Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

Victoria:

• Housing For All Rally & BBQ
• Monday October 23, 12 noon
• Victoria Conference Centre, 740 Douglas Street
• Banners & noisemakers welcome

Vancouver:

• Condemned: A work in progress - Downdown EastSide Opera
• October 27, 28, 8PM October 29 3PM
• Carnegie Theatre, Main @ Hastings
• Tickets available @ Carnegie Centre 604.655.2220

October 16th to 22, 2006 is the first annual Homelessness Awareness Week in Greater Vancouver. The theme for this year is Homelessness and Health.

Through Homelessness Awareness Week people living in the Greater Vancouver area are invited to learn more about what is causing homelessness; how homelessness affects the health of individuals and society at large; and why working together is the only way we will solve the crisis of homelessness in our community.

Visit stophomelessness.ca to find out more.

Saturday October 14th, rain or shine!

The Make Poverty History Campaign will be holding this Walk & Rally from Peace Flame Park to the Vancouver Art Gallery to coincide with global mobilizations around the International Day of Poverty Eradication.

Last year, Global Television estimated 2000 of us were marching. Let’s double that number this year. Come join us for some great music and learn how you can support others in our community who are working to eliminate local and global poverty. Bring friends and family! Bring out your whole school or office!

The walk starts at 11 am at Seaforth Peace Flame Park (south end of Burrard Street Bridge). March to the Vancouver Art Gallery. Estimated arrival time 12 pm.

Festivities begin at 12 noon at the VAncouver Art Gallery - Guest speakers, music, NGO booths, and more!

For more information contact bccic@web.ca. Make Poverty History is one of the campaigns the PSAC Social Justice Fund supports. Download the poster here (pdf).

Low-income women in Canada face increasing inequality in terms of their health, according to a report just published by the Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW).

The fourth in a series of CASW reports on women and poverty, The Declining Health and Well-Being of Low Income Women in Canada: A Preventable Tragedy explores the connectionsbetween the income of women and their health and concludes that the health of low-income women is being compromised.

“The socio-economic links to health are well documented nationally and internationally,” says Veronica Marsman, president of CASW. “This paper finds that significant differences exist in the life expectancy, onset and intensity of illness, and frequency of violence in the lives of low income Canadian women.”

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Vote for better aid

Hundreds of thousands of Canadians support the Make Poverty History call for “more and better aid”. It means more aid spending for the world’s poor but better spending too - more focused, more effective. Now there is a chance to make sure that Members of Parliament (MPs) vote for not just more aid but better aid.

On September 19th and 20th MPs in the House of Commons will debate and vote on legislation (Bill C-293) to ensure Canada’s aid spending will go exclusively for poverty reduction and the promotion of human rights along with humanitarian assistance. It’s a great idea for a law that will make sure aid is not mis-spent and will go to beat global poverty.

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In 2001, the B.C. Ministry of Social Housing released a document reviewing the research on the relationship between homelessness and the health,social services, and criminal justice systems and estimated the cost of homelessness to governments …

Executive Summary

Some observers argue that homelessness costs the health care, social services and criminal justice systems at least as much as decent affordable housing. In fact, as one observer noted: “we continue paying to put the homeless in hospital beds, while not providing them with ordinary beds of their own,” (Starr 1998). The question is do we pay now by providing those ordinary beds or do we pay possibly more later by not providing them? The costs of dealing with the consequences of homelessness, such as increased health needs, must be weighed against the cost of investing in longer-term housing solutions. This research provides a preliminary estimate of the costs of homelessness to the British Columbia government.

The specific objectives for this exploratory research are:

• To present a cost analysis of homelessness in terms of the British Columbia health care, social services and criminal justice systems.
• To analyse whether the provision of adequate and affordable housing is a preventive cost to the government.

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Tom Cochrane wants you to help make poverty history at the 2006 AIDS Conference: August 2006

The eyes of the world will be on Toronto August 13 to 18 at the XVI International AIDS Conference. This meeting brings together thousands of delegates from around the globe and Canada’s role in fighting the AIDS pandemic will be under the spotlight.

Over 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS and 95% of these people are living in the developing world. Poverty fuels the AIDS pandemic and is making millions more poor. To address the AIDS crisis, world leaders must take action to make poverty history.

At the G8 meeting in 2005, heads of state promised to reduce debt loads of the poorest countries. Unfortunately, the G8 plan will help only one-third of the countries with high HIV rates, and just 13% of the debts of 60 countries overwhelmed by AIDS will be cancelled.

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Thanks to Nick Humphreys, BC Regional Council member, for forwarding us an update on two of the projects in BC funded by the Social Justice Fund.

The Victoria Street Newz has just published their 13^th issue: July 2006 (available soon on their website), which contains an excellent article about the PSAC’s support of Native land claims. Their mission is to provide a voice and income opportunities for economically marginalized and/or socially disadvantaged people in the greater Victoria area while at the same time offering employable skills training, increased self-esteem, confidence, and pride in accomplishments. Click to visit their website.

Also in Victoria, Liveable Income For Everyone is continuing their Community Education to Make Poverty History project which aims to increase poverty education and to create social solidarity in order to “Make Poverty History” with a universal Guaranteed Livable Income. They also are planning to make a presentation to an upcoming Area Council meeting. Click for a project update.

Funding anti-poverty initiatives in Canada is one of five priority areas for the PSAC’s Social Justice Fund. As part of this the SJF funds initiatives that support a closer collaboration between union members and low income groups in the community, particularly activities that are part of anti-poverty coalitions at the community level.

One of the projects the SJF has funded in BC is the Bread & Roses Collective, a registered not-for-profit society created to support the Victoria Street Newz community newspaper and other projects. The Victoria Street Newz mission is to provide a voice and income opportunities for economically marginalized and/or socially disadvantaged people, while at the same time offering employable skills training, increased self-esteem, confidence, and pride in accomplishments.

Street Newz vendors live on a low income and sign a code of conduct agreeing to be friendly and sober while at work. They pay $.50 for each paper, and sell them by donation at various locations in Victoria’s Downtown, Esquimalt and Saanich. They’re essentially self employed, working as much or as little as they’d like, and free to spend the money they earn as they please. Click for profiles of some of the vendors. Here are the Street Newz issues to date.

Visit the Street Newz website for more information and to read the Street Newz back issues.

(Vancouver) A major study released today finds that BC’s welfare system is systematically discouraging, delaying and denying assistance to many of the people most in need of help, with harmful consequences for some of the province’s most vulnerable residents.

Denied Assistance: Closing the Front Door on Welfare in BC examines why the number of people receiving welfare has plummeted in the wake of changes to eligibility rules and the application system, and looks at what is happening to people who seek and are denied welfare. It is the first in-depth assessment of the new application system, drawing on data obtained through Freedom of Information requests and extensive interviews with people who have applied for welfare, front-line community advocates and Ministry workers.

“The provincial government says its policies are a success. It claims that more people are leaving welfare for work, and that the new application system is ‘diverting’ people to employment,” says Bruce Wallace, Researcher with the Vancouver Island Public Interest Research Group (VIPIRG), which undertook the study with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). “This is true for some people. But our research found that many others are being ‘diverted’ to homelessness, charities, survival sex and other forms of hardship.”

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The April 4 Speech from the Throne will set out the agenda of Canada’s new Conservative government. This is a crucial moment for the government to commit to more and better aid.

All leaders of opposition parties in the last Parliament (including Stephen Harper) called for a legislative mandate for aid through a new law that would commit foreign aid spending to one goal – ending poverty. So even with a minority government now in power, Members of Parliament from all parties can collaborate to Make Poverty History.

Visit www.makepovertyhistory.ca to send an email to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as well as your own Member of Parliament.

Wear your White Band on April 4! And make your voice heard!

Here is a letter the co-chairs of Make Poverty History sent Stephen Harper on March 1st …

Dear Prime Minister,

Congratulations on your election as Canada’s 22nd Prime Minister.

Make Poverty History is a broadly-based campaign, linked to a global effort active in more than 80 countries. Here in Canada over 700 organizations and a quarter million individuals have endorsed the campaign objectives of more and better aid, trade justice, cancellation of the debts of the poorest countries, and eradication of child poverty in Canada. During the recent federal election, sixty Conservative candidates publicly supported these goals. One hundred and seventy eight members of the new Parliament, from all parties, have publicly supported our campaign objectives. Now is the moment to transform this majority support into concrete action.

Mr. Prime Minister, we are writing to request your leadership to Make Poverty History at two crucial moments in the near future.

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Twenty-five years after working as a community organizer with the Downtown Eastside Residents’ Association in Vancouver, I’ve come back to the community as a retired person, volunteering at the Carnegie Centre.

One good thing about being older is that you have actually experienced a little history. I believe there are some lessons for policy-makers in what I can remember about the Downtown Eastside.

Thirty years ago, as now, the Downtown Eastside was a poor neighbourhood. Then, as now, people with addictions were visible on the street. In those days alcohol was the drug used most often. Now it’s other drugs.

But 30 years ago the stores along East Hastings Street weren’t boarded up. We bought newspapers at Universal News. Residents could afford a few breakfasts a month at the Princess Cafe, a hot plate at Benmors, a coconut bun at the local bakery, a cheap shirt at Fields, a coffee at the Two Eagles Cafe.

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Thanks to Nick Humphreys, BC Regional Council member for forwarding us an update on the Make Poverty History fund, and an update on one of the projects in BC funded by the Social Justice Fund.

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Livable Income For Everyone, one of the projects the PSAC Social Justice Fund is sponsoring in BC, is presenting two documentary films discussing homelessness in Victoria. There will be an introduction by Cindy L’Hirondelle about the Guaranteed Livable Income project.

• When: Monday January 30th starting at 6:30pm
• Where: Harry Hickman Building (HHB) 105
• Cost: FREE!

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Congratulations to all of you who contacted your federal election candidates and encouraged them to endorse the Make Poverty History goals! Thanks to you, more than 75% of candidates from all parties have endorsed the Make Poverty History goals of more and better aid, trade justice, 100% debt cancellation and an end to child poverty in Canada. In all, 987 candidates responded by our deadline, and even now, more are contacting us.

To find out how the candidates and their parties responded, visit the Make Poverty History website. You can also find out about the different party platforms to see how the different parties plan to act.

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Funding anti-poverty initiatives in Canada is one of five priority areas for the PSAC’s Social Justice Fund. As part of this the SJF funds initiatives that support a closer collaboration between union members and low income groups in the community, particularly activities that are part of anti-poverty coalitions at the community level. These activities include the development of educational initiatives or advocacy work such as letter writing, postcard campaigns, marches, white-band days and other similar activities.

Here is a list of groups and activities in BC that received funding assistance from the PSAC Social Justice Fund.

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