by: Kendra Milne | First published by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Housing is a right. [Photo by Obert Madondo/The Canadian Progressive Safe and secure housing is a cornerstone of overall health and well-being. The housing affordability crisis in BC is common knowledge, but less well known is the fact that
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Politics, Re-Spun: What’s Wrong with America, Billionaires and Corporations?
Riotously popular economist Umair Haque had a few interesting tweets about America, corporations and billionaires this week. [View the story “What’s Wrong with America, Corporations and Billionaires?” on Storify] December 30, 2013 How the Occupy Movement is Enriching People’s Lives (1) April 18, 2011 Embracing BC NDP Corporate Tax Increases
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: How the Occupy Movement is Enriching People’s Lives
Imagine an eco-community of micro-homes designed as a first step out of homelessness. Housing, easy to get into, if people care. Occupy Madison in Wisconsin has come up with an innovative first step of a solution [see below]. These 96 square foot homes are no long term solution, at all.
Continue readingknitnut.net: Sad chalk message on the sidewalk
Friday morning I was walking to work along Somerset Street. It was a drizzly morning, so this sidewalk chalk message was probably still fresh yet destined to disappear almost immediately. As I stopped to take a picture of it, my old friend Mike, who lives on Somerset Street, stepped out
Continue readingLeDaro: Homelessness and patriotism?
Stars and Stripes comfort or maybe homeless man is conveying that so much for the Stars and Stripes. It does not cover poverty – wars yes, Americans-well beings no! Imagine $ 2 trillion for Iraq and Afghanistan wars could have done for the Americans at home. But then black-gold rules. The picture
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Terrace: Regulating Housing Dignity Is Far Easier Than You’d Think
How to Research a Slumlord! In this era of hyper neoliberalism, we are so used to tax-cutting governments chopping regulations off the books to allow the Blessed Free Market to guide human existence. This caveat emptor mentality, however, means lots of vulnerable, marginalized and economically precarious people are hung out
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – Andrew Jackson rightly questions Greg Mankiw’s faith-based assertion that increasing wealth accumulation is based solely on merit and contribution to society rather than hoarding and rent-seeking. And Martin Lobel highlights a few of the distortionary policies that have served to exacerbate inequality in
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: 200,000 Canadians Experience Homelessness Each Year, Says New Report
By: York University | Press Release: TORONTO, June 19, 2013 – The Canadian Homelessness Research Network (Homeless Hub) and the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness released the first extensive Canadian report card on homelessness called State of Homelessness in Canada: 2013 today in Toronto. Highlights of the report include: 200,000 different Canadians experience homelessness
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Paul Krugman writes that the only real difference between the latest global crisis and past depressions is that we’ve moved further and further toward a rent-based economy – meaning that aggregated growth doesn’t necessarily result in any benefit for the vast majority
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Even the wealthy can be impacted by the negative health effects of austerity
At first it was a mystery. How was it that during an excessively dry and hot 2007 summer that cases of West Nile disease had jumped in Bakersfield California by 276 per cent? Dry weather is not normally associated with … Continue reading →
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Anti-Gentrification Pidgin Protesting: Bad Urban Planning but Potential for Good Social Movement Building
This is a fifth instalment to the gentrification series- discussing the Protests and pickets in Vancouver’s DTES Thus far I haven’t been too clear about where my commitments lie. I understand both sides. Team Anti-gentrification/ CCAP/ Homeless Dave/ Poor people’s movement/ DTES advocate: They are locally organizing against some larger scale problems,
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Vancity & Anti-gentrification CCAP Protests in DTES: When social economy work gets messy
Vancity is a co-operative [2] bank that has been a long time funder of the Carnegie Community Action Project. On April 13th Vancity released a statement on their stance on CCAP Protests in the DTES. After a lengthy non-committal statement about their stance on housing and the gentrification of the
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: The Pidgin Picket, the Housing Crisis and the State
The Role of The State in Gentrification, the Housing Crisis, and its Ability to Relieve or Maintain the Current Situation by Rachel Goodine Pidgin, a new fine-dining restaurant located on Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, moved in to the neighbourhood on February 1 of this year, prompting plenty of controversy. It’s
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Are the Anti-Gentrification Front protesters wrong to “vandalize” Save-on-Meats?
My facebook feed went crazy last night with my Vancouver friends posting about a stolen sandwich board. Why is this important? Context: Save-on-Meats is kind of an iconic butcher in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. A long time retailer that had mixed reviews has now invested some capital into their business and,
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Canada News Headlines: Stephen Harper – World’s Worst Talent Scout
Curated By: Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive | Feb. 27, 2013: Stephen Harper – world’s worst talent scout Sooner or later, the country is going to realize that there is something terribly wrong with Stephen Harper’s judgment. And sooner or later, the Conservative party is going to realize one-man bands are great until the tuba
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Elizabeth May urges MPs to vote for the NDP’s housing Bill C-400
By: Green Party of Canada (Press Release) | Feb. 27, 2013: OTTAWA – Green Leader and Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands Elizabeth May will vote in favour of Bill C-400 this evening and urges her fellow MPs to do the same. Bill C-400, the Act to ensure secure, adequate, accessible and affordable
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Edmonton’s homeless shelters home to body lice, ‘refugee-camp-like conditions’
Alberta’s perpetually mismanaged boom-and-bust economy makes homelessness worse, as hopeful immigrants flock here in hopes of a better life, and find nowhere to live. At least this guy has warm boots. Below: Dr. Stan Houston and Dr. Mat Rose. Welcome to Alberta, the Richest Place on Earth, where body lice
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Pick On Someone Your Own Size, Premier McGuinty
Much rhetoric has been uttered of late about the need for everyone to ‘share the pain’ as Ontario’s McGuinty government attacks the provincial deficit in a manner that many think is counterproductive, stripping away teachers collective bargaining rights being but one example. However one may feel about such moves, those
Continue readingknitnut.net: Ottawa Citizen outs mentally ill man
On Saturday the Ottawa Citizen ran a story called Pleas to help mentally ill son ignored, mother says. It was in Hugh Adami’s column, The Public Citizen. Complete with names and a photograph, this article provides detailed personal information about a 22-year-old man who lives in Ottawa’s shelter system. The
Continue readingCanadian Progressive World: Canada’s Shame: Acclaimed Inuit Artist Pregnant And Homeless In Ottawa
“We CAN look after each other better than we do today” and “Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity.” – the late NDP Leader, Jack Layton Emotional by nature, I am.
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