Communities celebrate the Our City Hall Campaign Launch
Balloons, bubbles, and chalk drawings adorned Helena Gutteridge Plaza on Sept. 1st as WTC launched the Our City Hall Pledge alongside 80 organizational partners, community members, city councillors, and municipal candidates. This was also a celebration and reunion with friends from partner organizations coming out in a show of support and solidarity to collectively demand concrete action from our next city council.
The event kicked off with a welcome and land acknowledgement from Ash, WTC’s Executive Director, and staff continued with an overview of the scope of the Our City Hall campaign by sharing what we have heard over 10 months of engagement, peppered with stories gathered from interactions with community members at workshops.
Based on input from more than 2400 interactions at community events, 640 survey responses in 12 languages and 530 participants in 30 workshops, the Our City Hall Pledge consists of six policy asks on social housing, bus reliability, library hours, food security, public washrooms and gender safety, which have been endorsed by more than 70 organizations. Representatives from six organizations were invited to speak on how these asks would positively impact the communities they serve and why they endorsed the policy.
COmmunity speakers on the our city hall pledge
On the first policy ask on social housing, Hope Hart from the Coordinated Community Response Network (CCRN) spoke about the urgent need for adequate and affordable non-market housing for women, families, seniors, youth and stated that housing is a fundamental right and a first step to stability, safety and leads to better health outcomes.
Hope shared, “We all deserve a place to call home, a place where we can close the door and take a breath from the day, a place where we can cool down from a hot day, a place to eat a warm meal, a place where kids can play freely and safely and a place to sleep without fear.”
Prahbi Deol, former Community Navigator at South Vancouver Neighbourhood House (SVNH) and community member, spoke in support of our second policy on public transportation and mobility. Through the Reframing South Vancouver project, which engaged with thousands of South Vancouver residents, transit was a major point of concern. Prahbi said that transit improvements such as the low-income transit pass, transit priority measures and increased bus shelters were all suggestions SVNH had heard over the years from residents and urged councillors and those running for council to commit to these asks.
Next up to endorse our policy ask on community spaces were Susan Ruzic, Manager of Volunteers, Youth, and Students at Sundar Prize Film Festival and Karn Sahota, Manager of Outreach and Volunteers for Sher Pride. Both Susan and Karn shared how they have seen that community spaces are absolutely needed within the queer South Asian community not only for sharing stories through art and film but for peer support.
Karn stated, “When you’re part of a community that is ostracized within your cultural and familial faces, these spaces are necessary for people to connect with others.”
On our fourth policy ask on food policy, and advancing food sovereignty, Jordan Bultitude, representative from the Vancouver Food Justice Coalition, made an appeal for long term funding for food programing such as food hubs and community kitchens. They shared that many food programs exist but are under resourced and essential programs close when a grant ends, leaving residents without a reliable source for fresh and healthy food and supported WTC’s call for improving community access to affordable, culturally relevant and nutritious food.
Rowan Burge, BC Poverty Reduction Coalition, spoke on our ask for essential hygiene infrastructure and said this is a need that many people can relate to and that washing hands, using the bathroom and having a place to wash clothes is a basic human right. She also spoke in support of providing washrooms at all transit (Skytrain) stations and added that she hopes candidates will prioritize this policy in their platforms.
Finally, Crystal Laderas, Communications Manager at SWAN Vancouver, endorsed the policy ask on gender safety. She implored candidates to reinstate the Sex Work Safety Planner role at the City of Vancouver and for sustained funding that allows for essential drop in services for immigrant, migrant and gender diverse sex workers who already face barriers accessing health care.
Crystal concluded, “We look forward to a Vancouver where we acknowledge the failures of the past and honour the community members that we’ve lost by accepting the responsibility to do better.”
We thank all our speakers for publicly endorsing our asks and sharing why each one is essential to the communities they serve.
We are also grateful to our enthusiastic volunteers who added colour and decorations to the launch and supported our interactive activity display, merch table and with providing refreshments for all attendees.
