Are my Neighbours really heartless fascists?I am tired of all the negativity projected onto my building by a residents association I had never heard of until reading and article interviewing them on the building I live in, brought on by the mass evictions at 2100 block of Pandora Street. That building, which after a flood brought on by a despicable lack on maintenance had the city mass evict the tenants. Those tenants are having a very rough time finding housing, mostly because there is none, none that would approach the level of housing they had in that fated building. They had their own place, their own kitchen and bathroom. Most of the housing out there at their level of income will have neither.
The arguments goes, well they won't have bed bugs and mice, and floods at least. No one can guarantee that. Bedbugs have no notion of what is and what is not the appropriate building to infest. It takes on traveller on a coat to start and infestation. The bug doesn't suddenly realize he's in the Hyatt and immdiately packs up and leaves to the Lower East Side. I've seen mice and rats on Granville Island, well fed. Lots of expensive, yet leaky condos sport molds, fungus and floods, every bit as noxious. If it was so much worse at the building at 2100 Pandora it was for one reason, the tenants were poor and the landlord knew he would have tenants whether he spent money on the building or not. The landlord has no competition, he doesn't have to try. If there were sufficient units for people in low income groups to rent they would choose the best for their money and this slumlord would soon find himself with a largely vacant building. With more buildings to choose from tenants could be choosier as to hygiene, upkeep and other tenants. Most of us would, given the choice choose to live somewhere safe from the criminal element.
Apparently this residents association has a problem with tenants who have no choice but to live where they do, and have the expectation that by moving out some of these tenants everything will change. It wasn't mentioned that often the trouble comes from drug trafficking done in the park opposite. It would also seem obvious that people using drugs in the alleys haven't got apartments here or they'd be using their drugs indoors. The laws should have more teeth and a police presence by way of patrolling the park and area regularly might help a lot. It might help also if the city had a less lax attitude to drug use. It sends mixed messages by providing safe injection sites and at the same time complaining that people use drugs. No one bats and eye when marijuana is smoked on public streets and in the park. It may be "only" marijuana, but it is illegal and with that comes drug trade, and whom easier to recruit to sell than the poorest who need to scrape by. What the residents association really wants is to get rid of the unsightly poor which is keeping their property values from skyrocketing as in other neighbourhoods in Vancouver.
The attack is on the victims of poverty, and it should be on poverty itself. If you have people living in conditions not even suitable for a dog, you cannot expect them to live with the same civility as those who live in comfort with no worries where the next meal comes from with no certainly one day to the next of having shelter. Give the poor the basics of a dignified and life and the tools to maintain and improve their standing in society and many of the crime typically associated with the poor will go away, there will be no need for self-medicating or panhandling for a meal and some shelter,
Build sufficient housing, not SROs which have all the same problems of no dignity, no security, no privacy. How can someone who's been victimised in the sex trade or in domestic violence heal in an environment where they have to share washroom facilities? Can a paranoid personality do well in such an environment? Will depression cease when all you have is a small room and live with people you don't know in such close quarters? These are nothing more than poorhouses, we're taking a giant step back as a society.
Sufficient housing, apartments, the same size as anyone else would have not the Major's eco-density which is a spectacularly bad idea, we've done all those experiments with rats in our social psychology classes, you deprive rats of private space and they will turn on each other, there will be mahem, chaos and all that comes with it. Give them more space and all settles down. Everyone should have a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a balcony. Safe, Clean with communal space for socialising. The best example I have seen of this is the PAL building for performing artists in coal harbour.
If you put the poor exclusively in SROs what becomes of the children, are they put in foster care while the parents try to find against all odds a place to live together? Living in illegal suites, dealing with yet another unscrupulous landlord (of which there seem to be plenty). Better they have dignified suitably sized apartments, safe play space for the kids. Surly providing this kind of housing ultimately saves lost of money. Instead of spending lots of money on emergency shelter in hotels, crisis funds for resettlement, and foster care. Health will improve, hopelessness will be replaced by a sense of dignity a sense that we are a part of the community not the target for jibes by the upwardly mobile. Build sufficient rental housing to ensure a market which allows a tenant to make choices about where they would like to live instead of being relocated to places they have no support, no history. Charge them what is fair, on a sliding scale, as they have more they pay more, but always as a percentage to leave them also with enough for food. The subsidy can be paid directly to the landlord. All tenants pay but what they pay is between them and the landlord and social workers, they can be part of a community no more or less worthy than the next.
Do the sick, elderly and disabled have to share bathroom facilities? Are we not allowed some dignity and privacy, at minimum a self contained rental unit with bathroom and kitchen facilities. For the past few years I feel constantly under threat of losing what little I have. Obviously it is not paranoia, it is happening. The extra stress is having impact on my health, I cannot imagine coping with having to relocate with little time and a near 0 vacancy rate. What further will I be asked or expected to give up? I take some joy from living with my son, and my pets. I need the pets, they give me reason to get up. I need my son, he helps me when my illness requires someone help me and goodness knows there is no home care of any kind, without him I face living in a home. So I would lose my independence, the relationships that are therapeutic and provide me with love and dignity, I would lose (well have lost this already) security and safety. Probably it ould mean living with fewer and fewer of my belongings as the living spaces available become smaller and smaller and less and less private.
Once upon a time I felt like a human being who mattered, and I was convinced that paying high rates of taxation which left my paycheck smaller even when I received raises, well it provided for a safety net for those folks who were left disabled, or ill, unable to manage, and, I reasoned, it might one day even be me. Well it is me, the tax rates are still high, and there is no safety net, no kindness and no dignity.
My fellow human being, the ones having the face to once introduce themselves to me as their "neighbours" now have a residency association, one to which I was never invited. Their little group manage a newspaper article calling my building and affront to their sensibilities. Yes, there have been and may still be a drug dealer or two here, I see strange people going in and out of my building. Pretty much as it has been in any large building with many suites which I've lived in, most of those in far more "upscale" areas. What they did not mention were the tenants who lives here who use a wheelchair, walk with a cane, walk with difficulty, are elderly, are new to this country, young families with little children, middle aged ladies who found themselves single, poor and wanting to have a pet. Many of us are pet owners. Many of us are former victims of crime, some are recovering alcoholics or drug users.
The neighbours complain of whistling to get the attention of "drug dealers". Purely an assumption. I've whistled to get my son's attention if he's on the Internet and I foolishly forgot my key. I've seen people do it behind the more upscale building of condos at the corner of Garden and Pandora, and someone then threw him a key. The neighbours assume we are poor so must be up to no good and wouldn't the property values just go up is we were gone. Some neighbours. They can't see that they have at least 50 neighbours in this building. I've been nothing but friendly to my neighbours and their two-faced-ness hurts me. Thanks to them I might find myself homeless, disabled, losing for the last months or (hopefully) years of my life privacy, dignity, freedom, not because I am a criminal, but because I am now poor. Regardless all the tax I have paid, decades of working in the not for profit sector, raising good kids to adulthood, being a grandma. None of it matters, I am poor, no one cares, and the landlord, well he might choose to take advantage of the moment, my neighbours have set me and 50 neighbours up for being homeless with no place to go. I love my little apartment, I've lived here seven years and it is my home. There are no modern conveniences such as dishwashers, or in suite washer/dryers, no thermostats no thermal glass windows, the rugs are very old, but it is my home. It took months to get this apartment, landlords don't like renting to the poor, disabled or welfare makes no difference to them. I am happy here, and the building manager is doing an amazing job considering she has to manage 56 suites by herself with no help. If I need a new washer for a tap, or if a board breaks on my balcony, they fix it right away.
this is my home of seven yearsToday we were given notices, shoved under the door, I'll keep it simple and just post the scan right here for you to read. I feel intimidated. I am terribly sad. It is making me more ill, I've been in bed for days with worsening of my symptoms, emotionally my son and I are both wound tight and unable to enjoy much of anything. I am not sure I can live through being evicted and relocated, or worse endlessly being jockeyed from a night here in one shelter or someone's couch for goodness knows how long. These fear raising tactics are cruel. You can't threaten a rich person by doing this, the rich have options, choices, we only have fear.
Some related articles, follow these links:
The Evictor - Vancouver Eviction Services
http://www.lestwarog.com/newspaper/theevictor.htmlTenants fighting mad over eviction notices
http://www.gregorbc.ca/node/89http://anarchocyclist.ca/2004/09/08/quick-humourous-landlord-update/http://www.realestatetalks.com/viewtopic.php?p=85259
why are the neighbours so unfriendly?
