STAND for Housing on Saturdays

There's a great video of Stand for Housing on Facebook, posted by Julius Fisher of Working TV: http://www.new.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=13692872503

Below is a list of locations around Vancouver of people who have committed to bear silent witness to the need for action on affordable housing in this city. Looks like it should be possible to organize another of these - or several - around Mt. Pleasant. If interested, contact the organizers and get on the list.



From: info@citywidehousingcoalition.org

CITYWIDE HOUSING COALITION

Immediate Release
6 March 2008
Vancouver, BC CANADA


STREET-CORNER "STANDS" FOR HOUSING
Continue this Saturday and next

Neighbourhood housing activists will again stand on Vancouver street
corners, Saturday March 8 for one hour, 1-2pm, with banners and
wearing vivid blue scarves. They'll be calling attention to federal
and provincial failures to build permanent social housing, and the
City of Vancouver's proposed abandonment of deals with Concord
Pacific for affordable housing in downtown condo towers.

STANDers will also be paying respects to the hundreds of dead and
dying homeless men, women, and children- victims of legislated
poverty and government neglect in BC and Canada. In Vancouver they
populate our streets and lanes, huddle in parks and encampments, burn
to death in doorways, are crushed in back alley garbage bins.

Ten "STAND for Housing-Homes for All!" sites have been confirmed for
this, the third of four weekly Stands:
- Main St. & 33rd Avenue (Kia Salomons and Community Advocates
for Little Mtn)
- Main St & King Edward (Ned Jacobs, Mary Ann Code, and CALM)
- Arbutus & King Edward (Homeless Nation and Random Acts Of
Kindness -RAOK)
- Broadway & McDonald (Candace Simmonds and Kitsilano CHC)
- Heather & 6th Ave (Rider Cooey and False Creek neighbours)
- Commercial & 1st Avenue (Anna Truong, Dave Diewert & Streams
of Justice)
- Cordova & Gore (Anne Kennedy and St James Social Gospel
Coordinating Group)
- Oak & W 49th Ave (Leslie Kemp and Unitarian Church Social
Justice Cttee)
- Commercial & Broadway (Lauren Gill, Homeless Nation and RAOK)
- Burrard & Nelson (Bobbie Phillips and the St Andrew's-Wesley
Homelessness & Mental Health Action Group)
- [Christ Church Cathedral, Georgia & Burrard, will resume next week.]

Some STANDs for Housing will pause over the Easter Break, Friday to
Monday March 21-24, then continue, calling for substantial funding to
be dedicated by federal, provincial, and municipal politicians to
building new, permanent, low- and welfare-rate housing. Using the
surplus billions in the prosperous economies of Canada and BC to
build the full spectrum of housing for all citizens is the primary
mechanism by which homelessness must be defeated.

The public and media are invited to join us at any of the above
locations. The idea of the STAND is based on the moving example of
the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, whose children were "disappeared"
by the military, 1976 to 1983. They stood every week in a city
square wearing white scarves until the generals capitulated. The
scarves became an international "brand" for protests against unjust
and inhumane governments.

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Contact: Rider Cooey 604.872-1382
False Creek Organizer
Citywide Housing Coalition