Today the Anti-Poverty Committee and supporters took an empty city-owned building near City Hall and stated that it will be turned into women’s emergency housing.

About 150 people gathered today on the lawns of City Hall, ready to occupy the city chambers and demand the city council buy a hotel and convert it to social housing, instead we took housing into our own hands and opened up a building set to be demolished by the city.

The building at Cambie and Broadway is a heritage building built in the 1920s to house women workers. The building is to be demolished to make way for the RAV/Canada Line City Hall Station. The former tenants were evicted in the past year after the city voted against the city staff’s recommendation to preserve the building.

The police are treating the situation as an occupation and are not allowing anyone to enter the building. They are blocking the doors and currently, there are around twenty of our comrades inside. Some supplies have reached the squatters however, the police are not letting anyone or anything enter the building.

Having this housing for women is crucial. Women have been brutally
attacked by government cuts. Changes to welfare laws, closures of sexual assault centres and women centres, changes to poverty, law, legal aid and family law have all increased the desperation and poverty levels amongst women.

With the coming cold and with deepening levels of poverty it is even more dire that we create spaces to house women who are in need of assistance. If the city won’t do it, then we will do it ourselves.

Please come out to 2530 Cambie St. (Cambie and Broadway) to show your support. If you have supplies such as blankets, water or flashlights, or food please bring them too. Come out or call 604-728-9550.