[van-announce] Pantages Theatre receives a banner: "100% Social Housing Here!"

[Ivan D. Drury]

For Immediate 
Release                                                                        

January 10th, 2011

Contact: socialhousinghere at gmail.com

HOUSING ACTIVISTS PASTE A BANNER ON THE PANTAGES THEATRE: "100% SOCIAL HOUSING 
HERE!"

            On the night of Sunday January 9th housing activists pasted a banner 
reading "100% Social Housing Here!" across the top of the empty Pantages 
Theatre. See a set of pictures here: 
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/photo/social-housing-here/5601

            The anonymous action was a statement against the Pantages owner's 
recent application for a condo development on the lot package that covers all 
the property between the Regent Hotel and the Brandiz Hotel on the 100 block of 
East Hastings Street.

            The activists that carried out the banner action identified the 
Pantages Theatre as a priority site for social housing development in the 
Downtown Eastside. They said, "A condo tower at Main and Hastings would release 
the demon of real estate speculation in the heart of the Downtown Eastside." A 
condo development at Pantages would be the first major market condo project in 
the relatively low-income resident protected Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer 
District (DEOD).

            The activists explained, "The residents of the privately owned 
hotels that surround the Pantages will all be placed at risk of homelessness if 
Pantages is made into condos."

            The owner of the Pantages, Mark Williams, of Worthington Properties, 
has twice tried to sell this package to City Hall, and the City has twice 
refused. The anonymous group, referring to them selves only as "Social Housing 
Here," said they support calls from DTES residents for the City to buy the 
Pantages property package and build 100% social housing at the site.

See pictures here: http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/photo/social-housing-here/5601

Contact: socialhousinghere at gmail.com

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