Ending Homelessness in Victoria

by Chris Johnson
As a stand-alone document, the Mayor’s Task Force Report contained some challenging objectives for dealing with homelessness. As a blueprint for ending homelessness in ten years, it was woefully inadequate, to put it politely.
What’s missing from the Coalition’s efforts is a clear plan outlining it’s objectives, such as Calgary and Edmonton have.
The [...]

Media Analysis of Homeless Encampment “Sweeps”

(The following is a short excerpt from an excellent report that just came my way.
Check it out at http://faculty.washington.edu/stygall/homelessmediacoveragegroup
Seeing the Homeless
by George Dillion, English Professor, University of Washington
If an individual or organization decides to portray homelessness as urban blight and contagion—as the dump come to your door—a common tactic is to shoot garbage-scapes with a [...]

Several arrested as police clear out Nickelsville

By Lindsay Cohen & KOMO Staff
SEATTLE — About a dozen people were arrested Wednesday afternoon for refusing to leave the Nickelsville homeless encampment at a park in West Seattle.
The homeless residents set up camp at Terminal 107 Park on West Marginal Way in July, despite warnings that they would not be allowed to stay.
Officials [...]

South Africa’s Poor Targeted by Evictions, Attacks in Advance of 2010 World Cup

Thousands of South Africans are being displaced in preparation for the 2010 World Cup. While Durban completes the finishing touches on its new stadium, thousands of the city’s poor who live in sprawling informal settlements are threatened with eviction. On Saturday, an armed gang of some forty men attacked an informal settlement on Durban’s Kennedy [...]

Analysis: No need for a law to pick up the homeless in the cold

By Miro Cernetig, Vancouver Sun
The poor, as the Bible informs in one of its less optimistic asides, will always be with us. So, too, are society’s schemes to try to get the unfortunate to improve their lot in life.
The latest in tough love comes from the provincial government, which is now writing a law to [...]

Weather trumps homeless rights: Attorney-General

by Justine Hunter, Globe and Mail
The right to sleep in the street ends in extreme weather, maintains B.C.’s top law official.
Attorney-General Mike de Jong told reporters yesterday he is satisfied the province can draft a law that would allow police to compel people living on the street to go to homeless shelters if winter weather [...]

Pittsburgh March for Jobs Against the G20

-from Bail Out the People Movement
Occupants of the Bail Out the People Movement Tent City will be marching from Freedom Corner (the intersection of Centre Avenue and Crawford Street) to the Mellon Corporation Headquarters (500 Grant Street) at 4:30 to demand a national moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. Participants in [...]

Victoria protesters plan anti-Olympic rally at start of 2010 torch relay

(this is a corrected version of an article published yesterday on the TC website, which claimed that No2010 ‘vows to disrupt’ events. Zoe called and had them correct it.)
By Staff Reporter, The Province
A group of social-welfare advocates in Victoria plan a mass rally to coincide with the kickoff to the Olympic torch relay in the [...]

BC Preparing New Law to Apprehend Homeless

Read these articles carefully. Coleman tries to deflect by saying that they can’t compel people to stay at the shelter once they are brought there. What the bill says is that if they refuse to stay at the shelter, officers can the use force and jail the person. So Coleman responds that there is not [...]

Surrey won’t force homeless into shelters

-from Surrey Leader
A provincial initiative that would force homeless people into shelters during extreme weather conditions – whether they wanted help or not – is receiving cool reviews in this city.
Victoria is drafting legislation that would give authorities the power to compel the homeless to go to shelters if it’s determined they would be harming [...]