Carnegiene~a rEni~ili RU~
2022
NEVVSLETTER .
~
401 Main Street Vancouver Canada V6A 2T7
carnnews@vcn.bc.ca (604) 665·2289
Sandy Cameron MemoriaL Writing Contest
REMINDER Deadline for submissions is September 15 by noon
Essay and/or Poetry
Prizes: $100
$75
$50
THE 7TH ANNUAL SANDY CAMERON MEMORIAL WRITIIN6 CONTEST Sandy was a writer and poet and an historian emeritus Who traced the years of struggle for social and economic justice in the life of the Downtown Eastside. He contributed his thoughts and feelings on subjects as diverse as class and whale watching but tied everything to our ongoing ideation on social justice. This contest is to honour him and all who use the written word to express themselves. This is for writers and poets who identify with the struggles of the Downtown Eastside, who see and feel passion in living with spiritual, mental, and physical yearnings. It may be with wealth (too much or not enough), housing (too luxurious or not good enough), homelessness (seeing people or trying to ignore reality), both sides of addiction in the drug trade, the sex trade, "free" trade, community, women (murdered, missing what it is to be safe and creative), children and growing, festivals, ceremonies, memorials, special people and their contributions (past, present) all you do to make your life meaningful both now and towards the future. Whew! Prizes will be awarded for each category. 1St, 2nd & 3rd will be $100, $75 and $50 respectively. Additional non-cash prizes for entries deserving recognition. Guidelines for Writing Contest. 1. Writing must be the original work of the person submitting the contest entry & not fiction . . 2. If plagiarism is recognised the work will be disqualified and returned, Contact information for the writer must be provided with each contest entry. Essays: This means writing in sentences, with grammar and structure attempted. Poetry: All forms accepted. Must use the same font (typeface) throughout Subject is open to the individual author. It can be about most anything relevant to readers. In the words of Sam Roddan "[It] must have Cl bite. It must create some kind of disturbance, a turmoil in the heart, a turbulence of memory and feeling:" The length of the essay can be 250-700 words, basically what can be printed on 1 page of the Newsletter. Poetry of whatever length, but no more than can be printed on.l page. Deadline for submissions is noon on September 15,2022. Results will be announced at a special event during the Heart of the City Festival (early November). Each writer may submit only one essay and/or one poetry entry. Submit your work on paper to Carnegie's front desk or email it to carnnews@vcn.bc.ca with contact info The theme for this year's Heart of the City Festival is "Community is Our Mentor." Your essay and/or poetry can reflect what community has done and is doing and the need of others to read or hear it
••
NOTE: The newsletter's email carnnews@shaw.ca was hacked and is no longer receiving. Use carnnews({ilvcn.bc.ca or carnegienewsletter({ilgmail.com
Quick announcement - coming this fall the rs'" Annual DTES Heart of the City Festival! Plans are in the works for this years Wednesday
October
upcoming
26 to Sunday November
years theme is "Community and honour the Downtown people, organizations
is Our Mentor"
DTES Heart of the City Festival to take place 6, 2022. This
- to acknowledge
Eastside community
and the
and artists of the DTES who continue
mentor all of us with their support,
to
ideas and encouragement.
Presented by Vancouver Moving Theatre and long time producing partners, Carnegie Community Centre and the Association
of United Ukrainian Canadians, along with multiple
Festival community
partners and artists.
If you have a project or a program idea to contribute for the Festival, give Teresa a call: 604-728-6867.
or suggest
www.heartofthecityfestival.com
Procrastination·s
Price
After Ncne: In 2012;",7 was asked to write Cl piece on the topic C?/j:>rocrastination. The title 'Procrastination's I>rice'came easily to my rnirzd. However. the content did not. No rncrtre r how hard 1tried . .1 struggled toflnd the words loflll in the blank. Whaleverje'w lines I was able to w r i re did not resonate well with rree . 1then kep/putting cff1vorking on thatpoent, intending to get back to it when I had the rirrreand energy. However. I later realized that my writer's block served irspurpose and I took the path of" least resistance. Instead, 1felt to leave the boc:(yc;~fthe poem blank. I.felt the poeln's lack of words to be inspired -- by perpetually procrastinaTing, SOJne tasks never get carenciect to. This is also true jbr writers. ©
Jacqueline
Angharad
Giles
From 'the Library August 31st marks International Overdose Awareness Day - an annual campaign to end overdose, remember without stigma those who have died, and acknowledge the grief of the family and friends left behind. We are joining Nicole Bird and community members on the patio from 1-4pm with a library table. We hope to see many of you there. Some changes have happened in our library space. Our Community Resource Board has moved out into the centre. Please check it out if you're looking for information about shelter, food or meeting basic needs. Also, let us know if you think there is anything we could add. The Community Resource Board has moved to make room for some new shelving for more books! Speaking of books, we were all delighted to see a new title at the library this week, James Patterson by James Patterson Stories of my Life. Mr. Patterson is the most checked out author at the Carnegie Branch and we're all curious to see what he has to say for himself. Let us know if you would like to check it out for yourself. Candice
3 O'Clock in the Morning It's 3 o'clock in the morning And I'm awakened by her cry. Is she calling for a new bottle Or afraid of a tiny fly? Does her diaper need exchanging With one that's clean and dry? Has my da ghter dreamt a nightmare Or heard a car drive loudly by? With motherly love and instinct I decide to investigate why, And slowly leave my bedside While breathing a weary sigh. I change her and give her a bottle. Then, a tear-drop fills my eye When she politely says, "Tankoo, Mommy", And falls into sleep as morning is nigh. © Jacqueline Angharad Giles
THANK YOU CARNEGIE, MERCI Here I am home Community is home Ici, c'est chez nous Those of us who have scraped bottom in that dark night of mind heart soul who have grovelled in that muck offered up in life's not so great moments depression addiction brain gone wonky mind askew mental health"issues with heart offkelter We need one another as we recover hopefully some semblance of sanity In supporting one another we become c-Ommunitycreators We build life that's healthier
•
Ici, c'est chez nous Here I am home Gilles Cyrenne
Public v Private care
Gallery Gachet and Oppenheimer Park
In BC and across Canada, we know how precious public health care is. We're also well aware of the dangers of private medicine creeping into our system. Unfortunately many elements of private care already exist here, and new research eo-published with the BC Health Coalition shines a spotlight on one particular area of concern: private clinics. In our latest report, summarized in this post about corporate medicine on Policy Note, our research associate Andrew Longhurst shows that private surgeries and medical imaging are big business in BC, where they've received public funding to the tune of nearly $400 million between 2015 and 2020. Some private clinics in BC are also known to have engaged in extra-billing-an unlawful practice that allows wealthier patients to jump the queue by paying privately for medically necessary health careyet they have continued to receive public funding. Importantly, the BC government has made positive recent moves to enhance access to MRIs and reduce surgical waitlists in the public health care system. But the numbers show a troubling, continued reliance on outsourcing to for-profit clinics, especially for surgical procedures. Research shows private clinics contribute to staffing shortages in the public health care system and fail to reduce wait times over the long term, and that private delivery is more costly and associated with poorer health outcomes. A better path is for government to focus on addressing wait times entirely within the public health care system by further increasing public surgical and diagnostic capacity, scaling up successful strategies like centralized wa ting lists & pre-screening by teams of health care professionals, and reducing the need for hospital care with more emphasis on primary and community-based care (especially for seniors). [This is from Shannon Daub at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives in BC. Google CCPA]
The Oppenheimer Park Community Art Show features artwork and insight of artists and community leaders connected to or displaced from Oppenheimer Park, the green space known as Lek'leki, the Powell Street Grounds, Paureu gai, the backyard of the Downtown Eastside; the unceded land of the xwmgf)kwgygm (Musqueam), Skwxwu'Zmesh (Squamish) and salilwotal (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. A community partnership between Oppenheimer ParklCarnegie Community Centre Association and Gallery Gachet, this annual show began in 2008 in anticipation of changes, challenges, and loss in a pre-Olympic city. Although the world looks very different in 2022, we are proud to carry on the tradition of the Oppenheimer Show for its 15th consecutive year. For some artists, participating in the show is an annual tradition, while others are contributing for the first time. Gallery Gachet is honoured to showcase the works of incarcerated artists in our exhibition Locked Up: The Soul Speaks Out. The Gallery Gachet staff would like to indicate our continuous support towards the efforts made by activists calling for an end to policing minority and disenfranchised bodies and the state-sanctioned acts of violence used as a tool by police oppress Indigenous and Black Peoples. Gallery Gachet's mandate is to utilize artistic means to demystify and challenge social issues of mental health and the disenfranchisement of Minority Bodies. Bringing focus to how the prison industrial complex, policing minority bodies, and mental health policies in prisons further exacerbates the mental health crisis and the trauma that Black, Brown and Indigenous community members suffer due to institutions founded on outdated ideals. To bring this exhibition to life, we had to interface with institutionalized policies and parameters. To that effect, Gallery Gachet staff is in solidarity with the abolition movement and seeks to highlight the impact that the prison industrial complex and police state has on members of the Black, Brown and Indigenous communities.
to
Gallery Gachet / 9 W Hastings Street / Tuesday - Saturday / 12pm - 6pm
COPE calls for immediate and longer term actions to end the homelessness crisis in the Downtown Eastside and across Vancouver VANCOUVER - The situation in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) is out of control mostly because people do not have their basic needs met. Here is a brief rundown of recent happenings: Two SRO hotels (Vogue and Lucky Lodge) evict their long term vulnerable residents; One hotel burns down, another hotel next door is uninhabitable, and two are killed in the fire; Hundreds of people are tenting on Hastings St. without basic sanitation and washrooms; A leaflet is distributed which threatens to torch all the tents and their residents as well as Insite; Two more SRO hotels become uninhabitable because of fires; Another person dies allegedly because of police action; and Hundreds die from poison drugs. Meanwhile: There is virtually no vacant housing affordable for low-income people; Welfare and disability shelter allowance remains stagnant at $375; A BC Supreme Court judge quashes the City's SRO vacancy control by-law, allowing landlords of low-rent rooms to raise rents as much as they want - for now; Governments' safe supply policies and programs are nowhere near meeting the real need; Tensions are rising between housed and unhoused residents; The city is threatening to make the tenters on Hastings move to nowhere; and Promised washrooms on Hastings haven't materialized. COPE is calling for immediate short, medium and long term actions to deal with this multi-level crisis. In the short term: Provide washrooms for tenters on the street. If the washroom at Pigeon park can't be fixed and if washroom trailers are not available, rent porta-potties and pay and equip peers to keep them clean. Close off some side streets and/or find a space like a parking lot where people who are tenting on Hastings can go and be, and where we can provide washrooms, water: electricity and basic sanitation, overdose prevention and cultural programming. Fund peers to organize and maintain these safer places. Since provincial and federal housing and welfare policies are causing these problems, they should be asked for the funding. If they won't provide it, the City should take it out of reserves if there is no other budgeted source. We need real safe supply that anyone who uses street drugs can access so they don't die. Federal and provincial action on this is needed and the City should be out front in advocating for it and providing space and other help when asked. The City has to appeal the BC Supreme Court's recent ruling that quashed the SRO vacancy control bylaw, and ask for a "stay" so that tenants aren't evicted during the appeal. The provincial government must also amend the Vancouver Charter to give Vancouver clear power to protect its own renters. Medium term: COPE calls on all three levels of government to buy hotels and/or any empty apartment buildings that can be offered immediately to unhoused people for dignified housing. If none or insufficient numbers are for sale, COPE calls on all three levels of government to immediately acquire a site or sites for tiny house villages, and to either buy or build tiny houses for unsheltered people so they can at least be dry and have a door to lock by winter. Provincial and federal governments should pay for this but if they won't the City should. Long term: The time to plan for thousands of new units of dignified new housing is now, with a time line for when we will actually have enough so no one has to be unhoused. Senior government should pay for this with
the City providing the land. The province needs to raise welfare and disability rates to meet the real cost of living. One principle for this action plan is that peers, not police, should provide a lot of the advice, labour and love to make it work. Nothing about us without us! Quotes Jean Swanson: "We need immediate actions to provide safety and basic sanitation for people who are currently tenting on the streets. The city should close off some side streets or find a space like a parking lot where people who are tenting on Hastings can go and have access to washrooms, water, electricity and basic sanitation, overdose prevention and cultural programming." Nancy Trigueros: "Winter is only a few months away, so we have to start now to find accommodations for people who are homeless. All three levels of government must make haste in acquiring hotels, apartments, as well as a site or sites for tiny house villages." Tanya Webking: "One building of housing can take over three years to build. Let's start now to plan thousands of new units of dignified new housing, with a timeline for when we will actually have enough so that no one has to be unhoused." Breen Ouellette: "Canada ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and in doing so accepted responsibility for adequate housing as a basic human right. The Province and ( the City are both obligated to ensure that everyone has access to adequate housing. The Province needs to raise welfare and disability rates to meet the real cost of living. The average rent in an SRO unit is ~ now a shocking $600, so the shelter allowance must be immediately raised from $375 to at least $600. At the same time, the City absolutely must appeal the BC Supreme Court's recent ruling on SRO vacancy control. And all levels of government must immediately revise their budgets to make it a top priority to provide adequate housing for every person in Canada." [Editor'S note: This is a proposal, and if a "political party" is making it so be it. What's not happening right now is not okay.]
Nature in our 'Bacl<Yard
- Environmentally Speaking~
Sweet Cherry!
Winter Covers
(Prunus Avium)
Spring shows
Prunus is a large and varied genus with hundreds of species that include plums, cherries, peaches, apricots and almonds, as well as ornamental flowering cherries and cherry laurels. Some are native to Canada while others such as sweet cherry are introduced, usually for fruit, but some cultivars are ornamentals. Sweet cherries (also called mazzard cherries) tend to struggle in our climate; they prefer HOT summers and COLD WINTERS, which explains why the commercial growers are in the Okanagan. Sour or pie cherries make a better bet for a crop here, (Vancity). One of the most popular sweet varieties is BING, developed in an Oregon orchard and said to be named after AH, BING! A foreman who worked 35 yrs for the grower, then returned to China for a visit in 1889 and was not allowed back due to anti-immigration laws.
Summer Shines
=
Skin killing Rays
Fall winds blow
=
What have we to show?
= No
=
one discovers?
Garbage Flows
Destroying the land Make you feel grand? Killing the grass
=
Cutting the tree's
Waste of land mass
=
Homeless birds and
Homeless bee's To many animals everywhere Are dying, We're depleting their lives and Means for surviving, Polluting the Sea's
= Filling
them with
Its Flower/Fruit!
Germ killing disease
This tree produces white flowers 2-3 cm wide in early spring, before or with emerging leaves; fruit on a single stalk ripens in early summer!
Our clfildren will soon cease to see,
To visit these beauties and enjoy its fruit and blooming nature during your current summer adventures, you can go to 2535 Venables St.W of Kamloops St. There you will find a large street tree! And of course if you don't want to go far from home or our lovely Strathconao/DTES community several of the Plena Cultivar, an Ornamental, are in front ofthe Pacific Railway Station on main St. and Terminal Ave in Thornton Park! I would like to end this article with a poem I wrote back in High School that was written for use in a documentary about our Earth and the Environment when our concerns about where we now are had only just begun, I hope it may inspire some of you to pick up a pen and write something or pack up a picnic and head out for a wonderful afternoon of good times and great food under a Sweet Cherry Tree while everything is still in bloom!
The beauty the earth Once Enlightened Us with, So willingly and free It took care of us, Undoubtedly But we took advantage It's Murder
=
Simply,
Unnecessary destruction of such Blissful beauty, Who are 'WE' to be doing such Damage? It's, Unjustly!
Jennifer Cooley
G .KAIJHERING HOPE ECJlVE
DalannahGailBowen Rosemary Georgeson Savannah Walling ~haron Jinkerson-Brass
We acknowledge
that Carnegie Community Centre, and
this Newsletter, are occurring on Coast Salish Territory.
THIS NEWSLETIER IS A PUBLICATION OF THE CARNEGIE COMMUNITY CENTRE ASSOCIATION Articles represent the views of individual contributors and not of the Association. WANTED Artwork for the Camegie Newsletter -Small illustrations to accompany articles and poelry. -Cover art - Max size: 17cm(6 Y:)wide x 15cm(6')high. -Subject matter pertaining to issues relevant to the Downtown Eastside, but all work considered. -Black & White printing only. -Size restrictions apply {Le. if your piece is too large, il will be reduced andlor cropped to fit}. -All artists will receive credit for their work. -Originals will be returned to the artist after being copied for publication. -Remuneration: Carnegie Volunteer Tickets Please make submissions to Paul Taylor, Editor. The editor can edit for clarity. format & brevity, but not at the expense of the writer's message.
401 Main Street, Vancouver V6A 2T7 604-665-2289 Website carnegienewsletter.org Catalogue carnnews@vcn.bc.ca email
carnnews@shaw.ca
Jenny Kwan MP Vancouver East NOP Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Critic 2572 E Hastings St
Vancouver, BCVSKIZ3 T: 604-775-5800 F: 604-77S-5811
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