Pancakes for all! Homes for all!: A taste of resistance
As we count the days until the one-year anniversary of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, housing and anti-poverty activists are vocalizing their frustrations with the City of Vancouver's backpedaling on promises to include social housing in the controversial Olympic Village complex in southeast False Creek. Vancouver Action is one of those...
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Beauty Night: A community gets a makeover
The room is bustling—chit-chat over hair dryers, the smell of nail polish remover, hairspray and massage oil. It’s a Monday night at the weekly Beauty Night Life Makeover Program held at the PHS Community Services LifeSkills Centre, a lively makeshift spa substitute that’s free to women in need of...
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Poor outlook for kids’ future: Child poverty down, but recession still hurting
For the first time in seven years, British Columbia does not have the top spot on the Child Poverty Report Card. According to the report, the percentage of B.C. children living in poverty fell to 14.5 per cent from 18.8, making it the fourth-lowest family poverty rate in the country....
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Happy Holidays
Megaphone gets into the holiday spirit in our new issue with a special thanks from our staff and vendors to all our dedicated customers and supporters. We also show how street papers can come together with another North American street paper collaborative article - this one written by Megaphone reporter Katie Hyslop...
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Morning Meganews
HOLY STREETSCAPES Vancouver sinkhole worse than first thought says the headline that has nothing to do with the Olympic Village I'D BUY THAT FOR A DOLLAR I wish that I had a nickel every time someone said that the penny was threatened RIGHT ON New West End Resident's Association president wants more...
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Megaphone's Night of Joyful Voices
The past year saw Megaphone make some big strides in our mission to provide a voice and an economic opportunity for homeless and low-income people in Vancouver. We launched our incredibly successful writing workshop program in the Downtown Eastside and the magazine helped put thousands of dollars into the...
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Funnyman Graham Clark added to Joyful Voices bill
Funnyman Graham Clark has been added to Megaphone's Night of Joyful Voices bill (this Friday at Cafe Deux Soleils from 8 pm to midnight). He is very funny. You will laugh very hard.
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Night of Joyful Voices: Prizes galore!!!
This Friday is Megaphone's Night of Joyful Voices fundraising concert at Cafe Deux Soleils (2096 Commercial Drive). It's going to be a most joyous occasion with David Vertesi (from Hey Ocean!), Ladner (featuring BCCLA executive director David Eby), Julia and her Piano, and comedian Graham Clark. Tickets are $15. All...
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Morning Meganews
HOMES West End residents refuse to be renovicted from their apartment building GENTRIFICATION Some Downtown Eastside business want to create a Business Improvement Area HEAR THIS Attendees at a public forum on the upcoming missing women inquiry demand that an aboriginal woman be appointed its head COOL RUNNING The Robson...
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Morning Meganews
UNDERCOVER BOSS Part two in The Dependent's look at the business of drug dealing NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOE BUSINESS Model Express has survived three decades as a shop on East Hastings by catering to an elite clientele HOMES UVic student leaves residence after a 19 year stay SOMEONE CALL THAT...
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Morning Meganews
MOVE ON, MOVE ON Court rules people have a constitutional right to camp in parks if they are homeless—but only at night, when they are out of the sight of the populace NO SURPRISE Archaic prostitution laws remain on the books in Ontario until appeal is over BOG NEWS Anyone visiting a...
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Sock Hop: Help give our vendors socks
For the holiday season, Megaphone and Hope in Shadows are hosting a turkey dinner for our vendors on Monday, December 13th. It's our way of thanking the vendors for their great work over the past year and to come together as a family and community. As part of the...
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Morning Meganews
OLYMPIC VILLAGE Genius marketer has the solution for the condo woes: sell them cheaper. Thank goodness he gets a per centage of each sale because who else could have possibly conceived of this radical idea? SLOWLY GRINDING WHEELS The two Vancouver Police officers who were cleared by Delta police for beating up...
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Morning Meganews
HOMELESSNESS IS EVERYWHERE Coquitlam gets its very first permanent shelter for homeless people. EVEN ON HOWE STREET The financial district gets a new temporary shelter as well PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX 362 new prison beds will be funded in the Lower Mainland at a cost of $77 million WORLD AIDS DAY Is...
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New Megaphone vendors: Theodore and Samuel
Say hello to Megaphone's two newest vendors, Theodore and Samuel. They were trained this morning, given their 10 free copies, an ID badge and business licence. These two young men will be selling the magazine, along with the Hope in Shadows calendar, at the corner of Commercial and Grant....
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Housing on the Hill: Bill calls for a national housing strategy
It has been over a decade since the federal government pulled its funding for social housing, leaving the provinces in charge of financing what has become a national crisis. However, this may change with the enactment of Bill C-304—a national housing act motioned by MP Libby Davies. After countless...
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Beauty Night brings glamour to the DTES
In Megaphone #67 we spend some time at the Downtown Eastside's 'Beauty Night', where volunteers give marginalized women make-up the kind of pampering all women deserve - and we see how it lifts these women's spirits. We also examine British Columbia's latest child poverty statistics, get contemplative with David Suzuki,...
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Julia and her Piano added to Night of Joyful Voices
Oh yes, it can get better. Julia and her Piano have been added to the bill of Megaphone's Night of Joyful Voices. Friday, December 10th at Cafe Deux Soleils. Buy your tickets here.
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Morning Meganews
SIX BUCKS SUCKS BC's minimum wage, the lowest in Canada, will be reviewed by some of the highest paid civil servants in Canada HEART WARMING Temporary warm shelters for homeless people has its funding, the first has opened in Mount Pleasant ROCK (MUSIC) AND HARD (OF HEARING) PLACE City is...
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Morning Meganews
FIRST HAND The Dependent writes about some people who are making drug deals TRANSPARENCY BC Government has performed audit over quality of Mountie services but won't release it before signing a new contract with the RCMP HOT COPS ARE WAITING FOR YOUR CALL Vancouver Police propose installing 911 phones throughout the Downtown...
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