[van-announce] Letter to Mayor and Council: Woodwards Squat Conclusion

[Friends of the Woodwards Squat]

03 December 2002
Day 81 of the Woodwards Squat

"Invest in affordable housing, stop slum landlords and redevelop direlict 
buildings." - COPE election flyer, distributed to each resident of the 
Woodwards Squat in October

"What I'm saying is you don't provide anybody with any warmth, any food, by 
giving them an injunction. You can't eat an injunction. Whatever we're 
spending on lawyers for injunctions and surveillence should be spent instead 
on immediately finding people a warm, secure, safe place to sleep at night 
pending the finding of housing." - Councillor Tim Louis, 18 November, to the 
Georgia Straight

"Housing should be a basic right of everyone everywhere. COPE has been 
working very hard behind the scenes in the absence of any leadership from 
the NPA to find housing for everyone here. Tomorrow COPE will be presenting 
a motion [at City Council]. Tim Louis has a motion that he will present to 
Council asking that everyone here who needs housing be offered housing 
before any further action takes place. [cheers] [Audience: That's why we 
voted for you!] We are here in support of everyone's right to affordable 
housing. I am so pleased that this has drawn so much attention. It's a 
crisis. Housing is a basic human right. [cheers]." - Councillor Ellen 
Woodsworth, 25 November, at a Rally to Support the Squat, Abbott Street

Dear Mayor and Council,

Weclome to office. We understand that many of you had a hand in ensuring 
that the City did not move on the enforcement order over the past four days. 
Thank you. We appreciate your intervention and will remember that you did 
this for the residents of the Woodwards Squat.

We also appreciate your agreement to let the Woodwards Squat stand for at 
least another 7 nights, at least until Tuesday 10 December, in order that 
the City may provide decent and dignified housing for everyone remaining on 
the street.

There is, however, outstanding business left over from the previous City 
administration.

We recommend the following remedies:

1. The City should issue a written apology to the residents of the Woodwards 
Squat for the destruction of their possessions by Engineering Services on 
Sunday 22 September;

2. The City should take disciplinary action against the senior manager in 
Engineering Services who ordered the destruction; and

3. The City should provide fair compensation for the destruction of these 
possessions.

Our preliminary inventory of items destroyed by the City was distributed to 
Mayor and Council at your meeting on 22 October. Inquiries regarding 
property destruction and the process of providing fair compensation should 
be directed to the Woodwards Legal Defense Committee at 
<woodwards-legal-defense at lists.resist.ca>. We believe that the WLDC will be 
sending you a letter regarding our proposed remedy early next week.

There is, also, new business pertaining to the housing crisis in the 
downtown eastside.

First, there are the steps the City needs to take in order to make a 
peaceful transition from the street to decent and dignified housng:

1. The City must negotiate with elected representatives from the Woodwards 
Squat over the terms of the transition;

2. The City must ensure that any contracts entered into between the City, 
hotel owners, service providers, and agencies make provisions for 
self-management of the space by the residents;

3. The City must ensure a peaceful resolution to the crisis. (The residents 
of Woodwards Squat are committed to a non-violent solution and any 
suggestion that there are weapons or "potential weapons" such as "posts, 
heavy pipes, construction materials, boards with nails protruding from them, 
and syringes," as one of the City affidavits asserts, is not only ridiculous 
but dangerous. Unsubtantiated rumours and provocative statements like these 
may very well lead directly to a premature, unreasonable, and extremely 
violent Police action. This is irresponsible and unacceptable. If there are 
any Police actions because of these statements and rumours circulated by 
City staff, we will hold the City responsible for those Police actions.); 
and

4. The City must replace Judy Graves immediately. (Many of the residents of 
the squat do not trust Judy Graves, the only staff person the City has 
assigned to process over 200 people. This lack of trust arises from what are 
perceived to be false statements made by her in her affidavits and the 
failure of many arrangements she had promised. We are especially concerned 
that the statistical data she is generating is flawed because when a 
resident declines her approaches [because the resident does not believe she 
is competent], Graves is reporting that this resident has "refused an offer 
of housing." This is terribly misleading and we cannot accept the legitimacy 
of any City or Police actions based upon her reports).

Second, there are steps that the City must take in order to fulfil the COPE 
campaign promise to "Invest in affordable housing, stop slum landlords and 
redevelop direlict buildings." I believe the Coalition of Woodwards 
Squatters and Supports and the Mutual Aid Housing Association will be in 
contact with you regarding longer-term innovative low-income housing 
projects. We would like to stress two actions that are within your area of 
functional responsibility that ought to be part of this process:

1. The City should draft a civic anti-vacancy by-law to seize and convert 
empty, abandoned buildings into social housing; and

2. The City should provide full disclosure of all information regarding the 
proposed sale and development of the Woodwards building.

We recognize that the responsiblity for housing rests primarily with the 
federal and provincial governments. The City of Vancouver, under the NPA 
administration, was able to divert our attention away from targetting their 
buddies at these two other levels of government. We were thoroughly caught 
up in litigation initiated by the City for the past two months. Now that a 
COPE administration is at the helm, we hope that this style of diversion may 
come to and end so we may together set our sights on our real enemies: the 
ruling class.

In conclusion, we would like to note that there will be at least three 
significant consequences of taking down the Woodwards Squat:

1. There will be an increase in violence in the vicinity of the Woodward's 
Building. Over the past 81 days the squat has provided its own volunteer 
health and safety crews. These crews have provided free services to people 
outside of the squat as well: to other homeless people, to visitors and 
supporters, to local residents in need. These services will come to an end 
when the squat is taken down. The result will be a return to 
violence-as-usual.

2. There will be an increase in the drug trade in the vicinity of the 
Woodward's Building. Over the past 81 days the attention that the squat has 
brought to the area has scared off many middle- and upper-class people who 
drive to the south side of Hastings Street to purchase crack cocaine. 
Citizens from the west side of town who drive to the area to purchase their 
drugs have not wanted to be caught on camera and have stopped coming into 
the neighbourhood to make their purchases. The drug dealers have complained 
that the squat has cut into their business. Some dealers have claimed to be 
losing up to $5000 per day. We expect that when the squat leaves this threat 
of public exposure will too.

3. There will be a decrease in the level of sanitation in the vicinity of 
the Woodward's Building. The residents of the squat keep their home clean. 
They keep the three sidewalks they are camped out on clean and they have 
assisted Engineering Services crews to clean up the neighbourhood as an act 
of good will. Local residents have attested to the state of sanitation 
before and during the Woodwards Squat; some have sworn affidavits attesting 
to the contribution that squatters have made to the general clean-up and 
revitalization of the area.

Our organization would still like to assist the City with a peaceful 
resolution to the housing crisis. We have offered our help many times to the 
Mayor and Council over the past two months but have yet to be taken up on 
any of our offers. Please contact us at any time. Our emergency number is 
604-727-8471 in case you need it.

Yours truly,

Aaron Vidaver
Friends of the Woodwards Squat

cc. COPE

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