Fletcher: We have a lovely view of the mountains from our home, we just can’t afford to go there.

Monika Qually misses Vancouver. The 30-year-old misses the lush North Shore mountains and the fresh West Coast air. But she does not miss the city’s sky-high housing prices and low-paying jobs.

“We couldn’t afford to start a family in Vancouver,” said Qually, so she and her husband decided to move to Toronto, where houses are cheaper and salaries are higher. Qually and her husband represent a growing number of people who feel that Vancouver is a tough city to raise a family.

While the numbers don’t represent a crisis yet, there is a growing concern that more families will leave the city. The most recent report from Statistics Canada on provincial population gains and losses seems to affirm this fear. B.C. lost 2,600 people through inter-provincial migration, mostly to Alberta.

That statistic doesn’t provide a breakdown on the numbers of families. But statistics show that the City of Vancouver, the expensive core of the region, had only 72,000 children under the age of 15 in the 2011 census. That’s a little less than 12 per cent of the population, far less than the 16 per cent that is the national average or even the 15 per cent for the Lower Mainland as a whole.

The evidence about families leaving is hard to assess because statistics about Vancouver, one municipality at the centre of a large region, are hard to compare to other Canadian cities, which encompass the suburbs in a way the City of Vancouver doesn’t.

Living in the city

But, in spite of the lack of statistical evidence, the declining number of children in City of Vancouver schools and census counts have definitely provoked anxiety at many levels. The Vancouver school board points to the lack of affordable housing for families to explain the declining rate of enrolment in Vancouver schools.

Similarly, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has identified affordable housing as a key priority for retaining families. The Vancouver Economic Commission echoes that with an economic action strategy  that highlights the need to improve housing affordability for families and to increase daycare spaces for children in order to keep families in the city.

Sources elsewhere confirm the perception that Vancouver is a difficult place for families. In a report released last month by the magazine Money Sense, Calgary was rated “the best place to raise kids” in Canada. The report analyzed factors like average household income, average house price and the number of daycare spaces available.

Vancouver was markedly absent from that list, for a couple of simple reasons.  The average household income in Vancouver is $81,066 and the average house price in the city is $882,00, whereas the average household income in Calgary is  $125,733 and the average house price is  $394 550.

“This is when some couples reach a breaking point”, says Heather Tremain, an urban sustainability consultant. ”There are a number of people, who, when they are thinking about having their first child, make the decision to move to a more affordable place.”

Vancouver’s middle-class is evaporating just as families are trying to claw their way into it. Source: UBC Department of Geography

Paul Kershaw, a University of B.C. professor, says that Vancouver families are at the epicentre of a “silent generational crisis.” Since the 1970s, wages in Vancouver have fallen from between 15 to 20 per cent, (when adjusted for inflation).

But the average cost of housing in Vancouver has skyrocketed by 149 per cent. Kershaw says that stagnant wages, high living costs and lingering student loan debts are  “crushing [families'] dreams of ever establishing a solid financial foundation.”

He calls this phenomenon “generation squeeze” in polite company and generation screwed in other company.

In the last 40 years, the number of middle-income-earners in Vancouver has decreased by 35 per cent. In that same period, the number of low-income earners has increased by 21 per cent.

Those who stay, pay

Families that choose to stay in Vancouver, despite odds that are stacked against them, are having to lower their expectations about just what kind of a lifestyle they can expect to enjoy in the world’s second-least-affordable city. Demographia conducted an international survey on housing affordability and rated Vancouver as being second only to Hong Kong in terms of being amongst the least affordable cities in the world to live.

Zaph built a sanbox for his two youngest kids over the weekend.

Colby Zaph and Lynda Fletcher met and fell in love in Philadelphia 13 years ago. They both have PhDs and they moved to Vancouver when Zaph landed a prestigious job as a professor at the Biomedical Research Centre at UBC. They had dreamed of a home with a big tree and a big yard where they could eventually bury the ashes of their beloved family dog.

Although that dog, Mr. Cool, has since passed away, they never did manage to move into that imaginary house in Vancouver with the big yard and the big tree. And Mr. Cool’s ashes still sit in a box on a shelf.

Despite Zaph and Fletcher sharing six university degrees between the two of them and a solid and steady income, they are still struggling to make ends meet. “We’re still spending more than we earn each month,” said Fletcher.

“We just threw Luke his second birthday party last weekend and, yeah, we couldn’t really afford it, but how do you not have a birthday party for your son?”

If the two little ones were in daycare and the two big ones were in after-school care, the family’s overall monthly costs for childcare would amount to $ 2,600 per month. “That’s almost much as I’d be earning as a post-doc, after tax,” said Fletcher. Because of those high childcare costs and because she wants to raise her own kids, Fletcher elected to be a stay-at-home mom, at least for now.

Ripple effects

Tremain laments the fact that, when families leave, the city loses more than just skilled workers. The social fabric of the city frays and “there is significant structural fallout,” said Tremain.  If that family has school-aged children, then a school is losing a pupil. When many pupils leave, there are fewer classrooms and, ultimately, fewer teachers required.

Then those teachers end up having to move. Jonathan Dillon, a kindergarten teacher and a father of two, is one such example. He moved up north to teach in the rural Peace River region of B.C.

“Even if I did find full-time work as a teacher in Vancouver, which is next to impossible, I still wouldn’t be able to afford a decent home there for me and my boys,” said Dillon. “Now I live in this gorgeous cabin with lots of space, and I have my own classroom, which would have taken me years to get in Vancouver.”

Dillon says his quality of life has dramatically improved since moving away from Vancouver. “I have more time to do things and I have more money to spend on trips away with my boys.”

Growth of Squamish and Fort St. John

Areas of population growth in B.C.. Source: BCStats

Dillon’s decision to move north is one that many families are making, as they search for the balance of decent-paying jobs and reasonably affordable housing.

Another option is places like Squamish, just outside of the borders of Metro Vancouver, still accessible but far less pricey.

Those two regions saw the biggest growth in population in the province.

According to Ryan Berlin, director at Urban Futures, “families are spurring growth in these areas.” Berlin said Fort St. John has a higher population growth because “people are having kids there.”

Squamish is growing so rapidly because it is “attractive for families to move there and it is increasingly connected to Vancouver,” said Berlin.

In terms of Vancouver, Berlin said, “The question we need to ask is, ‘When those couples who have babies move out of their Vancouver apartments, who is moving into them?’”  Berlin’s answer: most likely, couples who don’t have children.

The Missing Women’s Memorial in Crab Park is a tribute to the women murdered in the DTES

Members of the Vancouver Downtown Eastside’s community have praised new police guidelines to protect sex-trade workers, but are also raising concerns about whether they will make a difference.

The police released an eight-point set of guidelines in January stressing that the department considers the safety and security of sex workers a priority and reinforcing that all cases of violence or abuse have to be treated as serious criminal matters.

“I think the new guidelines are a really important shift in the right direction,” said Katrina Pacey, litigation director of Pivot Legal Society. “Sex workers will be given the kind of protection they deserve by police who traditionally have not been there for them in the ways that they needed them to be.”

These new guidelines are aimed at improving the usually conflicted relationship between the sex industry and law enforcement that has often ended with sex trade workers being arrested or left unprotected.

Pacey: New guidelines are a shift in the right direction.

But Meghan Murphy, founder and editor of award-winning Canadian feminist blog Feminist Current, said that without changes to prostitution laws, the relationship between sex-trade workers and police won’t change.

“I think it is really important to decriminalize prostituted women,” she said. “[At present,] if they are raped, if they are assaulted or if there is violence, they are not going to go to the cops because then they could be at risk for being thrown in jail.”

Is prostitution legal?

The Canadian law on prostitution is complex. Technically, prostitution in Canada is legal, but all the illegal components that surround it make women in the sex trade vulnerable. Running a brothel, pimping and communicating for the purposes of prostitution are all illegal, according to the Criminal Code.

Murphy said that it’s the prohibition on communicating for the purposes of prostitution, “plus a culture and a history of misogyny within the RCMP and the VPD,” that effectively criminalizes sex trade workers and prevents them from seeking help from the police.

“[The communication law] doesn’t work particularly because it’s out to criminalize women who are prostituting,” she said. 

The country’s prostitution laws are being challenged. Advocates for sex trade workers’ rights are going into the sixth year of a court battle to decriminalize sex work.

But Vancouver police — who came up with the new guidelines after the Missing Women Commission of Inquiry identified seven critical failures in the police investigation into the missing women in the DTES — believe that putting the safety of the sex-trade workers at the forefront of their work will make a difference even without a change in the laws.

Related: Enforcing the new guidelines the hard way

“In the past, sex-trade workers have been harmed and injured and they have been at risk in the community,” said VPD spokesman Sgt. Randy Fincham. “We are hoping that changes such as the ones we’ve done to the VPD policy … create a safer work environment for sex trade workers on the street.”

Putting the word out

The release of the guidelines has spurred local groups to initiate campaigns to educate sex workers in the DTES about their rights.

The guidelines were put together with the help of various groups including Pivot, which has been pushing for the decriminalization of sex-trade work and for police accountability for more than 10 years.

Demas: Helps sex workers learn about their rights.

Pivot, in partnership with Sex Workers United Against Violence Society (SWUAV), recently launched one such campaign. The group printed 2,000 pocket-sized cards that highlight the changes introduced in the new guidelines, as well as the actions sex-trade workers can take in case they feel “harassed, targeted, intimidated, followed, told to move along, or arrested by the police.”

Pivot started distributing the “Know your rights” cards in February through community centres and outreach groups. Even though there have been delays in getting the cards to some centres, volunteers have been handing them to sex-trade workers directly.

Corinne Demas, a member of SWUAV’s outreach team, said her group just wants to get the word out.

Twice a week, the group spends its evenings giving out bags of supplies – and with them, the “Know your rights” cards – to sex workers.

“We always [take] a bundle of them and hand them out to all the girls. And some of the girls refuse them, but most of the girls take them.”

She claims that, in all the times she´s been out, she’s only been turned down by a sex worker once. She sees that as an indicator that these cards are wanted. “I wish they [all] would take [the cards,] but you can’t make them,” she said. “I think every working girl should have one.”

The new campaign emulates another one initiated by Pivot 10 years ago.  The earlier campaign has distributed approximately 100,000 cards nationwide since it started.

Pacey said Pivot has not measured the impact of the cards and relies on direct feedback from residents to judge the effect of the outreach.

“There’s no real proper evaluation for it – we just have to rely on what we hear on the streets,” said Pacey. “We talk to sex workers … they give feedback to Pivot all the time. If they tell me that they are happy with it and we’re hearing through outreach that women on the street are feeling better informed, then we’ll carry on.”

Is having a card knowing your rights?

Allan has concerns about the overall effectiveness of the cards.

Jennifer Allan, a local activist and former sex-trade worker, said that while she supports the cards in theory, she is worried about their overall effectiveness, given the diversity of the DTES population.

One of her concerns is the language barrier that the English-only cards create, taking into account the large immigrant population of the DTES. She also said that the cards won’t make a difference by themselves.

“Just because some organization did a nice little “Know your rights” card isn’t going to change [police behaviour],” she said.

Allan said the cards aren’t enough – they need an accompanying education campaign about sex-trade workers’ rights.

“What I would like to see [are] sessions and classes where the women are brought in, paid a little honorarium, given a bus ticket and food, and are sat down and taught [about their rights],” she said.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sandra and Linda work for Mission Possible Neighbours, a social enterprise and registered charity based in the Downtown Eastside. The organization tries to remove barriers to employment for the area’s residents by providing short-term work and training. Its mission statement is to transform lives through meaningful work, while providing a salary in the process.

Mission Possible has achieved remarkable success in its efforts. That work it provides, though, is only available to a tiny fraction of the neighbourhood’s troubled residents.

Sandra and Linda work their way down an alley off the 600 block of East Hastings Street.

Like many programs before it, Mission Possible has discovered that the road to positive outcomes starts by allowing in only the people most likely to do well. A rigorous front-end selection process weeds out participants who aren’t likely to be ready to join the workforce after their time at Mission Possible is up, so many Downtown Eastside residents need not apply.

“One size doesn’t fit all,” explains Brian Postlewait, Mission Possible’s executive director and CEO.

“If you try to create a one-size-fits-all system, people are going to fall through the cracks. We have certain requirements that mean some people in the Downtown Eastside won’t meet the job profile. But for the people that do, it’s a great opportunity for them.”

That kind of “cream skimming” of potential participants has been debated by employment advocates and academics for years, who say that programs that skim the best applicants don’t produce any lasting benefits. But Mission Possible says it couldn’t succeed without that. And it offers more than the usual quickie job-training programs.

Needing vs. succeeding 

There have been many job-training efforts in B.C. and almost as many studies on them, examining everything from the benefits of providing income subsidies to job-placement programs.

One such report published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives argued that job-training and placement programs for people with multiple barriers to employment can be problematic – suggesting that, in many cases, the people getting the most help are the people who need help the least.

“Programs were also rarely available to clients with multiple barriers, arguably the individuals most in need of training and employment supports,” wrote the report’s author, Shauna Butterwick, “because contractors could choose which individuals to take on. In order to maximize profits, contractors chose to work with the most employable clients, as they had the lowest ‘cost per unit.’“

The report, Help first, not work first, looked at a 2004 study of two B.C. job-placement programs, designed to shift responsibility for job placement from the government to private contractors. Mission Possible is not a contractor to the government – it takes no government money – but its goals are the same, as are its incentives. Instead, it receives the bulk of its nearly $800,000 budget from business associations and private donors

Mission Possible promotional materials say that its social enterprises are designed to help those who are “challenged by homelessness and poverty.” Those enterprises include a maintenance company and a soap-recycling company in addition to Mission Possible Neighbours, which provides security services.

One of its recent “graduates” is a prime example of the kind of client Mission Possible is likely to take on — and the kind whom researchers see as problematic.

Not your stereotypical story

Lee Beauvais recently moved on from Mission Possible to work at a private security company, Westguard, a job that he got through the program. When he joined Mission Possible, Beauvais wasn’t homeless. He had been on welfare for “three or four years,” though, and was getting frustrated.

Lee Beauvais sports his new work hat behind Mission Possible.

Beauvais’ story isn’t a stereotypical sad Downtown Eastside story. He is a quiet, articulate man who is organizing a ball hockey league at the Carnegie Centre. He was homeless only once, in Berkeley, Calif., in 1991. He has computer skills, and likes to keep up “with the ins and outs of the Linux operating system.”

Regardless, Beauvais had been taking advantage of any resources he could to help him find a job, to no avail, until he spotted a poster for Mission Possible at a job fair. Today, just a week out of the program, he has more work than he wants.

“They called me for a shift at Langara today, but it was too last-minute,” he says.

“I gotta go see my opthalmologist at 2:30 and find out if they’ll let me play ball hockey.”

But even though someone like Beauvais seems functional enough to have found a job without a Mission Possible, its directors say that what they do is far different from the skimming or quickie training that other job programs have used.

For one, Beauvais, like all their clients, got the kind of support that will ensure he stays employed and doesn’t fall back into the Downtown Eastside.

“Most of these programs don’t have a lot of work experience built in,” says Postlewait. “It’s the weeks and months of working alongside someone who can give you some coaching and some mentoring… that gives you enough momentum to carry it on into other things.”

He also makes the point that Mission Possible has to function financially.

“If you can actually maintain a business where you’re hiring people who are deep in addiction, and you have a really low bar, well, great. But you can’t run a social enterprise that way. It’s going to be a job program that has to be supported by government grants.”

Barriers to employment

Beauvais is also working proof that Mission Possible’s participants aren’t just short-term beneficiaries, but are truly “work ready” before and after joining the program. Last year, nearly 60 per cent of Mission Possible work-readiness program participants found work elsewhere, stayed on long-term with Mission Possible, or returned to some kind of education or training, a number that CEO Postlewait is very proud of.

“A 50-plus-per-cent success rate… is a really positive outcome,” he says. “Whether we can sustain that over the long haul, we’ve got to keep working at that.”

Mission Possible’s front-end selection process is very similar to that of a conventional business. Potential participants must undergo a screening procedure in which their barriers to employment are identified and systematically dealt with. Only then will they be able to drop off a resumé.

“We go through several interview processes and try to continue to strain and filter through that,” says Matt Smedley, Mission Possible’s program director.

The process is designed to maximize the number of employees who can parlay their work with Mission Possible into long-term employment, as well as minimize risk for the social enterprise.

“It’s hard to determine in a really objective sense [who will succeed],” says Smedley. “But, if we allow people into our program, it’s something that we have to look for, and know that people are really committed to sticking it out.”

“We’re learning on the go,” says Postlewait. “We used to let people drop off resumés, and we’d get two or three resumés a day. We can’t possibly employ all these people.”

Finding a balance

For those who face serious challenges such as addiction and don’t meet the standards Mission Possible has set, there are alternatives. The organization offers unsuccessful applicants the opportunity to volunteer in various capacities, as well as pre-employment assessments designed to help those who don’t qualify for paid work.

“Anybody who comes in off the street, we’re willing to work with,” says Smedley.

Postlewait adds: “We’re just trying to create a culture of opportunity. Within the last few months… we put more of an effort in to say, ‘Let’s put them through a pre-employment assessment.’”

The text from Mission Possible’s 2012 annual report illustrates some of its core values (click to enlarge).

“Let’s talk to them, and let’s help them think about their goals… help them discover something about themselves. Where they may be able to get help.”

For those who do manage to get in the door at Mission Possible, the transformation can be addictive. Mission Possible becomes family for many of its participants and moving on is difficult.

“It was really comfortable,” Beauvais explains. “I didn’t have to face the scary outside world and 500 more job interviews.”

The program’s six-month limit for its training program, though, is essential to the purpose of bringing in new people for training.

In spite of this goal, Mission Possible has grown tremendously, adding 32 new part-time positions since 2009, when the organization had only five such jobs.

They do not expect to replicate that growth this year, although Smedley says they hope to move 20 “work-ready” people through the six-month program.

Despite the filtering of incoming participants, not everyone is able, or willing, to move on after completing their training. Sandra is one of them. She has been with the company for two years.

“I haven’t had no one give me a foot out the door yet,” she says cheerfully. “I plan to hang around as long as I can.”

But she’s one of the lucky ones. Though Sandra hasn’t made it back out the door yet, at least she made it in – unlike many of the Downtown Eastside’s most marginalized residents.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Related: Businesses strain to retain Downtown Eastside workers by Mike Wallberg

Click here to view the embedded video.

DTES Cop Watch monitors the streets keeping an eye on police activity

Jennifer Allan, a well-known activist in the Downtown Eastside, co-created DTES Cop Watch over a year ago as a new way to discourage police misbehaviour. The project uses social media to keep the police constantly in the public eye.

Like other police-monitoring organizations around the United States and Europe, DTES Cop Watch observes and documents police activity looking for police misconduct. It also posts the whereabouts of police officers on Facebook and Twitter and live-tweets arrests and searches performed by the law enforcers.

“Cop Watch is here to make sure [police officers] actually abide by their rules and [don't abuse] their power,” Allan said.

Related story: Safety first for Downtown Eastside sex workers

Even though DTES Cop Watch was created just over a year ago, its actions have already been acknowledged by the Vancouver police department. According to a report released by the VPD, five of the 35 public complaints submitted to the department about police misconduct originated from the cop-watch group.

But the group’s disclosure of police officers’ locations has also generated concern from police. On Feb. 25, the police department urged Twitter users to be conscious of safety and privacy issues when divulging officers’ whereabouts.

@mobilicityguy @vancopwatch Please be careful not to jeopardize safety or privacy of anyone by tweeting locations of where the police are.

— Vancouver Police (@VancouverPD) February 25, 2013

Allan believes that revealing police locations and filming officers while they are on duty is important in case an incident results in harm to a DTES resident.

“The purpose of us filming is so that if [a victim] gets beat up, we have proof right there. If nothing happens, I go home and delete the film,” said Allan.

Even though Allan doesn’t hide her dislike for police and the group has not shied away from posting controversial comments about the police in its social media accounts, she believes that the group is not anti-police. Her interest, she claims, is in the safety of the people of the DTES.

“We are angry with the police and we are angry [at] how they would abuse their power, but what we really want is change,” she said.

Champions of bowling leagues are displayed on the wall at Varsity Ridge Bowl (Photo: Rachel Bergen)

A group of Kitsilano residents say they are willing to lobby for a developer to build higher in order to preserve a bowling alley for their community — an unusual move in a city that has seen nothing but anti-development protests from residents in the last couple of years.

But the idea from the Kitsilano Arbutus Residents’ Association for a new option at the high-profile Arbutus and 16th site, home to Varsity Ridge Bowl,  is only workable if the city helps out, says one expert.

Development consultant Michael Geller says the pitch from a local residents’ association to Cressey Development Corp. — it is promising support for a higher building if Cressey provides space for a new bowling alley — would require Cressey to apply for a rezoning. That’s a  lengthier process with more complications.

Geller said several conditions would have to be in place in order to tempt Cressey to accept the compromise for its proposed mixed-use redevelopment of the existing property, currently home to the Ridge movie theatre, a hardware store, a restaurant, and an empty storefront that was once a high-end grocery store, as well as the bowling alley.

“If the city would determine how much money (Cressey) might lose by building the bowling alley and then grant them additional floor space with equivalent value and promise the rezoning process would take three to six months rather than a year, those two things might encourage them to take advantage of the rezoning,” Geller said.

Geller estimates that Cressey would need an extra one or one and a half floors to compensate for the cost of building the value of a bowling alley. People in the neighbourhood say they are prepared to accept them in order to retain an important community amenity.

Kitsilano Arbutus Residents’ Association member Carrie Riches said Varsity Ridge Bowl “has shaped the community for 62 years. No one wants to lose it, no one wants to let it go without a plan to replace it.”

Bowlers and concerned community members rallied at city hall. (Photo: Rachel Bergen)

Using their influence

Currently the developer is moving ahead with plans to demolish the existing businesses, including the Varsity Ridge bowling alley, in order to build a four-storey residential and commercial development.

“The developer decided to simply build what he’s permitted to under the current zoning.  That’s why he didn’t need to keep the bowling alley or theatre because he’s not required to,” Geller said.

But the operator of the bowling alley, Ken Hayden, is hopeful that the bowling alley will stay if the community can make an acceptable proposal to the city on Cressey’s behalf.

“Maybe if they keep it, the city will give them a fifth floor or a sixth floor. Maybe the city will grant them a couple of floors extra on one of their less controversial building projects. That’s something we’re trying to fly by them,” Hayden said.

Cressey’s vice-president says the company is willing to enter into dialogue with the community about it. But he, too, warns that a solution isn’t easy.

“We’re definitely happy to have further conversations, but it’s really time for action as opposed to conversation because we will be moving our project forward. We need a viable, bondable business proposition,” said Hani Lammam, Cressey vice-president ofdevelopment and acquisitions. “The building is at the end of its economic life.”

What’s the deal?

In Vancouver, developers frequently apply for rezonings in situations like this one, to get the maximum density that city planners might be willing to allow.

To get the rezoning, developers negotiate with the city about what community amenities it will provide in exchange. But, in this case, Cressey didn’t choose that route. Instead, the company applied to build under the current zoning policy, which any landowner can do, asking only for an additional floor.

That was denied by the city’s development permit board. The company was reprimanded for not considering community opinion.

City Coun. Adriane Carr was one of the development permit board members who voted to deny Cressey the extra height on its proposal.

“You have to earn that privilege of being able to go that storey higher by making sure the development is very neighbourly. They didn’t earn the right to have a higher development.”

In the case of  a rezoning at 1401 Comox Street in the city’s West End last year, the developer proposed a landscaped public open space along Comox Street, a children’s play area, a community garden, and six units allotted for seniors under the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters Program in an attempt to be neighbourly.

In this case and others, communities have still gotten up in arms because they didn’t believe the developers were doing enough for the density they were getting. But Varsity Ridge supporters will advocate for more density in order to keep the existing business.

“Give communities a voice”

A rally at city hall Nov. 16 called “Give communities a chance” brought the Kitsilano residents out, along with residents from several other neighbourhoods who say they are fed up with the lack of community consultation over density and rezoning.

But all of the other groups, including those from the West End, were opposed to giving developers extra density even if those developers provided community amenities.

The Varsity Ridge supporters are taking the opposite tack, with their request to the city and developer for more density in exchange for the bowling alley.

Carr, who was also at the rally, said that if the bowlers and Cressey can come to an agreement, she will be more sympathetic to supporting expanding on the proposed development.

“If the local citizens were to come to a public hearing and say, ‘Look we really back this project,’ that’s pivotal in influencing my decision.’” Coun. Raymond Louie, part of the Vision Vancouver majority on council, agreed. “As council we are required to remain fairly open-minded to reasonable ideas and if, in this instance, a supportable proposal can be assembled, I would be interested in seeing it.”

Plan B 

On another front, some are trying to create a bowling facility through other means.

On Nov. 26, the park board met to consider including bowling as one of the activities for its Healthy City Strategy.

The idea, put forward by Commissioner Constance Barnes, was approved.

If Cressey will not agree to including a private bowling alley in its new development, Hayden hopes to work with the park board for a couple of years on a community facility.

It could be an acceptable plan B, but the community will still mourn the loss of the old bowling alley.

“There will be a lot of tears if this development goes through,” Hayden said.

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The Varsity Ridge Bowl on Arbutus Street and 16th Avenue. (Photo: Rachel Bergen)

Maureen Sugrue in front of Cottonwood Gardens. (Photo: Kirsty Matthews)

Maureen Sugrue thought she was doing a good thing.

When Vancouver councillors started pitching the idea of taking down the viaducts that connect the downtown to eastern Vancouver, Sugrue and many other residents campaigned energetically to get city engineers to also look at how to reduce commuter traffic that streams from those viaducts through a main Strathcona street.

Engineers agreed and said that it would be better if the commuter traffic were moved from the existing Prior Street over a block to Malkin Avenue.

But then, it turned out, that would mean the destruction of a beloved community garden.

“I was completely behind the calming Prior Street campaign, but nobody expected the city to turn around and take Malkin Avenue,” said Sugrue. “I don’t support that as an option. There’s got to be a better way.”

But neither she nor city staff have been able to find a road, literally, out of the quandary they are both in: where to put a major commuter route from downtown to the east.

It wasn’t supposed to be like that. When the idea of taking down the viaducts first emerged, it was seen as a way to remove one of the ugly sections of a freeway planned in the 1960s, a freeway that never got built because of community opposition.

The idea was to show the city’s ultimate triumph over car culture.

But, in the initial viaducts-removal plan, Prior Street was slated to become the major road that would connect the east to the downtown core.

Related story:  Timeline of a community in flux

After Sugrue and her neighbours put up vehement opposition, council backed down.

“The residents along Prior Street have made a very compelling case in addressing their longstanding concerns about traffic and I believe that some immediate improvements are warranted,” said Mayor Gregor Roberston  in a late July council meeting to discuss the viaducts-removal plan.

Prior Street was originally slated to be the major road but now the city is considering Malkin Avenue instead. (Illustration: Kirsty Matthews)

“We need to pursue the Malkin Street connection. It’s been in the background for years and it’s time to act on it.”

However, no sooner had Robertson appeased the residents of Prior Street than he evoked the ire  of another group of Strathcona residents in a different corner of the neighbourhood, where the Cottonwood community garden was planted 22 years ago.

The group defending that piece of Strathcona turf is threatening the city with both direct action and shame.

Oliver Kellhammer,  a pioneer of Cottonwood Gardens, said that Vision Vancouver with “their explicit advocacy of urban agriculture, had better come up with a better solution that lives up to their party name.”

If Vision councillors don’t do that, Kellhammer said, “I can pretty much guarantee there would be a massive protest, should it come to bulldozers moving in. The spectacle of photogenic young environmentalists and outraged senior citizens chaining  themselves to the garden greenery … would be death to Vision’s green brand.”

The land belongs to the city

The issue of Cottonwood Gardens is made thornier because it was never officially given community garden status. Like many community gardens, it is on land that belongs to the city. But guerrilla gardeners converted the vacant lot into a garden 22 years ago without any permission from the city. Some of it is is on what was designated a city “right of way,” for a future, wider road that was in the plans.

The red lines indicate the right-of-way where the road is proposed to go. (Illustration:  Cottonwoodgarden.com)

Previously, Vision Vancouver celebrated Cottonwood Gardens  and touted it as a shining example of community-led urban agriculture.

But now the city wants its land back to build a road. In an interview with The Thunderbird, city Coun. Geoff Meggs said he had told the Cottonwood gardeners that if their plots are on the right-of-way, then they have no guarantees that they will be allowed to stay.

At the same time, though, Meggs also told The Thunderbird that he was “quite puzzled” by the vitriol coming from the community and that residents seem to have  “jumped to the conclusion that there is no solution.”

Meggs, whose family gardened at the nearby Strathcona community garden for years, said  that he “can’t imagine that neighbourhood without Cottonwood Gardens,”and with imagination and creativity, he is sure that together they can find a better outcome.

City staff are actively exploring alternate solutions and are due to report back to council in January. Council, staff and the residents of Strathcona are all hoping for a solution to the  impasse in the New Year.

The gardens currently keeping the cars and trucks at bay. (Photo: Kirsty Matthews)

Sixty-year-old María Diosdado tidies up and gets the coffee and popcorn ready for bingo.

She’s getting ready for the special day. Every Friday, 18 Latin-American women come here to the third floor of the South Vancouver Neighbourhood House to play. The neighbourhood house is tucked in between dozens of South-Asian and Chinese shops. It’s also the one place in the neighbourhood where the women can gather and speak their own language.

Maria welcomes the other women with a warm smile and “hola” – hello in Spanish.

“This is very important for them. It’s the way to get distracted in their own language,” says Diosdado. “You always have to remember its not going to be easy, but if others can make it, so can you.”

The neighbourhood house tries to reach out to Spanish speakers by offering programs, including the bingo games.

“They’ve had to focus on raising their children, support their families and work. There is just not enough time to learn English,” said Kwangyoung Conn, a staff member at the neighbourhood house.

Free English classes are available for anyone who wishes to attend, but many come just to  play bingo because it is easy to understand and it allows the women to be together and tell stories.

“When I just arrived, I pointed at the stuff I wanted to buy and started doing mimics to the cashier,” said Isabel Aguilar. The 83-year-old sits smiling as the group laughs with her.

Her story about shopping is one that all of them can relate to.

A minority within a minority

More than 18,000 people live in the 20-block area around South Vancouver Neighbourhood House, from Kingsway to 49^th and Victoria. It’s a microcosm of Vancouver’s diversity, but also its loneliness and separation.

In this multicultural world, there are 41 languages spoken in these few blocks. The majority of residents speak Cantonese. Almost full quarter of its residents do not speak English, including many of the 255 Spanish speakers. The vast majority of those with no English are women, according to Statistics Canada. In the middle of all that, the Spanish-speaking women are minorities within minorities within minorities.

This group is a living illustration of a recent Vancouver Foundation report that concluded the main concern of Vancouverites was not homeless or housing affordability, but social isolation.

For this group of women, simple things like shopping can be difficult without English or Chinese language skills.  Gloria Rodriguez smiles as she looks around the bingo room.  She described the specific challenges people face when they’re trying to buy canned fish.

“They think it’s a tin of tuna and they don’t have a clue it’s cat food, so they eat it.”

The women around her burst out laughing and begin telling story after story. This gathering is important for a group of women who spend much of their time alone.

Working life

But not everyone is able to connect.

Rosa Osorio, 54, waits alone at the bus stop near Victoria and Kingsway.

“We are just not used to this kind of weather,” she says while bundling herself up in her wool winter coat, tuque and scarf.

She is heading to her house-cleaning job in North Vancouver. Osorio, a teacher from El Salvador fleeing the civil war, came to Canada 21 years ago. Vancouver is home now, but it has been quite an adjustment.

Orosio, speaking Spanish, says she doesn’t mind working 10 or 12 hour days cleaning other people’s homes. It’s a job that doesn’t require a lot of talking.

“Hispanics are always worried about not being understood at work or afraid of their accents. Sometimes it’s easier not to talk,” she says.

She does not attend bingo or language programs mostly because, with long hours at work, she doesn’t have time.

She says she’s grateful that her Canadian grandchildren won’t have have the same trouble with English. But their improving English means that she is isolated even more by her language.

“I’m glad to know my grandchildren speak English perfectly, but I get sad when I speak to them in Spanish sometimes they do not understand.”

A new study pegs the retail market for cannabis at a half-billion dollars per year in B.C. alone. (Photo: eggrole via Flickr)

The British Columbia government is missing out by not regulating and taxing the $500 million of cannabis that is sold locally each year, according to a study published Tuesday in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

The study — a collaborative effort between the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University – derived its estimates of domestic consumption of the drug from provincial surveys of users and RCMP crime data.

“The results demonstrate how cannabis is such a highly lucrative and reliable source of income for organized crime and that a regulated system in B.C. could generate significant tax revenue for services that actually address community health and safety,” said Dr. Evan Wood, director at the BC Centre for Excellence, a senior author of the study and a founding member of Stop the Violence BC.

Stop the Violence is a coalition of law-enforcement and health-care professionals, academics and politicians who encourage informed debate about drug policy in B.C. The group supports the regulation and taxation of cannabis as a method of harm reduction.

The study says organized crime controlled 85 per cent of the B.C. cannabis market in 2001, the last year of available data. It also noted that more of the province’s murders – up from 21 per cent of the total in 1997 to 34 per cent in 2009, according to RCMP data — are attributed to organized-crime groups, who get a big part of their revenue from drug operations.

From Washington with love

The Journal report comes at a turbulent point in the history of the cannabis debate in B.C.  Colorado and Washington voted Nov. 6 on referenda to legalize the drug, the first two states to do so. The Canadian federal government has long argued that a change to drug policy here would be impossible without a change in U.S. policy.

That is going to prompt change, says Kash Heed, a Liberal MLA, former solicitor general, and Stop the Violence supporter.

“With … Washington state and … Colorado[’s votes, it] puts those two states in my opinion further left than the Netherlands.  They’ve gone to where no one in the world has ventured at this particular time.”

Heed is joined by Sensible B.C. founder, Dana Larsen, in suggesting that the U.S. vote signals a sea change in the debate in Canada. Sensible B.C. is an advocacy group committed to seeking legalization of cannabis.

Larsen, who is presently on a tour of the province to rally support for a September 2013 referendum vote on the issue, contends that there is a “real misconception [that only federal leaders can effect change] … that’s promoted by our political leaders because they want to pass the buck rather than take a stand.”

Dr. Evan Wood, a founding member of Stop the Violence BC. (Photo: BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS)

A way around the feds

One way for the province of B.C. to get around existing federal drug legislation would be to seek a Section 56 exemption to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. That’s the exemption that permits Insite, the Downtown Eastside safe supervised injection site, to operate.

This exemption applies to research trials and, in Insite’s case, allows drug consumption to occur without triggering criminal charges.  Wood, who is also the founding principal investigator for Insite, suggested such an exemption would be worth considering. It would amount to a research trial in cannabis regulation and taxation.

A dissenting opinion

But Darryl Plecas, SFU criminology professor and provincial Liberal candidate hopeful for Abbotsford South, believes that simple legalization of the drug will not reduce gang violence, or even gang-activity related to cannabis.

“A very small part of what’s produced in B.C. actually stays here,” said Plecas.  “The vast majority, at least 80 per cent of marijuana produced in B.C., is exported. The notion that organized crime is going to vanish is ridiculous.”

Plecas’ assertion that the domestic market is dwarfed by exports is supported by a 2004 Fraser Institute study of the B.C. cannabis industry, which quantified the total value of cannabis produced in the province at between $2 billion and $7 billion per year. That study author, Stephen Easton, also said the majority of the cannabis produced goes out of B.C.

Plecas believes policy should focus on education about the health risks of cannabis to help reduce consumption.  Failing that, he asserted that one-off legalization won’t reduce organized crime’s involvement with the cannabis trade – but that full legalization in both Canada and the U.S. may.

Authors of the Journal study are careful to point out that their sole focus was on quantifying the size of the domestic cannabis market, not conducting an overall cost-benefit analysis of full government regulation, administration and taxation.

Neither the provincial nor federal governments have responded to the study.

History of Canadian Drug and Alcohol Policy

Cyclists navigate between parked cars and oncoming traffic.
(Photo: Britney Dennison)

Commercial Drive businesses are not budging from their opposition to what they fear is a city fixation on a concrete-barrier bike lane, wielding polls and phone calls and meetings to try to stop the city’s plans.

Although city engineers and councillors say the lane plans aren’t decided yet and there are lots of options, the businesses say they don’t want any kind of lane that would affect parking along a street famous for its small shops and busy street life.

And the lane continues to generate a muddled reaction among others on the Drive, from cyclists who don’t seem to be that passionate about it, to residents who debate it regularly.

“Commercial Drive is the last place that needs a bike lane,” said Torsten Muller. The cyclist rides to his job at Black Dog Video. He said the Drive is just too narrow to support a bike lane. He thinks it may make things more dangerous for cyclists, because it would put a strain on the already crowded streets.

Vancouver has designated Commercial Drive as one of several routes where it wants to establish bike lanes next, in its effort to encourage more cycling in the city.

According to the Transportation 2040 Plan, which was approved by city council on Oct. 31, “The Commercial Drive corridor serves an area with some of the highest existing and potential bicycle ridership.”

“It already has a lot of trips being made by bike. So we want to grow that that is part of the strategy,” said Coun. Geoff Meggs. “It’s an overall strategic decision by the city to make sure the additional trips that we get in the future are by sustainable means which is transit, walking, or cycling.”

Cycling accounts for 12 per cent of all traffic in Commercial Drive, making it one of the highest cycling areas in Vancouver, in contrast to the citywide average of four per cent.

There are supporters for a cycling lane on Commercial.

Dylan Sawatzky works as a supervisor at Bikes on the Drive. He’s comfortable riding along the Drive himself, but for others “the Drive is one of the most intimidating places to ride a bike, because it’s not as slow as downtown.”

Traffic challenges

A tangle of traffic at the busy Commercial Drive and 2nd Avenue intersection.
(Photo: Britney Dennison)

There are often cars parked on either side of the street, so traffic, pedestrians and bicycles vie for space often dodging and weaving to move.

“On the Drive, it seems like we have our own set of rules here. There are people pulling U-turns all the time. There is all sorts of strange stuff going on. For that reason, a bike lane would be very beneficial, just to have a little bit more of a rule in place,” said Sawatzky.

Meggs agrees with that, dismissing the suggestion some have made that cyclists should be moved over to Victoria Drive two blocks east.

“I’ve ridden on the Drive and it’s not great. It’s a very tight street. So to say to cyclists, you want to go to the Drive but you should stay on Victoria Drive, is not what we would say to drivers. So we need to find solutions,” said Meggs.

Separated lanes

But even a supporter like Sawatzky isn’t sure there should be a bike lane with a concrete barrier, similar to those on Hornby and Dunsmuir streets downtown.

“There are definitely problems with the separated bike lane, especially in a commercial district, just because it’s going to be very difficult for cars to access parking spots,” he said. “For a place like Commercial, I think just a painted bike lane would be fine.”

Separated lanes require a physical barrier that shields riders from vehicles, which means they also require more street width than a painted lane. If there were a separated bike lane on Commercial Drive, it could mean removing some of the parking on the east side of the street.

The majority oppose a separated bike lane on Commercial Drive.
(Photo: Britney Dennison)

That’s the sorest point in the whole debate, according to a recent poll by the Commercial Drive Business Society.  It found over 75 per cent of their members said they were opposed.

Meggs said he understands that parking is important for businesses. But there are also other considerations.

“There are some businesses that rely on parking – no question. And there is no plan by the city to remove anything more than is absolutely necessary for the overall benefit of the transportation plan,” said Meggs.

Carmen D’Onofrio, the president of the Commercial Drive Business Society, says owners will continue working with the City of Vancouver to help adopt a transportation plan that will work for everyone.

“Ultimately they have the final decision,” said D’Onofrio. But he maintained that there is strong opposition in the community and he hopes the city will remember that.

City engineers say they will.

“A full public consultation process that includes extensive outreach with local businesses and residents will get underway,” said Jerry Dobrovolny, head of engineering for the City of Vancouver. He said no decisions have been made yet and there is still time.

The Drive bike lane won’t officially enter the planning phase until after the Cornwall and Point Grey route is settled, likely not until fall 2013.

Click here for an interactive feature, mapping the potential Commercial Drive bike lane.