Help The Homeless and Poverty Stricken

I've been thinking long and hard about an organization that I'd want $1,000 to go to. Now, in some ways this is just an intellectual exercise for me, because I'm a Vancity employee and therefore ineligible for this contest. But perhaps someone else wants to endorse this organization.

One of the things that's really opened my eyes since starting at Vancity is how money can create change in people's lives. For those in our community who aren't in a position to save, helping them start to build assets is crucial to break cycles of poverty and homelessness.

This just came into my inbox, and sounds urgent enough that I wanted to pass it along:

DTES Housing and Homelessness Action: Piccadilly Hotel Eviction - write a letter by Tuesday! CC it to CCAP [the Carnegie Community Action Project] (wpederson@look.ca) for our files:

Bad news. The Piccadilly Hotel will evict its tenants this coming Wednesday, February 28, 2007. City inspectors say it's not up to code and it needs to shut down because the owner is not fixing it up. This is the perfect time for the City to use its bylaws to protect the last housing before homelessness.