[Dnfd_announce] Ending Cycles of Displacement (Townhall Wednesday Nov 22)

[Ivan Drury]

Downtown Eastside Anti-Displacement Town Hall

ENDING CYCLES OF DISPLACEMENT
Town Hall about forced displacement and gentrification
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 28
2PM
CARNEGIE THEATRE
(1st floor, 401 Main St)

Speakers including Toghestiy, Unis'tot'en Clan about the struggle against
pipelines; Myriam Hernandez about displacement out of Latin America; DTES
community organizers about the history of displacement in Vancouver and the
realities of gentrification today.

See posting here: http://dtesnotfordevelopers.wordpress.com/2012/11/27/dis/

Aboriginal and low-income people in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) understand
what forced displacement means. Many of us been pushed out of our home
communities and into the DTES fleeing high rents and poverty, racial and
colonial discrimination, domestic and family abuse, and grappling with
addictions and other health struggles.

When we arrived in the DTES we found a sense of belonging in a community
that cares for us. We joined organizations we volunteer with. We built
networks of love and survival. Our DTES families and communities are where
we belong and where we survive and thrive as creative human beings.

Now, after we have struggled to create safe spaces in a violent world and
belonging out of alienation, we are facing the threat of displacement
again. This time our displacement is called “revitalization” or
gentrification. We are displaced from our SRO hotel rooms by investors who
buy the buildings, renovate, and rent them to students. We are displaced
off our streets by police and security guard patrols. And our restaurants
and shops are displaced by expensive and culturally exclusive boutique
shops and restaurants. Where will we go? No one knows.

Meanwhile Aboriginal and other low-income people are still being forced out
of their reserves and rural communities and into cities by environmental
destruction, lack of good work options and healthy housing crisis.  And
people (mostly racialized & Indigenous people) internationally are pushed
out of their home countries by similar forces like global inequality, war
and poverty.

Once in Vancouver many have no options but to move to the DTES because of
expensive unaffordable rent, a lack of or exclusion from social housing,
and because of the racial, colonial and gender discrimination that blocks
them from any housing out of the DTES that they might find.

At this forum we will discuss a strategy to support all people’s right to
stay, go, or return to the places they want to be. We are fighting for the
right to be in the communities and with the people we love.

Organized by DTES Not for Developers Coalition
http://dtesnotfordevelopers.wordpress.com
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