In a recent discussion with my colleagues, we came up with a few ideas on the subject.

This neighborhood is used by many as a travel corridor to get downtown. These commuters’ objective is often to travel through the area as quickly as possible, in part because of the way the neighborhood has been stigmatized as neglected ghetto of crime and poverty. While some of that may be true, it doesn’t account for the fact that there is an underrepresented and diverse community of wonderful people here who call the DTES home and deserve to have it recognized and celebrated as such. Traveling through the neighborhood at 60+kph is certainly way too fast to get acquainted with the many unique community services, architectural features, libraries, urban farms, art galleries, eateries, and shops that exist here in the heart of the city.

Furthermore, many of the opponents of the speed reduction plan protest on the grounds that it is the pedestrian’s responsibility to see if it is safe before they cross. Sure, common sense dictates that this would be the best-case scenario. But life on any busy street is unpredictable. To those who hold this view I ask: Are you a driver? How would you feel if you struck and injured or killed a pedestrian, even if it was “their fault”? It doesn’t matter who the person is, where they live, or whether they made the mistake. No one wants to be involved in a pedestrian-vehicle accident. Therefore, slowing down to increase driver awareness and reaction time, thereby reducing pedestrian fatalities, benefits everyone.

And as many pedestrians know, crossing a busy street is not an easy task at the best of times for the most able-bodied person. There are a variety of challenges that can make it even harder. In BOB’s Supported Employment Program we work with folks who have a variety of barriers to help them get on the job; many of the barriers we see actually would make crossing the street a challenge too! Have you been low income for a prolonged period of time, with a degenerative eye condition for which you cannot afford glasses? You literally cannot see well enough to cross the street in safety. Are you experiencing psychosis due to a mental health condition or drug use? If so, the reality of cars speeding down the street or the relative safety of a crosswalk may not be as it seems to you. Are you elderly or physically disabled? You may need more time to cross the street than the crosswalk allocates. And the list goes on. Are any of these cases any less worth slowing down for than, say, a kid in a school zone chasing a ball into the street? I think not.

The DTES is home to a high population of individuals with a variety of challenges in part because there is a concentration of services here, as well as a much higher degree of access to affordable housing options than the rest of the city. Every neighborhood has its own characteristic demography, and municipal policy, programming and infrastructure is targeted to reflect those special community traits. Think about your own neighborhood or your child’s school zone and how traffic is managed there. Let’s applaud the City of Vancouver for taking action on this important issue while we slow down to stop and smell the roses (or gaze at the swiss chard at SOLEFood Urban Farm, or get to know some of the local characters who make this community great).

Other news on this topic:

Vancouver Sun

BC Cycling Coalition

DTES Pedestrian Safety Project

All photos in this post courtesy of BURST! Creative Group

“Your Life is Your Message. Make it Inspiring”: Harbour Light Detox

Kathryn George is an Addictions Counsellor with the Salvation Army’s Harbour Light Detox Centre. Their 90 day abstinence-based treatment program is composed of 3 phases. Phases 2 and 3 provide a variety of life skills support to help clients succeed in the areas of career, education, housing, leadership, and mentorship. As Kathryn says, the program is “about the whole person” and encourages “a balanced recovery” to support a person’s transition out of addiction and into community life.

Part of that balanced recovery is often about becoming job ready and returning to work. BOB Employment Support Coordinator Ada Mo-Williams gives presentations about job readiness and community resources to clients in Phase 2 of the Harbour Light program. Her presence becomes a vital connection in the chain of support that many of Harbour Light’s clients access when returning to life on the job. Katharyn notes that Harbour Light graduates discuss how much they appreciate working with Ada in their group reflections, whether she has connected them to other employment resources like Working Gear and the Job Shop, or enrolled them in BOB’s Supported Employment Program.

Emily Smith, BOB’s Office Coordinator, loves receiving clients from Harbour Light. “They always have such a positive attitude, because they have put so much work into their success. Their enthusiasm really shines through, and they tend to be really excited about the counselling component we offer in the Supported Employment Program. And they always remember Ada and ask for her personally!”

Harbour Light graduate Nichlos Tilley has just enthusiastically re-entered the workforce and is employed as a warehouse receiver. Nichlos found out about the Supported  Employment Program through one of Ada’s presentations. He continues to be an active volunteer at Harbour Light and brings his contagiously positive attitude to everything he does. BOB’s SEP program helped him get the boots and  support he needed to succeed on the job. Nichlos is a recent addition to BOB’s Wall of Achievement, where we celebrate client success.

Kathryn is passionate about her work at Harbour Light, and says “it’s a real privilege to be able to walk alongside these men in their journey of personal growth and self discovery…and watch them become the person they were meant to be.” BOB staff are honoured to be a part of that journey as well. We congratulate Nichlos and all Harbour Light graduates on their success!

New Job Postings
Visit www.bobics.org and look under ‘HR Services’ to apply.

Fresh and Desired
Sales & Marketing

Impark
Part-time Customer Service Representative

Intakes for the Cycleback Bicycle Repair Program are on-going. Email lani.johnson@bobics.org to book an appointment.

Events
SHINE Supper, August 22nd. All SEP clients, past and present, are welcome to join us for dinner at the BOB office from 4-6pm! RSVP to Emily at 778-328-7660  or emily.smith@bobics.org

Sneak Peek
Next month’s newsletter will feature great local businesses like W2 Media Café, Save-On Meats, and Scent of a Sandwich, and tales of their success partnering with BOB!

The Supported Employment team honoured three employer partners: Impark, FROGBOX, and Recycling Alternative.  We also featured client Chris Foster, who spoke about his positive experience working with Recycling Alternative.

The Business Development team honoured some of the people they work closely with, representing the City of Vancouver and BC Housing.

Thank you to everyone who attended and gave donations. The warm clothing will be distributed to our clients at our next SHINE dinner.

We here at BOB wish everyone a joyous holiday season and all the best in 2011!

L to R: BOB Board Chair Linda Coady, Barbara Mount and Van Loudfoot from Impark, Andrew Bryson, Liz Charyna from BOB

L to R: BOB CEO Shirley Chan, Linda, Doug Burgoyne from FROGBOX, Andrew, Liz

L to R: Shirley, Linda, Kina Kenyon and Louise Schwarz from Recycling Alternative, Andrew, Liz

BOB Client Chris Foster (left) answers questions from Ada Mo-Williams of BOB (right)

L to R: Kira Gerwing from City of Vancouver, Linda, Helen Ma from the City of Vancouver, Shirley, Randy Clyne from BOB

L to R: Linda, Shirley, Rory Munro from BC Housing, Randy

To read more, please see the newsletter in full:

October Employment Newsletter

Other items featured this month include:

• SFU Theatre Re-hires 10 Inner-City Residents
• Event Listings
• Job Postings

Mark began his exploration of commerce and culture as an Imagineer with Disney, developing new theme park experiences. Later, he was the Director of User Research at ECCO Design in New York leading new product development for Fortune 500 clients.

He has a BS in Engineering and an MS in Engineering Management, both from Stanford University. He was a Mayfield Entrepreneurship Fellow and has served on the Vancouver City Planning Commission. He also currently serves on the board of the Vancouver Contemporary Art Gallery.

The entire team at BOB would like to extend a very warm welcome to Mark and look forward to seeing his creativity, insight  and experience at work here in the  community!

Get ready to win ridiculously amazing prizes in our raffle.  Enjoy a 3 course meal.  And all in a lovely Marquee Tent beside the track with crazy racing horses speeding by.

We have celebrity judges who will eye up your beautiful hats  (think Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison is ‘My Fair Lady’) with a delicious prize going to the winner.   Not a hat person?  No problem!  The event is perfectly enjoyable without one.  We will have a few hat making supplies available.  Remember..  Bring extra moola or cheques for buying raffle tickets.  You’ll have multiple opportunities to to win door and raffle prizes from great places such as:

• Fairmont Pacific Rim
• 4 Seasons Hotel Vancouver
• John Fluevog
• Blue Olive Photography
• Silks Restaurant
• SFU Woodwards Theatre
• London Drugs
• Nester’s Food Floor at Woodwards
• JJ Bean
• Calabash Bistro
• Out To Lunch Catering
• and more!

You can help the team at BOB and FTE continue doing what we are passionate about- working with local residents and businesses to see positive change happen in Vancouver’s inner city and Downtown Eastside- by joining us on this fun day.

Tickets are selling for $60 and can be purchased by dropping by the BOB office at 163 East Pender on weekdays between 10am and 4pm or purchase them online at https://tickets.firehallartscentre.ca/TheatreManager/1/online

We look forward to seeing you there!

Over the recent years many thinkers and planners have foreseen the likely transformations of our urban and suburban communities as costs related to resources, building materials and other logistics force us to think on our feet and adjust. I recall one author even wrote a book titled “The End of Suburbia”. Actually it was a documentary now that I come to think of it. As potential challenges such as peak oil, loss of arable land, energy and water scarcity and other logistical (and social) hurdles continue to present themselves on our horizon, authors like James Howard Kunstler, Jeremy Rifkin,  and numerous scholars agree that we may need to rethink our systems and our approaches and reassess much of our infrastructure and planning as we look ahead. Vancouver has been recognized as one of the more progressive and community focused cities in North America but even we may see some major physical transformations should these challenges come to a headwaters in the next 50 years. Though I do write with the focus of BOB in mind, I’m also a geographer, so I’m inspired to look at these issues very much from the perspective of a geographer.

In the case of Vancouver our physical geography and some astute urban planning has already helped to create a clean density that we’re celebrated and noted for now, and if we continue to go dense out of necessity or desire we will likely need to maximize urban spaces. Enter the deconstruction industry and the restoration economy.

A great little video on Treehugger.com about a social enterprise in Bristol UK was sent to me from Brian here at Building Opportunities with Business (who got it from Toby Barazzuol at Eclipse Awards). The Bristol Recycling Project collects donations of unused lumber, and either finds a way to put it back into the market or reconstitutes them into products like shelving and furniture. This is a service that has developed in relationship with the deconstruction industry and the restoration economy. The restoration economy is an idea put forth by author Storm Cunningham in a 2002 book entitled (you guessed it) The Restoration Economy. Along with William McDonough’s book Cradle to Cradle, it was considered a landmark environmental book at the beginning of this decade. In short, or rather to summarize but a brief aspect of it, think of it like this. Instead of blowing up a building into a million fragments and trucking them off to the landfill, we can slowly deconstruct it and utilize as much of the materials as possible in other developments. It’s like my father-in-law (an incredibly accomplished engineer who has worked on numerous high profile projects around the world) always says, “The most sustainable building is the one already built”. Well, the logic of the restorative economy says the next best thing may be recycling all those materials as best as possible into a new format. Plus it creates jobs and stimulates the economy.

Reclaimed wood has been utilized by social enterprises and businesses in BC and specifically in the inner-city Tradeworks Training Society uses reclaimed wood for many of their products. But much of this reclaimed wood is from Pine Beetle infested lumber considered below market standard due to its blueish tint. Conversely, much of the wood used by the Bristol Wood Recycling Project comes from buildings that have been recently deconstructed or found lumber, and as other cities around the world begin to rethink their urban design many structures may need to come down in order for more efficient designs to go up. Buildings will also need improvements, retrofits and other maintenance, like our beautiful heritage buildings here in Vancouver. There’s little doubt that a large market potential for the restorative industry exists in Vancouver. As recent improvements along the Hastings Corridor (a result of the Great Beginnings and Hastings Renaissance Program) attest, we Vancouverites value the historical architecture of the inner-city. Many of these old buildings need a little love and elbow grease as time does take its toll, but they shine up real good.

But where is Vancouver’s inner-city in regards to a similar project like the one in Bristol? Well, it has been discussed, and there are still people in the community who believe a similar deconstruction social enterprise might be successful here. We do have a proud history as an enterprising lumber town after all.

Is it a matter of timing though?

As construction of high density buildings becomes more expensive, eating into the bottom line of those projects, and as space becomes less available in our city perhaps reclaimed materials from deconstruction will present an affordable and accessible option for developers? And that in turn may likely create more demand for deconstruction and restorative work, more space to develop, and perhaps contribute to more affordable housing prices? Someone would probably have to write a thesis as opposed to a blog post to really answer some of those questions. But this is a place for ideas and conversation after all.

It’s some food for thought as we look to the future of this city and our inner-city’s urban design. By looking at the Bristol Wood Recycling Project and other similar enterprises we can perhaps better imagine the choices that may present themselves to us down the road.

-Wes-

Sid Sawyer from VanCity accepting an award from Shirley Chan

BOB was pleased to be a part of two great events that took place this past week. In fact, we were so busy with them that we haven’t had time to blog about them until now! On March 22nd BOB honored our donors and partners with a luncheon at the Shebeen Whisk(e)y house at the Irish Heather. Beautiful crystal awards from Eclipse Awards International were presented to 11 donors (and one BOB team member) while everyone enjoyed the fantastic food prepared by the Irish Heather’s kitchen. The awards, and the respective recipients, were categorized as such:

Foundation Partner Award

Their generous donations provided the foundation from which BOB could grow and develop into what it has become today.

Bell      Millennium     VanCity

Leadership Partners Award

These partners and donors took the initiative, showed leadership and helped BOB to grow. They were crucial in helping us achieve our $100,000 fund raising target through their large donations in the final months.

Joe Segal, Michael Audain, Bob Lee, Vancouver Eastside Educational Enrichment Society (Hendrik Hoekma), VanCity Foundation, Edgewater, VANOC, Alex Lau (Golden Properties)

Bob Lee, with wife Lily and son Derek. Thank you to the Lee Family (including Carol Lee who is not in photo but was at the event) for your continuing generous support.

Community Partners Award

Largely comprised of members of our Board, these partners were the first to give to BOB and played a crucial role in ensuring that support would extend throughout the community. Their, time, intellect and financial make them invaluable and essential partners.

Hendrik Hoekma accepts an awared on behalf of VEEES from BOB's Board Chair Lee Davis

Lee Davies, Linda Coady, Fred Leonard, Chris Gora, Central City Foundation, Michael Geller, Home , Toby Barazzuol, Shirley Chan, Barry and Lynn Fenton, Maureen Collier

Government Partners (Recognized but not awarded fancy trophies!)

Our government partners provided longstanding support, through the Vancouver Agreement and were there with us through all our success.

Western Economic Diversification, MHSD (The Province), City of Vancouver, members of the Vancouver Agreement.

A special award was given to Liz Charyna in celebration of her leadership over the past 3 years at BOB! Congrats Liz!

KALEIDOSCOPE

The winner of Vancouver's Coolest Person 2010 is Jenn Christenson. The award, designed by Eclipse Awards International (A local Strathcona business) was presented to the graphic designer at Kaleidoscope by organizer and MC, Wes Regan.

Then on March 27th BOB and our friends partied it up at Kaleidoscope. This new annual event had its inaugural launch at the Rickshaw Theatre to an enthusiastic crowd. Kaleidoscope celebrates entrepreneurialism while raising awareness of social and environmental issues. Proceeds from this year’s Kaleidoscope went to BOB and the Canadian Mental Health Association, while awesome prizes were donated by John Fluevog ($250 Gift Card to the Gastown store), Steve Cole ($320 worth of tattoo time with him at Sacred Heart Tattoo), Saul Good Gift Co. with a fantastic gift basket and (once again) a beautiful crystal trophy from  Eclipse Awards was awarded to the Coolest Person in Vancouver, which was randomly drawn from ticket stubs. Bands who performed this year included Spoon River, The Left, Rodney Decroo and His Convictions and Boombox Saints. If there was a Kaleidoscope award for best dancer Liz Charyna would’ve won that too!

Spoon River delight the crowd at the first annual Kaleidoscope

Thanks to all our friends and partners for an incredible week and for being a part of all the work the BOB team does.  We look forward to many more action packed weeks and months.

A reminder that tix are $10 and are available at Red Cat, Scratch and Zulu records or you can pay by donation at the door.

WHY DID WES AND HIS FRIENDS FRASER AND LEX DO THIS? Well…let me be disarmingly personal for a moment if I may. In the 3 months that I’ve been with Building Opportunities with Business I have been so impressed by the work that goes on here, by the office culture, the leadership that the management team shows and the work ethic that the staff have. The projects and people that I’ve been introduced to have inspired me and given me hope. The Canadian Mental Health Association and many other organizations at work in Vancouver’s inner-city help people who are most at risk of losing their livelihoods and ending up in a self destructive cycle. Mental health, is  a serious issue and one that has impacted the DTES (particularly in light of one particular mental health facility closing down some 20 years ago).

Why a celebration of entrepreneurial spirit in the DTES? Because as important as it is for our government leaders to address these social issues and help to improve our communities it is also up to us. Entrepreneurs who take a chance on inner-city neighbourhoods, who put their creativity, their elbow grease and their cash into a venture in the inner-city deserve to be recognized; they too can have a powerful positive impact on the community through their actions, and through their success. They show leadership and take initiative, they create opportunities for residents and other businesses here in the DTES. Those are the kinds of people who strengthen community capacity. So by having these companies donate a prize it’s a way to promote them and recognize them, by having the proceeds go to non-profits and charitable organizations we recognize the work that goes on from that end too. We celebrate them both and celebrate art, music and life along with them!

So naturally a combination of the two made sense, and that is what Kaleidoscope is all about. That, and having fun listening to great bands and enjoying a drink with friends in a cool venue. If this sounds like something you might enjoy then come on down this Saturday 7pm to the newly reopened Rickshaw Theatre at 257 E. Hastings. We would love to see you there.

Wes

The Smilin' Buddha Cabaret sign still looked cool in the daylight, here it is seen in 1958 above a bustling Hastings Street.

For decades the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret was a legendary music venue in Vancouver. In the 1960s artists like Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane headlined there, then in the 1970s and 80s it became a favorite spot for legendary punk bands like DOA, Black Flag, The Ramones and countless others. Vancouver’s own 54-40 even played their very first show there. Subsequently when the venue closed down in the late 1980s the sign went into storage. The band, recognizing the value of the iconic Buddha sign, rescued it from its dusty corner and after naming an album after it took it on tour. 54-40 then later donated it to the Museum of Vancouver, where it is currently housed. Immediately making them one of the coolest bands of all time.

Help us celebrate the musical history of Vancouver and it’s colourful legacy as one of the world’s most prominent neon cities by winning one of these pins! For more information on the how BOB and the City of Vancouver are working to relight the inner-city in the proud vibrant neon it was once renowned for go here.

Regardless of fabric or colour these pins will make any clothing item look and feel that much more awesome(r), as is clearly demonstrated by this photo of the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret pin which is firmly attached to my cardigan.

What do you get for the man who has everything? How about for that special lady with refined tastes? Might we suggest the Smilin’ Buddha Cabaret pin, brought to you by BOB and The Museum of Vancouver. Available through this special one time offer, Facebook message checkers are standing by.

Cute as a button but a thousand times cooler