Tent City at 58 West Hastings

The Olympic tent village is well established at the notorious Concord Pacific property across from Save On Meats (58 West Hastings), proposed for condos. The lot is a half-block long with buildings at either end. It is fenced in with chain link and now has banners and tarps strung along. The irony of this site is perfect: Concord, one of the largest real estate company in Canada gave up one of their vacant lots of VANOC tents on False Creek and now 58 W Hastings is nicely covered in tents too. The demands at the site are: more social housing, stop gentrification and criminalizing those living in poverty or homeless.



Rider from Citywide Housing Coalition estimated about 25 tents last night about 50 who stayed the night last night. Many of us stayed at the campfire and the 50 gal drum fire until late. Last night there was a strong UBC student/Stop War presence but also strong Power of Women, Streams of Justice presence. Three CCAP members chose to take a night away from their crappy hotel rooms and sleep out. Two CCAP members who are homeless went back to their shelters late at night because of the rain.



Bernie and Stella from the Power of Women group worked out a list of things they need as soon as possible:



Firewood

Chairs

Hats

Scarves

Mitts

Socks

Fresh fruit

A hatchet

A mallet for tent pegs



Requests from other squatters:



Plastic twine to string tarps

A guitar for Rickie Lavallie

Cigarettes



Requests listed on Tent Village website:

Tents

Tarps

Wood

Sleeping bags

Blankets



The tent village website also has links to recent media articles.