THE EARLY FIGHT FOR 58W HASTINGS

by Phoenix

July 2024

     I remember my first days with CCAP, the Carnegie Community Action Project. I was coming out of homelessness and mental health issues. I didn't have a lot of confidence, but Wendy Pedersen and Jean Swanson were our fearless leaders in taking on Concord Pacific, the development company.

     58W Hastings (currently dubbed "Bob and Michael's Place" by Chinatown Foundation) has been in the local eye these days but back then Terry Hui, the head of Concord Pacific, wanted to turn the site into condos. CCAP people were concerned it would be a gentrification bomb in the heart of the DTES. So we hatched a plan.

     CCAP decided to pay them a visit at their downtown offices. We made them a "Welcome to the Neighbourhood" package. It included a bedbug and a cockroach, each in their own glass jar. We gave him a book of Hope in the Shadows stories. We got specially made a huge, waist-high card of a man with a shopping cart and we all signed it with messages for the prospective builders.

     A group of us met at Carnegie on the appointed day for the trek to the downtown tower where Terry Hui had his upscale office. When we got there we were met by security and cops and told not to go inside.

     A few brave souls pushed their way into the lobby of the building and Jean was one of them. She recalls security speaking into a radio handset and saying, "The building has been penetrated." The CCAP people in the lobby giggled hysterically at the thought. The receptionist wouldn't even take the welcome basket and we weren't allowed to meet with Mr. Hui.

     The media took it all in and Wendy asked for volunteers to be interviewed. I very nervously agreed and it wasn't as bad as I thought. People I knew actually heard it.  Wendy was also busy giving interviews.

     Eventually everyone dispersed. Me and another person walked back to Carnegie with the rejected basket of goodies. A couple of Concord people followed us and called out. We explained our basket and with guilty looks they offered to take the welcome package to Hui, first making sure no one was watching. We gave it to them.

In the time that followed, Concord Pacific stopped its condo plan and swapped land with the city.  The City promised social housing on the site.

And it all started with a room full of people at Carnegie and a basket with cockroach and bed bug.

And that was the Terry Hui caper.