{"id":48153,"date":"2021-03-19T23:50:27","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T03:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=48153"},"modified":"2021-03-23T10:49:50","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T14:49:50","slug":"for-vancouver-nonprofit-founder-trixie-ling-she-never-expected-that-she-would-become-the-target-of-a-hate-crime-part-of-a-717-per-cent-spike-in-police-reported-hate-crimes-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/for-vancouver-nonprofit-founder-trixie-ling-she-never-expected-that-she-would-become-the-target-of-a-hate-crime-part-of-a-717-per-cent-spike-in-police-reported-hate-crimes-last-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinatown Community Unites to Survive the Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Aly Laube<\/em>
\n---<\/p>\n

Michael Tan, a Co-Chair of the <\/span>Vancouver Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group<\/span><\/a>, sees how the community there has been facing unique barriers since the pandemic began. <\/span>Chinatown<\/span><\/a>\u2019s vacancy rates have <\/span>skyrocketed<\/span><\/a>, extremely high in comparison to other parts of the city, and businesses there took a major hit when tourism stopped flowing with the border closure. Less foot traffic means less money being spent at stores, and over the past year, places started shutting down.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many of the small business owners couldn\u2019t access <\/span>Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance<\/span><\/a> without the help of their unwilling landlords, so several beloved shops had to close. <\/span>The Emergency Wage Subsidy Program<\/span><\/a> wasn\u2019t accessible to mom and pop shops with no staff either, leaving them without information or resources for support. Anti-Asian crime also rose <\/span>enormously,<\/span><\/a> with the marble lions at the gate being <\/span>defaced multiple times<\/span><\/a> and people being <\/span>attacked on the street<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tan says it\u2019s important to celebrate how the community has been able to come together during this time, but that doesn\u2019t negate the fact that they\u2019re grieving community hubs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the bigger restaurants that closed was Gold Stone Bakery, and that was an institution in the neighbourhood. As an affordable eatery, it was a place for people of multiple generations to hang out. You could go have lunch with your grandparents and have tea, but not anymore,\u201d says Tan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt definitely had a role in them shuttering, and it was heartbreaking for the community.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The <\/span>$17 million emergency bail program<\/span><\/a> for Granville Island from the government should have been replicated for Chinatown, he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCompare that directly with Chinatown and not having a single cent, and that $17 million was entirely separate from any other emergency funding, so they essentially singled out the neighbourhood to be bailed out versus Chinatown not receiving a dime,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the pandemic exacerbated pre-existing issues such as racism, gentrification, and displacement, the community there has gotten even tighter, partially through online programming.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are new programs to promote delivery for people to visit the restaurants in the area and the small businesses,\u201d says Tan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe <\/span>Chinatown Cares Grocery project<\/span><\/a> [by <\/span>Hua Foundation<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Yarrow Intergenerational<\/span><\/a>] \u2026 delivers culturally appropriate grocery boxes to seniors in the neighbourhood to help them not go out to the grocery store and increase the risk of exposure to COVID over the last year. They fundraised online from the community<\/span> and <\/span>also<\/span> got <\/span>support from Vancity, and have been delivering those every week.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

With the <\/span>Chau Luen Society<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>BC Housing<\/span><\/a>, they\u2019ve delivered over 25,000 hot, culturally appropriate meals to seniors in Chinatown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Collaborating with <\/span>Chinatown Today<\/span><\/a> and Hua Foundation, he also helped put on a <\/span>Lunar New Year celebration<\/span><\/a> that drew upwards of 500 attendees from around the world.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided, you know what? If no one\u2019s going to do it, we need to do something,\u201d says Tan.\u00a0 \u201cWe did a line dance celebration, a kung fu demonstration, singing songs, and lessons. It was just a showcase of this community coming together in a very short amount of time to put on something to help Chinatown.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There are about 2,000 units of low-income housing specifically for seniors in Chinatown, between SROs and other independent living barriers. One of Tan\u2019s passions is helping them overcome language, technology, and mobility barriers that have grown more problematic since the start of the pandemic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about the vaccination process, it\u2019s that lack of mobility that makes it hard for them to get vaccinated and registered \u2026 to even get into different neighbourhoods,\u201d says Tan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey announced where the closest clinic was, Athlete\u2019s Village, which is geographically in line of sight. It\u2019s within two kilometres. That\u2019s about two bus rides, but the thing is, when you\u2019re talking about these seniors that have difficulty navigating the bus system, it\u2019s not a direct bus ride. Once you\u2019re there, you\u2019re in an entirely new neighbourhood and have no idea where you\u2019re going. It might as well be on the moon.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Phone-in instructions for registering for vaccination are only available in English. Agents only speak English, and it\u2019s only once users have successfully been connected to this agent that they can request a translation. At that point, they would patch in someone who could speak that language.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s already an often insurmountable barrier for many Chinese seniors, says Tan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cReally early it was like, \u2018Well, why don\u2019t you just make that system immediately multi-language? You could make the recording language appropriate right up front and save a lot of these seniors a lot of time,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He and his peers have been trying to get Vancouver Coastal Health to vaccinate seniors in Chinatown by going building-to-building or setting up outside. They believe this is totally feasible for VCH and reached out three weeks ago, but haven\u2019t heard anything past initial contact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe appreciate how difficult this challenge is, providing vaccinations on a massive scale. I really do, but we still have responsibility to raise awareness that these vulnerable populations are being overlooked,\u201d says Tan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was just visiting, and a senior saw me and said hi. She\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, what\u2019s going on with the vaccinations? I knew she had grandchildren who could get vaccinated, and she looked me in the eyes and said, \u2018No, we\u2019re relying on you to bring them here to get vaccinated.\u2019 It\u2019s just so frustrating to see that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the moments of community that keep Tan going in moments like that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy heart is uplifted when so many people care so deeply about the neighbourhood. It\u2019s a fabric,\u201d he says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Aly Laube — Michael Tan, a Co-Chair of the Vancouver Chinatown Legacy Stewardship Group, sees how the community there has been facing unique barriers since the pandemic began. Chinatown\u2019s vacancy rates have skyrocketed, extremely high in comparison to other parts of the city, and businesses there took a major hit when tourism stopped flowing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":48160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,218],"tags":[7464,7465,708,2927,7463],"radio":[237],"origine":[280,262,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48153"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48153"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=48153"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=48153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}