the other hand, don’t see that youth as voters,” said Adrian Sinclair from Get Your Vote On. “It is really a cycle,” he added.

One young Iranian-Canadian who is considering whether to vote is Afra Jashanivand, a 24-year old artist attending Capilano University.

“I am interested in getting involved,” she said. “But sometimes I need to focus on my studies and my own work.”

She says that she tries to participate in different events and elections around the campus and believes that this involvement is a good practice for her.

Even though she is no longer standing the vote, Moghadamjoo maintains that the Iranian community needs to be political active.

Listen: Moghadamjoo on changing attitudes to politics

“I think for the sake of their own businesses and their own lives, Iranian people should participate in these elections.”

“People who care about their environment should take action in the process. We can’t just step back and wait for someone else to do the work,” said Moghadamjoo.

“This is a very important issue and I think we all have a certain responsibility to help create a new culture which would fit our new lifestyles,” she said, “and I think is really important to educate people about this issue.”

A rezoning application sign for 1754-1772 Pendrell Street, West End.

The Short Term Incentives for Rental Housing (STIR) program offers incentives to housing developers in order to encourage the construction of market rental housing. But it has met with particularly strong opposition from residents of the West End, who say it only profits the property developers.

The Vision Vancouver party, though, considers it a success. “It was our first delivery of an election promise,” said City Councillor Geoff Meggs.

If Vision Vancouver is once again handed a majority in city council in the upcoming municipal elections, the party will propose that STIR be extended past its Dec. 15^th expiration date, according to Meggs.

A new program, if approved, would be put in place for January 2012, said Meggs.

A lack of housing

Mayor Gregor Robertson was elected to office in 2008 in part because of his promise to deal with the city’s lack of affordable housing. The following June, the Vision Vancouver-led city council voted in STIR.

Under the program, developers can receive incentives such as the expedition of permit processing, waived fees, and increased density, if they construct apartment buildings whose individual suites are rented, not sold, for at least 60 years. They are not required to cap rents at a certain level.

Rental signs are not a common sight in the West End.

Some West End residents say STIR doesn’t address the area’s high rents or low vacancy rates. More than 81 per cent of the people living in the West End, one of the most densely populated neighbourhoods in North America, are renters, compared to 52 per cent in the rest of the city, according to Vancouver Economic Development Commission.

“Generally speaking, I’m not opposed to a program that would encourage affordable housing rentals,” said Michael Geller, an adjunct professor of architecture at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Sustainable Community Development.

Geller previously worked as a real estate consultant on the Beach Towers project in the West End. He said that STIR was rushed through city council without any policy guidelines, and that as a result, it’s failed to deliver the affordable rentals for which many of the neighborhood’s residents had hoped.

Randal Helten, the former president of West End Neighbors (WEN), calls the program “a perfect case study” for what’s wrong with city politics. “The neighbourhoods get projects forced on them that dramatically alter the character of the neighbourhoods,” he said.

With that in mind, Helten recently entered Vancouver’s mayoral race, representing Neighborhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver (NSV). “[STIR] should be terminated immediately, or at least allowed to expire, as planned, this December,” Helten said.

But ultimately, that decision will be left up to voters on Nov. 19th.

A wooden model shows the proposed development at the heart of Mount Pleasant.

The Residents Association Mount Pleasant (RAMP) called one of the first meetings for Oct. 26^th at south Main Street’s Heritage Hall. The group’s goal is to get council hopefuls to clearly state to what degree, if elected, they will use neighbourhood-level input to guide city planning and land use decisions.

RAMP and Rize

RAMP was formed in response to a July 2010 rezoning application by Rize Alliance Properties. The building proposed by Rize at the corner of Kingsway and East Broadway includes a mix of retail and residential units and would rise to 19 stories at its highest point. Fifteen of the 241 dwellings would be rentals proposed under the city’s Short Term Incentives for Rental program.

The group believes the development threatens the neighbourhood’s current character. On its website and in regular Facebook and Twitter posts, RAMP argues that the project doesn’t fit with the vision that emerged from the 2007-2010 Mount Pleasant community planning program.

“Generations of residents, planners, and politicians have created the current environment in Mount Pleasant,” said Stephen Bohus, RAMP’s director. “Now, an opportunistic developer has come in and they have a different vision: high rises.”

Mount Pleasant residents who attended community consultations held by Rize in March and April 2011 expressed little support for the project. RAMP has gathered nearly 2,000 signatures on a petition opposing it.

The public hearing and council vote on Rize’s rezoning application is unlikely to occur before Nov. 19. Bohus believes the outcry from angry constituents about the project has spooked the election-minded council.

“I don’t think Council will want to look at a public hearing of a few hundred people right before the election” he said. “That’s not a politically expedient thing to do; you don’t want to have a hot potato in your hands.”

Sandeep Johal posts a flyer advertising RAMP's all-candidates meeting.

Citizens call council candidates on the carpet

RAMP proposed the upcoming all-candidates meeting as a way to force council candidates to take a stance on the Rize project and other development projects across the city that are facing local opposition.

“It’s sort of a litmus test,” said RAMP volunteer Sandeep Johal. “Citizens can really decide who is espousing their values and supporting their communities.”

Other citizen groups have adopted a similar strategy, and a series of all-candidate meetings pack the calendar in the weeks leading up the the 2011 municipal election.

Randy Helten, a candidate for mayor with the Neighbourhoods for a Sustainable Vancouver, tracks the events on his blog CityHallWatch. He says the pre-election forums grow out of a frustration with the current Vision Vancouver majority on city council. Helten estimates neighbourhood groups have dedicated “tens of thousands of hours” organizing letters, emails and calls to council that are critical of projects in the city planning process, to seemingly little effect.

“Vision Vancouver has absolute power on city council, with 8 of eleven votes,” said Helten. “They vote as a block, with almost no exceptions, against the wishes of the community.”

New media, new activism

The large number of pre-election forums reflects the growth of a relatively new network of citizen bloggers and Internet-savvy neighbourhood-based organizations, according to Helten. He says few such candidate debates occurred before the 2008 election.

In the coming weeks, these groups will use social media tools and other means of Internet-based publication to distribute records of the candidate’s meetings.

“We will be filming, Twittering, and live streaming our event,” said RAMP’s Johal. “It will be right there in black and white. People can see exactly what’s said; it can’t be misinterpreted.”

Johal hopes the records of the candidate’s statements will inspire voters and inform their choices on Nov. 19, an exciting prospect for Helten, as well.

“This election will be really interesting to watch, because it puts the information into the hands of the citizens,” he said. “It’s a new stage in our democratic system here in Vancouver.”

It is part of a larger history of systematic racism and sexism that has been working to silence the voices of marginalized women for decades.

Aboriginal women say racism is a key factor in the inquiry

“I think it’s why we are allowed to go missing,” said Baptie, a member of WESC (Women’s Equality and Security Coalition), a coalition of women’s organizations that was granted standing in the inquiry.

“It’s why our voices are not heard in the justice system, because we’re not valued, because all we have is our lived experience and somehow that doesn’t count as anything.”

A number of women’s groups, including WESC, withdrew from the inquiry when  funding for legal representation was denied. They cited unfair process and a lack of support as reason for non-participation.

While some families of the missing and murdered women are still participating in the inquiry, which began Oct.11, WESC, The Coalition of Sex Worker Serving Organizations, The Assembly of First Nations, as well as the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC) have all withdrawn.

Baptie said that in order to participate in the inquiry, groups and individuals must have legal representation and, while the VPD and the RCMP have both been provided with funding for legal representation, these women’s groups have been denied the same support.

Street protests

Corinthia Kelly, a member of the Women’s Memorial March Committee, said the police are the subject of the inquiry about how 69 women could go missing and “are protected by a team of 14 lawyers.”

Protesters stop outside 701 West Georgia, the site of the inquiry

“The people who would be most likely to be able to give information about what went wrong during those years have no legal representation… The members of the community who are [most] affected by that inaction by the police and who are most likely to have information that will reveal what went wrong [have been denied funding].”

Since the inquiry opened, members of these groups have remained outside 701 West Georgia, where the hearings are taking place, in protest. They plan on remaining there until Nov. 1.

While the inquiry was initiated in order to interrogate the reasons police did not take action in regards to the women who were disappearing from the Downtown Eastside, it points to issues that go beyond the Downtown Eastside and beyond common stereotypes.

Kelly said it’s not only women who are addicted sex workers, “it’s about women going missing across Canada…the thing they have in common is being Aboriginal.”

‘This is to do with racism’

Since the 1960s, women have gone missing from the Highway of Tears, a 700 km section of Highway 16 in Northern BC that runs between Prince George and Prince Rupert, named because of the number of women who have disappeared from that deserted stretch.

Most of these women were Aboriginal, and most of these disappearances and murders remain unsolved.

Kelly said this is nothing new and is about more than simply material conditions: “It’s not to do with transportation issues, like we need better bus service and then everything will be ok. This is to do with racism. This is to do with Canadian history, from the very beginning…This country is built on the blood and the bones of our people.”

Baptie said the inquiry needs to be scrapped. “I don’t think we’ll get anything out of this inquiry that we were asking or that needs to happen. I think it needs to stop today. [We need to start over again] and create a respectful and level playing field for everyone.”

For Kelly, it comes down to history repeating itself. “The inquiry does look a lot like the power is in the hands of the same old people.”

Carol Madsen has worked at Pathways since it opened in 1993.

Pathways Information Centre, which provides employment and information assistance to residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, has embarked on a campaign to raise the $400,000 it needs to keep its doors open for another year.

The B.C. Ministry of Social Development, which currently funds Pathways, is rolling out a restructured employment service program in April 2012 that will include providers such as Open Door Group Social Services Society. Pathways, however, didn’t make the cut, so it is losing its provincial funding in March 2012.

According to the centre’s program director, Carol Madsen, its staff and supporters are determined to make Pathways’ fate public in the hopes of attracting the money it needs.

“I want to get as many people talking about this as possible,” she said.

Ross Gentleman, executive director of Tradeworks Training Society, whose organization oversees Pathways, said at this point the staff feel like they have “nothing to lose.”

More than just employment

Madsen insists that Pathways, which was founded in 1993, is more than just an employment centre. “We use employment as (the) carrot that brings people in the building,” she said.

More than 250 DTES residents use Pathways’ services each day, which include phones, computers and a lounge area. The centre’s more than 14,000 members have access to employment counsellors and case managers who help them search for jobs, fill out welfare forms or refer them to agencies that deal with homelessness, drug addiction or mental health.

Perry Joyce, a passionate supporter of Pathways, gets together petition signatures

Pathways also runs www.dtes.ca, which contains information on an additional 170 social service agencies in and around the neighbourhood.“Any closure of Pathways will impact residents and homeless people alike,” said Al Mitchell, the manager of outreach services at Lookout, which offers support to the homeles.

“[T]here has been a growing trend of ‘process’ and ‘applications’ that are not always street-friendly, let alone ‘minimal barrier,’” Mitchell said. Residents of the DTES need someone who can “inform, guide or even assist” them with those processes, and “Pathways has been more than just helpful in that regard.”

Perry Joyce, a DTES resident, knows firsthand how helpful Pathways can be. Among other things, he’s put together résumés and cover letters with the help of the Pathways staff.

Such aid has made Joyce a passionate supporter of the centre, and has motivated him to sit outside the building on the corner of Main St. and Hastings, gathering signatures for a petition to keep the centre open.

Fellow DTES resident Damian Bonnell expressed his support in a letter addressed to Pathways itself: “The damage which would be inflicted on the community at large will not be easily fixed or the centre duplicated if shut down,” he wrote.

New government oversight, new program

The federal government oversaw six of B.C.’s employment programs until February 2009, at which point it transferred those duties to the province. The provincial government spent the subsequent two years, in consultation with the various employment groups, coming up with a new, more streamlined approach that combined the six programs with the four it already administered.

Allison Bond, the assistant deputy minister of employment and labour market services, said the new program will create accessible, flexible and ultimately more efficient employment service centres.  The “one-stop shop” centres will be able to provide individuals with all of the services for which they qualify, said Bond, and will be able to reach out to “specialized populations” like those in the Downtown Eastside through partnerships with community-based services.

Gregg Taylor, president of the B.C. Career Development Association, which has acted as a liaison between the province and agencies, thinks that a streamlined approach that provides B.C. residents will all available employment services is a great thing. His concern is that many of the centres providing niche, specialized services like Pathways are going to be forced to close.

“We went from 300-400 contracts running a variety of programs with a wide range of agencies and service providers across the province, to a new model where the (same amount of) funding is funneled through [85] employment resource centres,” he said.

The new program will also partially operate on a “fee-for-service” basis. This means the employment centres will have to bill the Ministry of Social Development for each service provided to a client.

Bond said this will allow staff to provide better-tailored programs, while Taylor argues that it “makes the system less flexible per client and more restrictive on the nature of what you can refer them to.”

‘Wal-Marts of employment services’

Our big fear is that residents in this community are not going to have the services they need.

Back at Pathways, Madsen believes the provincial contracts will establish what she calls “Wal-Marts of employment services” that will completely exclude the poor and the marginalized.

She insists that it’s not just Pathways she’s concerned about, but the erosion of services in the DTES in general. “Our big fear is that residents in this community are not going to have the services they need.”

The Vancouver Eastside Educational Enrichment Society (VEEES), which partnered with Pathways to apply for one of the provincial contracts, appears to share Pathways’ fate. According to executive director, Hendrik Hoekema, “After 25 years, it will not be operating in the Downtown Eastside.”

Other agencies who partnered with Pathways were unwilling to comment on the new program, but BCCDA’s Taylor expects many more of them will also be shutting their doors. “It’s going to have a much bigger impact than [the government is] willing to admit.”

Led by the controversial Imam Fode Drame, the Zawiyah Foundation has recently moved into a commercial property off Southeast Marine Drive in Vancouver.

Imam Fode Drame: The whiteboards filled with Arabic text from his lessons.

In 2005, The BC Muslim Association fired Drame from a prominent East Vancouver mosque. The highly educated and multilingual Islamic scholar from Senegal believes he was dismissed to his inclusion of women in Qur’an classes and his efforts at interfaith dialogue.

The BCMA did not comment on the reason for the decision.

Shortly after his dismissal, Drame and his followers established their own organization.

As the new Zawiyah Foundation spent the past half-decade attempting to plant roots in Vancouver, they moved among many temporary and borrowed locations in the Fraser Street area.

Drame says many other Muslim groups in the city are facing similar challenges.

As of the 2006 census, Vancouver was home to 72,000 Muslims. Statistics Canada projects that immigration will triple Vancouver’s Muslim population in the next 20 years, reaching over 230,000 by 2031.

One option for newcomers is to blend into Vancouver’s major Muslim associations. The other is to find real estate in Canada’s most expensive city.

Prayers from behind the Quiznos

After six years of struggling with terminated leases, environmental damage and unsuccessful bids to purchase, the Zawiyah Foundation has now leased on a commercial space off Southeast Marine Drive near the Knight Street Bridge.

From the exterior, it appears to be nothing more than a delivery door behind a Quiznos restaurant. Inside is a busy place of worship.

The walls are painted entirely black, a remnant from the previous occupants. “We found it here!” Drame says of the colour. He says he would have preferred green, the symbolic colour of Islam, but there will be time to paint later.

Many members conveniently work in the nearby industrial parks. “Their jobs are here,” says Drame. “They are happy that this place is here. It is easy for them to come from work, pray and go back to work.”

Technically, the space cannot be called a “mosque” until it is a permanent establishment. For now, they call it a centre.

Drame’s goal is still to eventually buy a property in Vancouver, a city where the price of an average home currently exceeds $750,000. He hopes to raise the funds over the next few years.

Common ground

Derryl MacLean does not foresee an increase in splinter groups or religious conflicts, even amidst the cultural and ethnic variations in Vancouver’s growing Muslim community.

The new meeting place of the Zawiyah Foundation: An inconspicuous door behind Quiznos.

MacLean is the Director of the Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies and Cultures at Simon Fraser University.

He identifies a particular tendency for Vancouver’s major Muslim groups to embrace Canada’s ethos of multiculturalism and “look for commonality” among the many cultures represented.

MacLean says Muslim newcomers to Vancouver will encounter a religious culture that focuses on “shared experiences of Islam” rather than “ethnic or localized interpretations.”

“When conflicts do arise,” says MacLean, “they often coalesce around individuals rather than interpretations, although they may subsequently be framed in ‘Islamic’ terms.”

Where two lines meet

Despite his controversial exit from the BCMA, Drame has many supporters in the city.

One is Mohammed Naseer Pirzada, managing editor of Miracle, a Surrey-based Muslim community newspaper. “I respect him a lot and his vision,” said Pirzada.

Drame descends from the Jakhanke tribe in West Africa, a group known internationally to produce exceptional Islamic scholars. According to him, African cultures will often have a less regulated, more spiritual approach to the faith.

He blames “narrow views” on the part of the BCMA for his dismissal but holds no grudge. “It’s the same Islam but people have different takes on it,” he says simply.

Drame says he chose to call his group a foundation because it represents solidness, or “something that has roots.” The word Zawiyah is a Maghrebi term that he says literally translates to “corner,” or more philosophically, “where two lines meet.”

Merzetti disgusted the crowd with the cigarette butts from a prior two-hour clean-up.

On a recent sunny Saturday morning, some 35 West End residents in Vancouver donned yellow vests and blue rubber gloves and proceeded to scour their neighbourhood’s streets in search of cigarette butts.

They were there at the behest of John Merzetti, who started getting locals to pick up trash as part of his “West End Cleanup” group back in in 2007. Since then, he said, “cigarette butts have increasingly become the bane of our existence.”

Merzetti had convinced more than just concerned West End residents to search the streets that day; they were joined by a number of politicians running for office in the upcoming municipal elections. He’s appealed to them by way of a digital campaign carrying the tagline “Don’t be a butthead.”

He hopes that after spending a few hours picking up the butts by hand, those who got elected would take action to prevent the discarded cigarettes from being left on the street in the first place.

A simple ask

Before going off to pick up butts, Merzetti stood in front of the crowd on a bench in front of the Community Garden at the corner of Davie and Burrard, holding a container overflowing with the fruits of his group’s labour. “This was only collected over two hours,” he yelled.

The laws the current administration had passed so far, such as the smoking ban in public parks and on beaches, were obviously not working. “The parks are littered,” he said. Nearby Nelson Park “is disgusting.”

Jason Lamarche, City Council candidate from the Non-Partisan Association (NPA), said the clean disposal of cigarette butts wasn’t currently a priority on his agenda. But he promised that if elected, he’d make time to address it.

He also brought along a cameraman to film him picking up the butts, which he later on posted on YouTube and on his website.

“I don’t pretend to have all the answers and am definitely open to suggestions,” said Aaron Jasper, member of Vision Vancouver and chair of the Vancouver Park Board. “Cigarette butts are a huge issue.”

However, Jasper refused to admit to any mistakes in the current legislation. “The bylaw itself,  the rationale and the scope of the bylaw, I stand behind it 100 percent,” he said.

As a public figure, Carr gladly helps raise awareness on green initiatives.

Adriane Carr, candidate for City Council for the Vancouver Green Party, said she’d participated in the West End Cleanups before and promised that if elected, she’d address the issue within three to four months.

“I can’t see how the city would not be willing to move on putting in some more garbage cans and ash trays,” she said. “It’s a simple ask.”

It’s up to them

The West End Cleanup has been fighting for this “simple ask” for years. Driven by a deep appreciation for the neighbourhood, Merzetti has been able to rally volunteers to pick up trash on the second Saturday of every month since the group’s inception; some have even adopted their own block whose cleanliness they oversee.

The candidates’ participation on one of the last Saturday cleanups before votes are cast in the upcoming municipal election left him hopeful but realistic about the prospect that his hard work may finally pay off.

“We got a good turnout from all the different political groups today and I tried to drill it into them that something has to be done,” he said.  The next step will be to contact the councillors after the elections, around the New Year, and remind them of their promises.

“It’s not going to be a piece of cake,” Merzetti said. “But we’ve presented this [issue] to them on a silver platter. And now it’s up to them to do something with it.”

Kitsilano residents do not get the decision they were hoping for from the school board.

At a recent meeting held at the Vancouver School Board (VSB), a dozen or so people gathered in the main boardroom armed with signs and placards, hoping that their attempts to save General Gordon Elementary School had been successful.

They had not.

General Gordon, located at the corner of West 6th and Bayswater in Kitsilano, celebrated its 100th birthday in June.

It is now the second Vancouver school slated for demolition as part of a province-wide safety initiative. Charles Dickens Elementary suffered the same fate in 2008.

So far, the city has seismically upgraded 32 schools. But another 48 may also be subject to the wrecking ball.

Heritage versus heritage

In 2005, the B.C. Ministry of Education agreed to spend $1.5 billion over a 15-year-period to seismically upgrade over 700 at-risk schools in the province. But according to the VSB, that is not nearly enough to ensure the safety of the schools in the event of an earthquake or other major catastrophe.

“With limited funds from the ministry, there are essentially three options with our most at-risk schools,” said VSB architect Jim Meschino. “We can either replace the school, give them a full upgrade, or a partial upgrade. And in most cases the replacement option is the least expensive one. ”

Meschino: General Gordon was rated with a very high seismic hazard and overall structure in very poor condition.

The schools in the report are graded on two measures. The heritage scale looks at factors related to age, architectural style, prominence, and historical significance to Vancouver.

Schools are also evaluated on a Facility Coalition Index (FCI) that assesses how much deferred maintenance is needed for each structure.

“When all factors were considered, General Gordon was rated with a very high seismic hazard and overall structure in very poor condition,” said Meschino. “It was also considered a ‘Heritage B,’ which is not nearly as significant as those deemed ‘Heritage A.”

A feasibility study titled offered 18 different concept options, which were subsequently whittled down to five. The most expensive option was the full upgrade, at $22 million; the least expensive was the total replacement, at $13.9 million. The partial replacement and heritage retention options fell in the $17-$20 million range.

A new facade

Larry Benge, a residential designer who’s lived in Kitsilano for the past 35 years, was able to get 1,200 community members to sign a petition offering a compromise. It proposed keeping part of a façade of the original 1911 portion of the building left intact.

Benge said he felt like they weren’t really part of the process, but more of an adjunct to it. “We feel like we’re filling in for them a check box … the part where it says ‘consulted with community.’”

General Gordon Elementary: A fixture on the corner of Bayswater St. and West 6th Ave. for the last 100 years.

On Oct. 16th, the day before the VSB decision came down, about 70 local community residents decided to make one last-ditch attempt to save the school by holding a “Save General Gordon” parade march. Among them was Linda Light, a life-long Kitsilano resident who along with her four siblings attended the school in the 1950s.

“My advice to others schools would be to go to the press, demonstrate, get out there, get the public on your side, make such a noise that they can’t refuse you,” she said after the school board announced the demo plan.

“We played by their rules. We played in good faith and they didn’t act in good faith.”

But not everyone is upset that General Gordon is slated to be replaced. Principal Margaret Davidson said she and her staff believe the new school will not only be more safe but provide a better teaching environment, complete with gardens, outdoor classrooms and easier disability access.

“It’s essentially about being able to support all the different needs of the students,” she said.

Others are tired of the battle itself. “People that should be allies instead are fighting with each other, and essentially over crumbs,” said Donald Gordon, whose two children attend the Kits school.

He recognizes that the VSB was trying to do the right thing, but that the cost was simply too high, leaving it to conclude: “Sorry, it’s gotta go. Bring in the excavators.”

This story has been amended to clarify the final quote by Donald Gordon.

From left to right Claudio, Steve and Agustin, friends for over 20 years sharing bottles and cans in the West End

Outreach workers from the West End Policing Centre and Directions Youth Services Centre manned tables at the recent Homeless Connect event held at the W2 Community Media Arts Centre in Gastown, passing out pamphlets that detail their services.

They were there as part of their ongoing effort to serve the homeless community in Vancouver, which continues to grow at an alarming rate.

The number of homeless in Metro Vancouver has more than doubled since 2002, to 2,623 from 1,212. Canada is now the only G8 country without a national housing plan.

There are no hard numbers to reflect the amount of homeless people in the West End, but it fluctuates throughout the year. Given its proximity to the beach and Stanley Park, it usually sees more homeless people during the summer.

Back alleys are also visited by homeless from other communities in search of bottles and cans in recyclable bins as a source of income. “It’s fair game,” said Aleya Trott, director of the West End Policing Centre.

Damian Murphy, coordinator of the Homeless Connect event, said there are anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 homeless in Vancouver. It is estimated that a hidden homeless population can reach between 12,000 and 13,000 people in Metro Vancouver.

Shunning shelters

Raising awareness in the West End community to foster continuing efforts and programs to end homelessness.

Many of the people living on the streets of the West End homeless say they’re afraid to stay in the shelters located in the Downtown Eastside (DTES).

This is especially true of young people, according to Jeremy Long, outreach worker at Directions Youth Services Centre, which is located near St. Paul’s Hospital.

Long, who at 26 has been an outreach worker with Directions for four years, expressed the urgent need to offer programs for homeless youth, not just shelter. “Many youth use drugs … they need more than just housing,” he said.

The majority of West End youth that stay in shelters have suffered from sexual, physical and emotional abuse in combination with substance addiction and mental illness.

A study by The Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction (CARMHA) found that a person living on the street costs the taxpayer $55,000 a year due to police and health emergency interventions and other related services, whereas building housing and providing the appropriate services costs $37,000 a year per person.

New housing for homeless people are becoming available but Homeless Connect’s Murphy emphasized that the effort needs to be sustained and increased. The last project of this kind is currently being completed at 16th St and Dunbar that will provide 100 living units.

“Every neighbourhood should have an emergency shelter and housing.” Murphy said.

Homeless Connect is part of the City of  Vancouver’s 6th annual Homelessness Action Week. It was sponsored by The Greater Vancouver Regional Steering Committee on Homelessness (RSCH), which was established in March 2000.

This year Homeless Connect had more than 50 non-profit organizations offering their services; nutritious food, coffee and juices were catered by professionals along with games, music, haircuts and basic health services and consultation.

“By having [all the service providers] in one location they can talk to them, develop a relationship and trust,” Murphy said.

The Goddess of Democracy at UBC.

A group of researchers at the University of British Columbia is readying the launch of a new educational website that aims to offer an interactive history of Chinese Canadians.

More than two years in the making, the site, Chinese Canadian Stories is due to be unveiled in January.

Henry Yu, who heads up the project, said he wanted a way to use a digital medium in order to make Chinese-Canadian stories more compelling.

“History textbooks aren’t sufficient enough nowadays,” said the professor of history at UBC and director of the Initiative for Student Teaching and Research in Chinese Canadian studies (INSTRCC).

Video games, maps and more

Chinese Canadian Stories is a co-project among three North-American universities. UBC focuses on the research side, while Simon Fraser University covers its technical aspects. The third is Stanford University, whose Spatial History Lab maps the different paths taken by early Chinese immigrants to Canada.The Masters of Digital Media Program at Great Nothern Way Campus and the Critical Thinking Consortium are also part of this project.

The Canadian federal government’s Community Historical Recognition Program granted Chinese Canadian Stories $1.17 million in funds.

The new website will provide educational resources aimed at both pupils and teachers. Among other interactive tools, it features a video game for children between six and 12 years old: “Gold Mountain Quest” stars a Chinese-Canadian teenager living in an early 20th century mining village.

A digital collection of photos, videos, newspapers and historical documents is featured, as well as a map that displays the different historical Chinese communities throughout Canada.

A database has also been created containing the information of early Chinese immigrants. This research tool is based on the head tax, an entry fee that the Canadian government required for each Chinese immigrant between 1885 and 1949. It can be searched by name, profession, Chinese city of origin, where and when they arrived in Canada. It already contains almost 97,000 names.

The site will also a feature a selection of private letters from among those immigrant families. Researcher Joanne Poon sought the help of Chinese Canadian elderlies in order to translate them into English from Toishanese, a dialect spoken from Guangdong, China, from where most of them hailed.

A better focus on Chinese Canadians’ history

Allan Cho: Stories of Chinese Canadians' contribution to the country have largely focused on the railway and the Gold Rush.

Allan Cho, a UBC librarian in charge of some of the technical aspects of the project, said that traditionally, stories of Chinese Canadians’ contribution to the country have largely focused on the railway and the Gold Rush. They made little mention of everyday life in Canadian Chinatowns.

“For instance, we rarely talk about market gardens, laundries and mixed marriages between Chinese and First Nations,” he said.

Prof. Yu said the idea for the site was prompted back in 2008 after the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the anti-Asian riots in Vancouver in 1907. But he stresses in an introductory video that the project is “not about what was done to the Chinese, but what they were doing.”

He said that the notion of Canada as a solely bicultural country is no longer resonant.

“The idea that Canada has been built only by the British and the French isn’t relevant anymore,” said Yu.

“It prevents people from being interested in Canadian history, mostly because they don’t recognize themselves in it.”