The NATIONAL POST and the DTES

Brian Hutchinson of the National Post is doing daily articles on the DTES this month. If you have any comments or information that you have wanted to report but were afraid to or did not know where to go so do it now. Brian's sources are kept confidential unless you want your name in print. Up to now there has been no where to address concerns so this is an opportunity that we all should take advantage of. The housing non-profits and the government agencies in the DTES have been very good at "don't ask, don't tell" and it is time "we ask" and "we tell."

Type in your computer address bar: National Post and there it is. If not type in Woodwards Project in the search window. And his blog is DTES gossipy (when in National Post type in search window Woodwards blog).

Brian Hutchinson

bhutchinson@nationalpost.com
604-742-8882 phone
604-682-3628 fax

This week

I am involved with a medical emergency and I won't be able to address any issues for at least a week.

DERAdvocacy Funding

The Law Foundation will be making a decision as to whether or not funding will be given to DERAdvocacy for another year. The decision will be taking place by the Board of Governors in the third week of June.

I was talking to a former resident of the DTES yesterday and she said that it would be a tragedy if DERAdvocacy folded.

DERAdvocacy and DERAHousing are two separate identities. The Law Foundation has been strictly overseeing the Advocacy unlike BC Housing with DERAHousing. Since the mandate of the Law Foundation is the public interest, any input from the public, DERA employees as they know exactly what their contributions have been, would influence its decision.

J. Cumming
The Law Foundation of BC
1340 - 605 Robson Street
Vancouver, B>C>
V6B 5J2
jcumming@tlfbc.org
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Crosby Property Management

So much for professional property management. If any resident of the towers is not happy with something Crosby does keep notes.

.Reviews Matching:
Search Reviews 1 review for Crosby Property Management Ltd Darcy C.

Vancouver, BC
1/22/2009 Okay- a caveat: I rent in my building rather than own.

But ... these people have been incredibly obtuse, and then incredibly non-responsive. They destroyed the parking structure in our complex with multiple poorly placed speed bumps. Everyone's suspension is getting ruined. It no longer safe to drive, as people are driving in the middle of the road to avoid the bumps. They have been incredibly unwilling to keep the residents informed about how they intend to solve this problem. I have heard from some of the owners that they're just as non-responsive to the owners. And, they didn't even bother to inform the residents when the water tower on top of the building leaked and damaged a number of the upper units.

I'm new to BC, but when I am ready to buy, I will NOT be buying into any building that uses Crosby for strata management, nor will I allow them to manage investment properties.

24 Hours

In a poll taken by 24 Hours newspaper it revealled that 92% believe that the justice system is broken. With my experience these past months with the courts the poll should be closer to 99%.
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CCAP (Carnegie)

I attended at the CCAP meeting at the Carnegie on Friday. Wendy from the very beginning of the meeting was relunctant to talk about DERA and she put it at the end of the agenda saying that there might not be time. During the meeting she had members read out in detail two pages single spaced minutes and two pages single spaced stats about how poor we are compared to the rich. It was as if she wanted to fill in the meeting with trivia. At the end of the agenda items she tried to say that there wasn't time to discuss DERA but the members overruled her. They wanted to know about DERA. Sister Elizabeth was there and said that DERAdvocacy would now focus on advocacy rather than housing. I found that very interesting as I have not yet received an answer to my query to the Law Foundation to clarify whether or not it was cancelling its funding to DERA in June 2010. If the Law Foundation was going to renew it it would not be a secret. A few members of the community spoke (one of them directed his comments to Sister Elizabeth about finances) and someone said that this is a subject for a special meeting which is what meetings do when they do not want to discuss a topic and the topic is lost forever. Meeting over. Of all organizations in the DTES Carnegie should be demanding to know what really happened within the governance of DERAHousing to force BC Housing to do what it did. I am a director and I do not know. And I will never know until there are thousands of DTES residents storming for the truth......deraGATE

phoenix DERA

There was talk of phoenixing DERA at the UBC meeting last night. A few of us agreed to meet at 11:30am on Friday at the CCAP meeting on the 3rd floor at Carniegne. We have to keep the towers under community control as well as the advocacy. If DERA goes, then genetification has won. BC Housing seems to be in some rush to to kill the avoaero jet plane. In the history of DERA there has been a lot of good men involved and all they have to do is come together now. There is alot of talk about keeping historical buldings and since DERA is historical we need DERA. There won't be much to overtake DERA just a few good men who believe in the community. Come to the meeting and this topic will be discussed. Otherwise contact me.

At the UBC meeting Jim Green said he "wasn't going to go there." I wonder why he would be opposed to saving DERA. I remember Kim Kerr saying the "vaults" of DERA held evidence that Jim Green wasn't stellar when he was DERA's executve-director. The only thinga I know about Jim Green is that he doesn't answer his emails and the knowledge that Kim Kerr screamed at him on the streets of the DTES that he was a traitor to the people here.