Vancouver

Housing Racism in BC

Migrant workers' rights and vulnerability to the housing crisis

7:00pm
Saturday April 20 2013

Café Rebelde presents:

HOUSING RACISM IN BC?  - A Community Forum

Saturday April 20, 7pm
Rhizome Cafe, (317 E Broadway)
Unceded Coast Salish Territory: Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueum, and
S?wxwú7mesh (Squamish) nations respectively

Panelists: Sozan Savehilaghi, Erie Maestro, Ruby Smith-Diaz, Sara
Kendall, Tami Starlight member of Cree-Peguis Nation.

The housing and homelessness crisis is especially hard on racialized
and colonized communities. More than 60% of all new migrants pay more
than half of their incomes to rent, which means they are in "core
need" of housing and high risk of homelessness. Many others live in
cramped and unhealthy conditions which go unreported, packed into
small apartments and houses to keep a roof overhead.

This crisis is even worse for migrants without permanent residency
status. People without permanent status don't qualify for social
housing. Workers on temporary work permits including women in the
Live-in Caregiver Program have their housing tied to their employment
and their legal status in Canada. If they lose their jobs they also
lose their housing and face deportation. This intertwined power held
by their bosses means they have no rights and often suffer abuse and
are super-exploited at work.

Instead of building housing for Aboriginal people, immigrants and
others who are vulnerable to unhealthy housing and homelessness the
government is developing charity band-aid programs that include
collaborations with mining companies destroying Indigenous people
homes and territories in Latin America. For example, the City of
Vancouver's recent "rent bank" loan system is funded by a charity-arm
of the mining giant Goldcorp, which Indigenous people in Guatemala and
El Salvador are organizing to drive off their land.

This community forum is part of the campaign run by the Social Housing
Coalition BC to make social housing and housing justice an election
issue for the BC election in May.

Come to have a dialogue with community and activist speakers about the
exclusion of Aboriginal people and immigrant communities from social
housing and housing rights in BC.

Organized by Café Rebelde
Endorsed by Social Housing Coalition BC
Mining Justice Alliance
Migrante BC
No One Is Illegal
Anti-Gentrification Collective

For more information: caferebeldeinfo@gmail.com

Accessibility: ground floor access, no wheelchair accessible bathrooms.
Translation if needed. Please don't wear perfumes there are people
with allergies to that.