Occupy Condos: Take the Pantages!


I’ve been hesitating to endorse this action- the person who setup the Facebook ‘event’ publicly made fun of me for the fact my last relationship weathered poorly through my involvement in the Occupy movement.  That said, I can’t let Harsha Walia’s personal attacks effect my feeling’s on Vancouver’s gentrification issues. And, besides, Lauren Gill is one of this demonstration’s organizers- and she’s 100% pure awesome! (1 year later: No, she’s not awesome…)

So, I’m going to take a chance and dive into the deep-end. On Tuesday between 4pm & 6pm, I will attend “Occupy Condos: Take the Pantages!” at 152 East Hastings.

Here’s an outline from the blog entry:

Condo Developer Marc Williams wants to build expensive market housing at the old Pantages Site in the Downtown Eastside. Condos in the heart of the neighbourhood will cause higher property values, higher rents in single-room occupancies, displacement of current residents, increased policing, and low-income residents feeling unwelcome in their own neighbourhood.

We are tired and angry that the City and real estate developers are being complicit in escalating rents and gentrification instead of building and protecting safe and affordable low-incoming housing. The corporate developers that bankroll City Council are the 1% in our city that hold disproportionate political and economic power and want to make millions of dollars in profit. Meanwhile more people are displaced from low-income housing in the Downtown Eastside and Vancouver’s has become one of the most unaffordable cities for poor, low-income, racialized, seniors, youth, single mothers, and working people in the world.”

There is no mention by the organizers if this is a “Family Friendly” event. Can anyone confirm if it is or isn’t?

Permanent link to this article: http://www.genuinewitty.com/2011/11/27/occupy-condos-take-the-pantages/