Sister Elizabeth Kelleher speaks about the moral need to build social housing

This interview aired in 2011 and is still relevant today, Sister Kelleher passed on Aug 16 2013 and her life continues to be an inspiration to all***Gives us all something to think about at this time of year**

We speak to Sister Elizabeth Kelleher, an 85 year old nun with the Franciscan Sisters of the Atonement, we talk about her efforts to stop more gentrification in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside the poorest postal code in Canada.

Sister Elizabeth is a pillar in the Downtown Eastside where she tirelessly gives of her time and continues to be a source of inspiration for many, many people. She operates a soup kitchen that feeds between 300 and 500 of the city’s most poverty stricken each day.

It is estimated that there are over 10,000 homeless people in BC , of which 32 percent are aboriginal, and amongst women, 50 percent. A homeless person dies every 12 days in B.C. Conservative Estimates put the national homeless numbers at close to 300,000. The annual cost of homelessness in Canada in 2007 was approximately $4.5 to $6 billion in emergency services, community organizations, and non-profits. The cost both financially and morally of doing nothing is tremendous. Canada is the only G8 country without a national housing plan or poverty reduction strategy.

Hunter Madsen on Saving Bert Flinn Park

Hunter Madsen become know  through his work to organize the Save Bert Flinn Park initiative (SaveBertFlinnPark.ca), an expansive movement of residents and outdoors enthusiasts that has sought to keep the city’s largest park intact as a sublime natural getaway (without a traffic corridor transecting it) and that works to preserve the tranquil quality that has drawn so many to Port Moody’s north shore.

He has also been active locally in both provincial and federal politics, with a strong longstanding commitment to green values and sustainability economics.

Host Stuart Richardson speaks to Hunter about his quest to Save Bert Flinn and how we should go about developing while protecting our green spaces that are so vital to our well being and how to organize to protect was is sacred in your communities.

Hot Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth

For twenty years, Mark Hertsgaard has investigated global warming for outlets including the New Yorker, NPR, Time, Vanity Fair, and the Nation. But the full truth did not hit home until he became a father and, soon thereafter, learned that climate change had already arrived?a century earlier than forecast?with impacts bound to worsen for decades to come. Hertsgaard’s daughter Chiara, now five years old, is part of what he has dubbed “Generation Hot”-the two billion young people worldwide who will spend the rest of their lives coping with mounting climate disruption. (Order Book)

Mark talks about his newest book “Hot Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth”, he speaks about the dire consequences of inaction and what we need to do as citizens to take ownership of this role.