Housing justice for Metro Vancouver’s Black community is in the spotlight at an event at Douglas College next week.
From Displacement to Housing Justice: A Conversation on Black Housing Precarity in Metro Vancouver is taking place Wednesday, Feb. 15 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Douglas College’s New Westminster campus.
Everyone concerned about housing justice is invited to attend the event, which will include a film screening of Secret Vancouver: Return to Hogan’s Alley, along with a panel discussion.
Margaret Wanyoke, a Community Action Network leader; Lynn Roxburgh, the supervisor of land use planning policy for the City of New Westminster; Kent Patenaude, president of the Lu’ma Native Housing Society; and Jean-Claude Bakundukize of Swahili Vision International will be the panelists, an event write-up notes.
They’ll discuss the Sixth Street housing project in New Westminster in the broader context of Black housing justice in the region.
The Sixth Street project, which is planned for six sites at 823 to 841 Sixth St., is a 96-unit, six-storey building that will provide rental housing for members of the Indigenous and Swahili communities. The project received unanimous support from New Westminster city council after a marathon public hearing in 2021.
If you can’t make it to the in-person session but you’re interested in the discussion, you can also tune in to a livestream online.
The event is being offered by the B.C. Poverty Reduction Coalition and the Changing the Conversation Project at Douglas College, with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
The event will be held in Room N2201 at 700 Royal Ave. Admission is free, but book a spot through Eventbrite.
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