Category Archives: Singles

Another low-income building threatened with closure

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Pivot Photograph 

Vancouver – The relentless assault on low-income housing in Vancouver continues in August as the American Hotel, a 37-unit low-income residential hotel on Main Street in Vancouver issued illegal eviction notices to all of its tenants demanding that they leave by September 30, 2006.

“This is beginning to look more and more like Expo 86,” said David Eby, lawyer for Pivot Legal Society. “The eviction notices are illegal, but the process for appeals under the Residential Tenancy Act is so difficult that most tenants will probably get kicked out nevertheless.” 

The reason given by the American Hotel on the eviction notices for evicting all the tenants is that renovations they are planning cannot occur with tenants in the building.  However, no City permits have been obtained, a requirement before evicting a tenant to make renovations under the Residential Tenancy Act.  In addition, the forms used were invalid.  When the representative of the American Hotel was advised of this fact, he told lawyer David Eby: “I don’t care.  I’m going to change the locks at the end of September anyway.  If you want to help, get some money together to pay rent for these tenants to go somewhere else.”

Under the Residential Tenancy Act, a tenant who wishes to appeal an illegal eviction notice must go to Burnaby to obtain an arbitration decision, a process which can take up to 6 weeks.  If the landlord ignores the ruling and changes the locks anyway, the tenant must apply to Supreme Court for an enforcement order.  This entire process can take up to two months, is complicated, involving multiple court appearances and multiple trips to the residential tenancy office – an almost insurmountable challenge for many low-income tenants. 

“The temptation for owners of SRO hotels to find ways to evict their tenants and make a quick dollar is only going to increase as the Olympics approaches,” said Eby.  “If the City of Vancouver and the Province of BC do not begin to make good on their commitment to protect low-income housing, the world will arrive on our doorstep in 2010 to witness a major homelessness crisis.”

The impending closure of the American Hotel (37 units) by the owners of that building follows the slow-motion closure of the Lucky Lodge (61 tenants as of July, 2006) by the City and the Province where 9 units are now vacant due to welfare’s new policy to refuse to issue rents to prospective tenants of that building. These closures in progress follow the dramatic closures of the Burns Block hotel (18 units) and the Pender Hotel (36 units) in March, 2006, and the closure of the Marble Arch hotel (148 units) and St. Helen’s hotel (100 units) to low income tenants through renovations and rent increases.

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Further Comment:     David Eby (778) 865-7997 – Pivot Legal Society

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The 2010 Inner-City Inclusivity Commitment to protect low-income housing and ensure that people are not made homeless was part of the Vancouver Bid Book, the formal application to host the Olympic Games. 

To read the Inclusivity Commitment Statement, visit: http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/housing/sra/pdf/statement.pdf .

About Pivot Legal Society
Pivot’s mandate is to take a strategic approach to social change, using the law to address the root causes that undermine the quality of life of those most on the margins.   We believe that everyone, regardless of income, benefits from a healthy and inclusive community where values such opportunity, respect and equality are strongly rooted in the law. 

To subscribe or unsubscribe to the Pivot Newswire, just send a note with that subject line to newswireatpivotlegaldotorg.

the only funny story about the War on Lebanon

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No, really. I don’t care WHICH side you’re on, this is hilarious! I can just see all the soldiers of other armies, trying to convince the higher-ups that it should be mandatory for all female personnel, for defensive purposes. But seriously, what are they putting IN those things? Kwik-Kast?

Be all you can be...double D!

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli woman’s breast implants saved her life when she was wounded in a Hizbollah rocket attack during Israel‘s war with the Lebanese group, a hospital spokesman said on Tuesday.

Doctors found shrapnel embedded in the silicone implants, just inches from the 24-year-old’s heart.

“She was saved from death,” said a spokesman for Nahariya Hospital in northern Israel. The woman has been released from hospital.

Funbags, not sandbags!

the joys of summer: bbq game time!

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Well by now we might all be getting tired of the barbeque. It’s been a long, hot summer and it is a fact universally acknowledged that a young person possessed of some nice, red steaks and a barbeque must be in want of a pitcher of Sangria and some friends bringing salad.

I wish I knew more people like that; I’m gifted with salads.

In any case, there comes a point in any activity, even barbequeing delicious foodstuffs, where boredom sets in. People start playing with the controls. Reversing the polarity. Putting sparklers in the coals. Anything to make it different. That heat-up period’s somehow not the anticipation-filled pause that it was back in June; it’s become the unendurably tedious waiting period before you can actually cook some goddam food, goddammit, the very reason we invented indoor stoves in the first place.

We present the following leisuretime activity, highly recommended for fending off bbq boredom, if also highly recommended for pissing off the person who has to clean up after you.

via BlogBling, ladies and gentlemen, CHEESE RACING!

I <3 Cheese Racing!

WARNING!! Cheese racing can be dangerous – the makers of this website CAN NOT be held responsible for any accidents or injuries that may occur. Practice safe cheese racing by following these simple guide lines.

  • Do NOT attempt ‘indoor cheese racing’. This is strictly an outdoor sport. (This includes tents!)
  • Be sure to ingest large quantities of alcohol and/or other chemical relaxant before (and during) play. This will relax the body and nervous system, thus minimising the pain of any injury and enabling you to play on.

Having said that, the sport does have an impressive safety record with zero fatalities so far…

Q: What do you think happens when you throw a slice of processed cheese (without removing the plastic wrapping) onto a lit barbeque?

The plastic melts giving off highly toxic fumes and you are left with a pretty grim cheese/plastic mess welded on to your BBQ, right?

WRONG!

Unbelievably what actually happens, as discovered by the pioneers and inventors of the sport way back in 1997 (read their account of that historic night on a campsite in Osmington here), is that the plastic pouch does not melt – even when the cheese inside eventually boils! Even more incredibly, as the cheese melts and the strange chemicals found in processed cheese turn to gas – the plastic pouch inflates until eventually all four corners lift off the BBQ and the pouch is fully inflated! Now under this pressure you might think that the pouch would eventually burst – but no – most of the time the seal remains intact!

Quite why processed cheese manufacturers choose to use such industrial strength, heat proof plastic to encase their products is something of a mystery – as is why NASA don’t use this material instead of those expensive heat proof tiles on the space shuttle? Such important questions no doubt occurred to the first observers of this phenomenon on that night in Osmington, but that didn’t stop them from coming up with a brilliantly simple sport based on it.

Washington Hockey Cheese Racers

The official CRASS rules of cheese racing

  • All players must place their cheese on the BBQ at the same time.

  • Cheeses must not overlap.

  • After the initial throwing of the cheese onto the barbecue (the “cast”), one poke of the slice (the “poke”) is permitted in cases of accidental overlap when the offending cheeses must be repositioned as quickly as possible. No further touching of the cheese is permitted. 

  • No blowing/fanning the flames under your cheese.

  • The winning cheese is defined as the one whose reaches a fully inflated stage first. Fully inflated means that all four corners have raised off the BBQ and the plastic is taut (distinctive “stretch” marks which appear on the sides of the parcel). This state must maintainable (i.e. it does not count if the bag is pulsing up and down due to springing a leak).

  • Note that springing a leak does not automatically mean you have lost – it is possible for the hole to become sealed with melted cheese and the bag to fully inflate anyway – such is the excitement of cheese racing – it’s not over till it’s over!

  • In the event of a draw. The tied cheese owners will race again.

  • Deliberate breaking of any of these rules will result in your cheese being disqualified and removed from the BBQ.

Okay, so when I use the “Singles” tag here I’m just being a smartass. Sue me.

Operation Global Media Domination: Blackzilla, conqueror of blogs

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TIACrushing all in its path, Blackzilla has taken giant strides to the head of the raincoaster blog, with over 100 google hits over the past two days. Darren and Joanne? Ovah. Beautiful Agony? Suffering. Mad mentos and diet coke Scientists? Sputtering out.

The upcoming newcomers, all of whom have had their thunder stolen by my several-days-old Blackzilla posting, include T.W.A.T. in the Air, which several clueless commentors failed to identify as a joke, thus making themselves into punchlines; the Canadian patriotic post Beaver Shots (inexplicable; whodathunk Canadians would be so popular, eh?); and We Are All Gwyneth, for who among us is not, really?

for the necrophiliac in your life

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Men of Mortuaries

Get your ghoul on and help fight cancer by buying this Men of Mortuaries hawt undertaker calendar. Cuz really, aren’t we all over our fireman fetish by now?

The 2007 Men of Mortuaries™ Calendar is scheduled to be available in October of 2006. You may reserve your copy by giving us your e-mail address at the bottom of this page. When the calendars become available we will inform you.

Monies raised from the calendar will directly benefit KAMM foundation dedicated to the caring and assistance of people who are going through the treatment of breast cancer. Proceeds will provide these people assistance with such necessities as child care costs and groceries, to name just two. The primary goal of KAMM is to provide people going through cancer with more opportunities to make their lives better.