Week 24

Hello again my friends!

Well, winter is beginning to settle into the Downtown East Side. Last week I had a splendid Thanksgiving dinner with some good friends in Abbotsford, before returning to the city on Sunday to help out with our own thanksgiving dinner here. I have also been investing some more time in the communities I'm connected with here in the DTES. I attend a Bible study with the Salvation Army once a week near where I work, and have made some good friends there. Outside of that, life has been fairly normal. This past week I assisted our construction crew in cutting out and replacing a 100-year-old pipe required for heating my building. I also fixed a wall in our kitchen which was starting to fall apart, and prepped it to be painted by volunteers. Both of these projects were outside of the norm of what I usually do, and it was interesting and fun to interact with some people I don't get the chance to see often. Working in the kitchen of my building on Powell provided me the opportunity to talk to a number of tenants as they went about their daily business.

I thought this week I would take the opportunity to point out a few ways that we could use your help here at Community Builders. First off, every Saturday there is a standing invitation to come and do volunteer work in our buildings. The volunteers meet at the Dodson at 25 Hastings St. E at around 9:00, and spend the day cleaning, doing minor repairs, and assisting our Tenant support staff with various other ongoing projects. We would love to see more people coming out for these Saturdays, so if you are interested let me know, and I'll put you in touch with Lisa, our volunteer co-coordinator.

Aside from the general volunteer opportunities, there are a couple specific needs that we need to have met. In the Powell building, where I live, there are currently three bathtubs, but no showers. We would really love to see a shower installed into at least one of the bathtubs before Christmas. This job would not be overly complex, but does require a couple people handy with plumbing in order to make it happen. There is also no budget available for this project, so we would be looking for people willing to donate time, money, or supplies towards this project. It would really go a long ways towards making the building more livable for the tenants. If you are interested in being part of this project, let me know - as I said, I'm trying to get it done before Christmas, but as of yet I don't really have any leads on making it happen.

A second, and slightly bigger project that needs to happen is the replacement of the fuse panels at the Powell. Currently the building is wired on the old fuse-style breakers, rather than on a modern switch-style breaker. Further aggravating the problem is the fact that some rooms share a single breaker with a neighbouring room. This is fine during the summer, but during the winter when people plug space heaters in, it causes a lot of blown fuses. To complete this project we again need people who would be willing to donate their time, money, or materials in order to have the fuse box replaced at least, and possibly to have the electrical system upgraded in the building. If you are an electrician, or know one who might be interested in helping out with this project, please let me know - I would love to have you come look at the building and see what you think.