Opponents to a new housing project for teenage girls say it must exist outside the DTES, away from pimps, predators
Atira Women’s Resource Society has opened an 18-unit single room accommodation facility for young women in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The Society says it is responding to an urgent need for low barrier supportive housing for girls and young women who are homeless or in unsafe conditions.
But opposition to the move has been fierce and considerable. Most of the concern seems to focus on the location—and use of a building in the Downtown Eastside. But other concerns have been expressed about the process that led to the project’s opening—and plans for the way it will operate. (more…)
“Take Back the Night” is an action created to enable large numbers of women to publicly express our anger at the sexual violence that goes on and the victim blaming that accompanies it. Not every woman has been sexually assaulted, but every woman has been taught to fear it. We are told from the time we are young not to walk alone, not to go out after dark, to avoid strangers and to avoid dangerous areas of town. This advice is useless in the face of the reality that the largest number of women experience violence in their own home, at the hand of someone they know. [