Homelessness in Vancouver can't be solved through social housing alone. We need to end the cycle of poverty through access to job training, adequate housing, healthcare, and social and emotional supports for low-income people, too. In Megaphone Issue 116 we look at successful job training programs that do all that and more when they retrain low-income people in Vancouver for successful careers that help get their lives back on track.

Writing is another tool that can be key to regaining faith in yourself when times are tough, and the latest issue of Megaphone features several pieces from low-income Vancouverites. Megaphone vendor and community journalism participant James Witwicki profiles Olla Urban Flower Project, a new business to the Downtown Eastside givesback to the community through employing locals and buying plants from local urban farms; vendor Kris Cronk gives a shout out to a woman who saw beyond class barriers to reach out to him when times were tough; and we feature poetry from three different participants in our Community Writing Workshops. 

Also in this issue: the first of 61 memorial stones is placed in downtown Vancouver to commemorate the missing and murdered women of the Lower Mainland; the Rainier Hotel detox program for women sits in financial limbo; the province and the City of Vancouver collaborate on new shelters and transitional housing; horoscopes, comics, and more!