New Carnegie Housing Project Staff Member
by Devin O’Leary
July 2023
Earlier this year, Jean Swanson talked with numerous folks sheltering outside on East Hastings to understand the barriers they experience being safely housed. Around the same time, a group of 8 other neighbourhood organizations were given some funds through SPARC BC to conduct similar interviews, gathering narratives describing the deficiencies of this housing system from some of those who are hit hardest by it.
I recently joined the Carnegie Community Centre Association to support this team and many others working for housing justice in building a DTES housing plan. The primary objectives of this plan will be to communicate the immediate and grave need for enough housing and the right housing management required to safely house the approximately 2,000* unhoused people surviving in the DTES. It seems ambitious and absolutely critical at this time when more affordable homes are being lost than gained**.
A little about where I come from: I originally moved here from the US in 2019 to study Community and Regional Planning at UBC. I came with very limited experience in activism and social justice movements. However, on arrival, I was educated on the elaborate ways domination of people and land have been institutionalized through colonization and capitalism. This led me to focus my studies on systems of direct democracy in community-led housing models and the power and importance of grassroots movements in returning agency to those who are disenfranchised by the ruling class.
In the Summer of 2021, I was graciously welcomed into the DTES to support neighbourhood groups operating the Emergency Supply Hub at Olivia Skye, where I also lived for the last year. At the Hub, I had the opportunity to work alongside and learn from community leaders who have been organizing within this neighbourhood for decades, fighting incessantly for themselves and their neighbours’ right to live. Everyday, I witnessed acts of self-determination and community care that I believe are sorely undervalued in areas outside of this neighbourhood.
I am sincerely honoured to continue working in the DTES and with Carnegie and its legacy of community organizers battling for life and dignity in this neighbourhood.
If you are curious or interested in a DTES housing plan or any aspect of this project, please feel free to contact me at carnegiehousingproject@gmail.com or visit me at Carnegie in the CCCA office on the second floor Monday-Thursday, 1-5 PM.
*This number comes from the number of people collecting the No Fixed Address subsidy from BC Employment Assistance as of March, 2023.
** From The Mainlander article “’Losing More Housing Than We Gain’: An Interview with Jean Swanson”
