DTES Women Need Your Support For Safe Housing!

Wed March 14, 2007

Dear friends and allies,

Women of the Downtown Eastside community have been sleeping at the Downtown
Eastside Women's Centre (DEWC) since November 19, 2006 because of a lack of
safe and appropriate shelter and housing for women in the
community. Community members, with the commitment of the Elders Council,
demanded that DEWC to remain open past its regular business hours because
the DEWC is the only community space for women and children that is open
seven days a week, and does not have limitations on length of stay.
Averages of fifty women are using the centre each night to sleep.

During this period, the Centre received more than $10,000 in donations from
the public and received one time funding of $80,000 from BC Housing to
operate the emergency shelter. The funding for the shelter, however, is
expected to run out by MARCH 31, 2007 and women will be back on the streets
unless we can gather YOUR SUPPORT to ensure ongoing safe and affordable
housing for women.

Women in the Downtown Eastside, as part of the Power of Women to Women
Project, are meeting and organizing to respond to the closure of the
night-time shelter. They have made it clear that they believe the only real
viable and dignified solution to end the cycles of violence,
discrimination, substance use, poor health conditions, family separation,
child apprehension, and social isolation is for government at all levels to
commit to safe, secure, supported, and affordable housing for women.

Accordingly, women in the Downtown Eastside have put forward the following
demands:
- Safe, supported, and long-term affordable housing for women be made
available immediately
- Welfare rates be increased 50% not just $50
- Community-based emergency safe spaces, such as the Downtown Eastside
Women's Centre whose funding ends on MARCH 31, 2007, receive funding to
operate on a 24-hour basis with adequate and private facilities for women-
including storage, proper beds, and food.

We thank all those who supported the opening of the night time shelter and
ask you to join us again to ensure real systemic change in the form of
safe, secure, supported, and affordable housing for women.

==> WAYS TO SUPPORT:

Please find attached a petition letter we are currently collecting
signatures on. Please print copies of the petition, help us get them signed
(you must know 20 people who will sign on!), and return them to 302
Columbia Street (envelope by front desk) or mail them to Downtown Eastside
Women's Centre, 302 Columbia Street, Vancouver, BC, V6A 4J1. We would like
to collect as many signatures as possible by next MARCH 21st.

We thank you for your support and feel free to get in touch with myself or
others with questions, feedback, suggestions etc. There will be further
requests for support as women meet, organize, and strategize further. Also,
please find below further information on the crisis in women's housing.

Harsha Walia
Email: project@dewc.ca
Tel: (604) 681-8480 x 234 Fax: (604) 681-8470

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON WOMEN'S HOUSING

There are an increasing number of poor women, homeless women, women who are
at risk of violence, and women affected by HIV/AIDS in Vancouver. Cuts to
income assistance, legal aid, women's centres, attacks on women's advocacy
and support services, the lack of childcare support, rising costs of living
and housing, and low-income labour all have had devastating impacts on
women.

For example, with the June 2002 Employment and Assistance Act and Act for
People with Disabilities, approximately 16,000 women have been removed from
the social assistance in BC. At the federal level in the past year, we have
seen the lack of implementation of a universal childcare program that makes
it nearly impossible for women, particularly single mothers, to seek
employment. One-third of BC welfare recipients are single-parent families,
88% headed by women. Homelessness for many women is also an initial
solution to unsafe housing and homes. These women leave their homes because
of physical and/or sexual violence and exploitation. Safety and privacy are
the primary concerns of homeless women.

According to the 2005 GVRD Homelessness Count, there has been an increase
of 60% in the number of homeless women since the 2002 Count, with shelter
beds available for no more than 50% of homeless women. Overall, the number
of homeless people has doubled to approximately 2,174 people in 2005. It is
estimated that the rate of rapid gentrification leading to the Olympics
will triple the number of homeless in Vancouver. The number of people
at-risk of homelessness in the region is extraordinarily high: 126,500
people at-risk of homelessness in 2001.

We believe that the cycles of violence, discrimination, substance use, poor
health conditions, family separation, child apprehension, and social
isolation of women are the direct result of various government policies
that perpetuate conditions of poverty for women.

One such government policy- at all levels of government- is the lack of
safe, secure, supported, and affordable housing for women. Despite the
evidence from independent and government sources that indicate the crucial
need for housing for women, governments have been slow to respond. In fact,
the opposite trend is being witnessed: Between 2003 and 2005 there was a
net loss of 415 housing units for low-income singles, according to PIVOT
research. One in five open lodging house rooms in Vancouver have been sold
or put up for sale since January 2006. At the same time, many existing
units are in danger of closing due to rising rental rates and deteriorating
conditions. With accelerating rates of gentrification leading to 2010, an
estimated 1600 units of housing for low-income singles will be lost.

Join the women in the Downtown Eastside and Power of Women to Women Project
at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre to ensure safe, secure, supported,
and affordable housing for women.