[van-announce] Woodwards Squat to be Evicted?

[J.M. Adams]

Injunction sought to evict activists
B.C. Housing wants to unload Woodward's
 
Janet Steffenhagen
Vancouver Sun


Monday, September 16, 2002


B.C. officials plan to seek a court injunction early
today to oust homeless people and community activists
who are occupying the vacant Woodward's department
store. 

George Abbott, minister responsible for B.C. Housing,
the department that owns the building, said Sunday the
government has concerns about the health and safety of
the protesters inside the building. He wants to act
quickly to remove them. 

Demonstrators occupied the building on Hastings Street
in downtown Vancouver on Friday, using ladders to
enter the second floor.

By Sunday evening, about 50 people congregated in and
around the building said they would stay there until
the government makes a commitment to low-cost housing.

The protest began as rumors swirled through the
Downtown Eastside that B.C. Housing was planning to
sell the building, abandoning a pledge to the
community in 2001 -- during the dying days of the NDP
government -- to turn the site into co-op units. The
store closed in 1993. 

Abbott confirmed that the building is for sale and the
Liberals will not proceed with the NDP plan because it
is too expensive. However, he said there is
considerable interest from potential buyers in
redeveloping the site to include a mixture of
commercial and residential space. When asked if the
residential space would be low-cost, he replied that
it would "certainly qualify as affordable."

Earlier, Jim Leyden, a Downtown Eastside resident who
spent the weekend in the building, said activists who
have been fighting to see the neighbourhood landmark
converted into social housing are determined to hang
onto it.

"We need social housing ... and we aren't leaving
until we get a commitment," Leyden said.

The protesters entered the building by climbing a
ladder to the concrete awning over the corner of
Hastings and Abbott. They used another ladder to reach
an upper window which they managed to swing open.

By Sunday, they had set up camp in the yawning
emptiness of the building's second floor, with tables,
chairs and a refrigerator near the open window and a
row of mattresses stretching into one of the darkened
corners.

Leyden said police visited the site several times over
the weekend, but as of late Sunday afternoon, had made
no attempt to remove those inside. Officers instructed
them to curtail the number of people coming and going
because of the hazards associated with the ladder
access, but on Sunday afternoon there were still
people climbing in and out of the building.

"A lot of people want to support us," Leyden
explained, adding that there had been a flood of food
and mattress donations.

Some protesters had also set up tents and placed
mattresses outside the building along Abbott Street,
with signs indicating frustration with Premier Gordon
Campbell's government. One called for money to be
spent on social justice rather than the 2010 Olympic
bid.

"I'm not homeless, but I'm here as a symbol of
community," said Debbie Krull, a single mother who
slept in a tent on the sidewalk Saturday night with
her three-year-old daughter, Wren. Krull said she
hopes her presence will dispel any notion that the
occupiers are insincere about social housing and more
interested in setting up a crack house.

"We are here to say this is a community ... and we
really believe in our goal. This building has to be
social housing," she said as her daughter and two
other children from the camp used chalk to draw neat
squares on the sidewalk.

Krull said some of the protesters formed a guard on
Saturday night to protect those who were sleeping.
"This is the most vicious part of Vancouver ... but I
feel really safe here."

Several of those inside the building spent much of
Sunday strategizing about the possibility of facing a
court injunction. While they talked and conducted
media interviews, other people wandered aimlessly on
the rough wooden floor, a couple of young men played
with a dog, and one fellow begged visitors for money
as they climbed up the ladder to enter the window.

At least two people who are vying for a seat on
Vancouver city council attended the protest. Ellen
Woodsworth, who hopes to run under the COPE banner,
said the number of homeless people in the Downtown
Eastside will be greater than ever this winter because
of Liberal cuts to welfare.

She said she understood why some felt driven to an
illegal occupation.

"People don't know of any other way to draw attention
to their situation," she said.

Independent candidate Kelly Alm visited the site
Sunday to deliver Kraft Dinner and peanut butter. He
said later that he intends to draw up a contract that
would see the protesters leave the building if the
city and the province agree in writing to a
redevelopment that would include 60 per cent social
housing.

After buying the building in 2001, B.C. Housing
promised to create 300 co-op housing units as part of
a redevelopment scheme that would also see some space
devoted to retail enterprises. That redevelopment
never got under way, however, and the NDP government
was defeated later that spring.

© Copyright 2002 Vancouver Sun


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"In a world where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot."  

- Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz

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