Uncensored Voices from the Downtown Eastside: Carnegie Member Calls On Councillor for Help

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Uncensored Voices from the Downtown Eastside: Carnegie Member Calls On Councillor for Help

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uploaded by Rachel Davis

The members of the Carnegie Centre elected me to give them a voice to their concerns. I have found that to be really difficult.

Many times members have told me that they feel there is a lack of accountability in the system. Recently a Carnegie member, Luanne Bradshaw, told me that she had taken her concerns all the way up the chain of command to Councillor Tim Stevenson, and that he then just referred the matter right back to Ethel Whitty, the original, unresponsive, Carnegie Executive Director. This member said she just wished she could get her letter published somewhere to express her unresolved questions. The Carnegie Newsletter was not an option.

I've experienced the same frustrations with trying to get any action on things that are important to me and others in the membership. So I offered to put her letter here, and also any others I get from members who have earnestly tried to deal with their concerns through the usual channels, but got nowhere.

It is one direct way I can serve the membership.

Now, I introduce you to Luanne Bradshaw. Here is her letter to Tim.........Thanks,

Rachel Davis, Carnegie Centre Board Member, But not representing them in their Entirety

Dear Tim Stevenson

 My name is Luanne Bradshaw. I have been a resident of Burnaby and Vancouver for the past 40 years. I am a survivor of Woodlands. I have had a brain injury pretty much my entire life. With time I have became very strong and determined.

 As a resident of Vancouver, I am very concerned about issues facing Vancouver and unnecessary bureaucracy. I am writing to see what kind of commitment you might have making changes on the issues outlined in this letter.

 For over 20 years, I’ve dedicated much of my time to a diversity of social issues. This work includes gathering abandoned grocery carts, cleaning up unsightly areas, sharing ideas and concerns about Carnegie Community Centre. Every time I’ve contacted City hall, they’ve turned the other way and giving me the revolving door. It took getting my story published in he Street Corner News and taking it to City Hall, during the strike, to learn that the City of Vancouver has five departments of sanitation and clean-up. I believe one department would reduce costs to tax payers as well as make it more accessible to concerned citizens. The disabled and the poor have always been treated with extreme mistrust and cruelty by City Hall. With other City Halls, I was heard at least once or more, but with Vancouver, I have never been listened to. It took getting my story published and shaming them into cleaning up one site beneath the sidewalk in Downtown Eastside. This area at the intersection Hastings and Gore had been a total eyesore for at least thirty to forty years.

 I think the Carnegie Centre is an important community space in the Downtown Eastside. However, I believe that they should make better use of their funding in order to give members a true voice, the ability to participate in decision –making and to be fully heard on all issues. For too long the Carnegie Centre has deliberately and intentionally created more poverty and powerlessness. This needs to be reversed on an ongoing basis so that poverty and powerlessness become extinct. The Carnegie Centre needs to take this issue seriously. I feel that the City of Vancouver should ensure that the Carnegie centre faces serious consequences if they are not accountable to their members.

I look forward to hearing your ideas on bureaucracy, the Carnegie Centre, and how City Hall could better respond to people’s needs and concerns. More specifically, I would like to know if you have concrete plans to clean up the social and political messes of Carnegie and City Hall.

 I sent a copy of the letter to Carole Taylor who might be running for mayor next year. She is well aware of my concern. I also sent a copy of this letter to Sam Sullivan. I am looking for true leadership that will finally get things done.

 I have a lot of concerns about city Hall and the Carnegie Centre. Why is it that at City Hall nothing gets done? Whether it is a dysfunctional board for seniors, the janitorial department regarding mops, buckets, floor cleaners, which has to be tucked away and out of harm’s way, to not be a health threat because of the chemicals and stuff. Tables, chairs on most floors still are not being washed down; the meals have gone downhill in terms of variety and selection, and for choices the last two years and the last three months have been worse that ever before. When one shares ideas on what could be done, the big shots always have excuses for turning the other way. One example, when I shared with the Volunteer Supervisor what could be done to give everyone a true voice on summer camps, she kept misinterpreting what I had to say, when I took tit to a meeting, a had to repeat it three times for her to finally admit to what I had mentioned , one is coming up with many ideas, sharing them, and letting everyone who goes there decide if there are enough people who want to go. If there are not, then one would cancel it, whichever ideas have enough of a demand, they then would go through with that idea.

 The volunteers have been badly exploited all the years; they have been used as political slaves, instead of being highly valued. Management has no intention of moving them up the ladder in life, it is a form of pure slavery, and we are not living in the early 1900’s. When I went to City Hall about the Carnegie Centre, nothing got done, no executive who worked at any City Hall facility should be in a position of power at City hall, especially if they had made a mess of everything, like “Ray”, for example, from the Evelyn Saller Centre, who now controls everything, and makes all the decisions from City Hall to the Evelyn Saller Centre.

 Luanne Bradshaw