We Are All Persons and We Belong! Homes for All! Decolonization Not Criminalization!

This supplement to the Fall 2016 Volcano newspaper collects discussions and lessons from the “Together Against Displacement and Dispossession” summit held by the Alliance Against Displacement on June 11-12, 2016. (…)

Portraits of Regions in Struggle

Karen Ward from the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users in the DTES said low-income people on the streets can feel the government’s shift from building social housing to building prisons. (…)

Common Language, Common Struggle – Defining the Terms of Our Times

By Ivan Drury

At a Downtown Eastside community meeting a few years ago, a woman stood up in the crowd assembled in the Carnegie Theatre and demanded that we stop using language she didn’t understand. (…)

We are all persons and we all belong

By Dave Diewert

Politicians, government officials, business owners, real estate developers, landlords, and media pundits shape a common perspective on low-income, homeless, drug user, and low-wage working class folks (…)

Homes for All – Our Homes Can’t Wait (OHCW) Campaign Works for DTES Housing

By Jean Swanson

So here’s the situation: Almost 1,000 homeless people have been counted in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) of Vancouver. (…)

Liberation & Decolonization – Discussion groups change our hearts and minds

By Natalie Knight

During our summit gathering communities across southern B.C., we decided that “liberation & decolonization” was a major point of unity among our many groups. (…)

Three Pledges of Struggle

By Together Against Displacement & Dispossession Summit

Our Together Against Displacement and Dispossession summit packed three major accomplishments into one weekend, which together will strengthen the struggles of homeless and evicted people. (…)

Fighting Capitalism & Colonialism to Heal in Community – Our View on Addiction

By the Editors

How do we soothe human pain? How can we best end the misery caused by isolation and alienation? (…)

Responses to the overdose crisis must include an end to prohibition

By Sarah Sheridan & Ashley Mollison

People across Canada are continuing to die at staggering rates from illicit drug overdoses. (…)

First Words from First Responders: On the Frontlines of Harm Reduction and the Overdose Crisis

While governments make pronouncements and dither during the overdose public health emergency, who would you think would actually be out saving lives of people who overdose? Police? Ambulance workers? (…)

Social work as social control

By Joshua Goldberg & Flora Pagan

We can learn a great deal from the state responses to Super InTent City (SIC). (…)

Chinatown and the collective struggle against displacement

By Jannie Leung 梁泳詩, Chinatown Action Group 華埠行動小組

The gentrification of Chinatown is a continuation of its history. (…)

Abolish private property – How to bridge the home-ownership and home-less housing crises

By Ivan Drury

It is easy to say whether the home-ownership and home-less housing crises are the same. They are not. (…)

The ceremony of birth and Kanien’kehá:ka Mohawk ancestral wisdom

By Toni-Leah Yake

Imagining Turtle Island prior to Euro-colonial invasion, I am strengthened. (…)

Resisting Policies, Changing Politics – Lessons from Oaxaca’s Teacher Movement

By Gil Aguilar

B.C.’s Minister of Education Mike Bernier recently fired the Vancouver School Board arguing that it had “misplaced focus on political tactics rather than responsible stewardship.” (…)

Housing and sex work

By Sex Workers United Against Violence (SWUAV)

Since the Sex Workers United Against Violence (SWUAV) Society formed, we have been working for better living and working conditions for sex workers, primarily through our participation in the constitutional challenge to the previous Canadian laws criminalizing prostitution. (…)

Tenacious tenant undeterred by lack of enforcement action at Regent Hotel

By Jean Swanson

The plot thickens at Vancouver’s notorious Regent Hotel. (…)

S.O.S. at PHS

By SIC Society

In April after the government hired Portland Hotel Society (PHS) to manage Super InTent City, SIC Society met with PHS to clarify their role at the camp. (…)

Inside the jail of supportive housing

By Karen Lane

My name is Karen Lane. I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and I have been in BC since I was 15 years old. My mother is Metís, Cree and French and my father is Black Cherokee. (…)

Violence on the Surrey Strip is rooted in criminalization and dehumanization

By Dave Diewert

Over the last month, Alliance Against Displacement (AAD) has been holding organizing meetings on 135A Street in Surrey (aka. the strip). (…)

No One Grows Up Wanting

By Brad

All should have to live the life / That we were forced to do / For just a little while at least / To understand our point of view / No one grows up wanting / To live on some dirty street / And be judged a loser / By the strangers that we meet (…)

Everyone Is An Addict!

By Tracy Scott

Everyone has an addiction / of some kind / Not wanting to admit it / Only playing dear or blind // There’s drinking eating shopping / smoking and money too / There’s gambling gaming sex religion / There’s coffee and weed / To which most people do (…)

Urban farming fight exposes gentrification, displacement, and colonization at core of Victoria City policy

JJ Ford & Jeanette Sheehy

This summer, the City of Victoria wanted to change the Official Community Plan (OCP) to undermine urban food production in favor of developers. (…_

The global crisis of displacement is intensifying

By Harold Lavender

According to the United Nations there are more than 65 million forcibly displaced people in the world. (…)

The veil of whiteness – notes on the Black revolts in Charlotte and El Cajon from Vancouver

By Natalie Knight

On September 20^th in Charlotte, North Carolina Keith Lamont Scott was fatally shot by the police. (…)

Trudeau just gave the go-ahead to the next Oka – Frontline Salmon Warrior speaks out about Petronas LNG project approval

By Goot Ges

The day after the Federal government approved the Pacific Northwest LNG project on Lelu Island, Chief Yahaan of the Gitwilgyots Tribe from Lax Kwa’laams says that we are in it for the long haul, and we will continue to protect the Skeena River for the future of our children. (…)

from *prison industrial complex explodes*

By Mercedes Eng

Carole is a ghost mama / whispering into the ears / of the fertile red nation // plant seeds in the ground / and in the womb / ground zero for the revolution // while Jessi is in belly, before Jessi’s bug eyes can open / Carole shows her the world (…)

Looking beyond apology for the Komagata Maru tragedy

By Gurpreet Singh

In May of this year Prime Minister Justin Trudeau created history by making an official apology in the House of Commons for the Komagata Maru episode. (…)