Below the Radar Transcript
B-Side, Track 10: The Future of Hogan's Alley — with Djaka Blais
Speakers: Samantha Walters, Am Johal, Djaka Blais
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Samantha Walters 0:03
Hello listeners! I’m Sam with Below the Radar, a knowledge democracy podcast. Below the Radar is recorded on the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples. On this episode of the Below the Radar B-Sides, we’re joined by Djaka Blais, the Executive Director of Hogan’s Alley Society, a non-profit organization composed of civil rights activists, business professionals, community organizations, artists, writers and academics, all committed to daylighting the presence of Black history in Vancouver and throughout BC. Enjoy the episode!
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Am Johal 0:40
Hello. Welcome to Below the Radar B-Sides! Delighted that you could join us again this week. We have a special guest with us, Djaka Blais, from the Hogan's Alley Society. Welcome, Djaka!
Djaka Blais 0:54
Hi Am, thanks so much for having me.
Am Johal 0:56
Yeah, wondering if we can begin with you introducing yourself a little bit
Djaka Blais 1:00
Sure. My name is Djaka Blais, I use she/her pronouns. I'm the Executive Director of Hogan's Alley Society.
Am Johal 1:06
Yeah, obviously, Hogan's Alley is located right here in the part of the Downtown Eastside community. A long history and much has been written about it, but for some members of our audience, they might not know a lot about it, particularly those who live outside of Metro Vancouver, wondering if you could begin with just sharing some background, history, and context to what Hogan's Alley is and its sort of historical context and background.
Djaka Blais 1:35
Yeah, so I think just first off, the fact that so many people aren't aware of Hogan's Alley is part of what we're trying to remedy and fight against, and is a result of the erasure of the historic Black community that was in Vancouver that happened. So the area referred to as Hogan's Alley is in the Strathcona neighborhood, and it's where Vancouver's first Black community formed, with community members starting to arrive in the late 1800s early 1900s and settling in the area due to its availability of affordable housing, the area being kind of a landing place for many newcomers in the area, and it was quite a multicultural neighborhood, with different waves of newcomers coming. And it's where we saw kind of a growing concentration of Black community members coming to explore different opportunities for them and their families. Was also close proximity to the train terminals, where sleeping car porters, many of which were Black men, after ending their shifts, there was a rooming house in Hogan's Alley that they could come and rest at. And quite a few decided to come and settle in the Hogan's Alley area. So others, you know, Black owned businesses such as restaurants or you know, other kind of enterprises being set up nightclubs as well in the area. And we have some, you know, great arts community that developed in the area as well. And so these are all part of the legacy of Vancouver's Black community.
Am Johal 3:20
There must be so many stories from over the years, I've seen a number of people speak about growing up in Hogan's Alley and share some of those stories on panels and workshops to give people a bit of context, and wondering if you could share some stories that in your own research, or what the society has done in terms of the context and why it matters so much to the black community, but also the broader community as well.
Djaka Blais 3:47
Yeah, so I mean, there's different key figures in the area that played a role of building community, whether it was through the arts, through Eleanor Collins, who was an artist, a performer in the area, or, you know, there's always the connection to the Hendrix family that people talk about quite a bit. With Nora Hendrix, which is Jimi Hendrix's grandmother, and her family, coming in early 1900s and living in different parts of Vancouver, but being, you know, for a long portion of their time here, in East Vancouver and in the area around Hogan's Alley. And Nora Hendrix actually played a leading role in helping to establish the first Black church in Vancouver, which was located in the area known as Hogan's Alley. And the building is actually still standing now, but it's been decommissioned as a church and is operating as a private residence now. There was also, you know, I talked about some of the enterprises in the area, so southern style chicken restaurants are actually quite popular in the area. And so one of those was Vie's Chicken and Steak, which became a quite popular gathering place for community. And you know, big name performers that were coming to perform in Vancouver would come and hang out at Vie's after their performances as well. And so, you know, big names at the time like Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Lena Horne, all came through that neighborhood because of the vibrant entertainment that was happening in the area, and just the ability to know that you'd be welcomed there.
Am Johal 5:37
Now, Hogan's Alley, of course, was deeply impacted in a negative way by the urban development happening at the time, particularly the viaducts, but broader planning, but also probably the racism of its time as well. I'm wondering if you can speak to that moment where the razing of Hogan's Alley happened, and the response from the community at the time, and if you could speak a little bit to that?
Djaka Blais 6:04
Yeah, the impact on the community started actually, you know, quite some time before the actual viaducts and the highways that were built through— The highway that was built through there. So, you know, as early as 1931, the city rezoned the areas surrounding that area to industrial zoning, so that had a significant impact on property values, people's ability to leverage the equity that they had built in their homes, to be able to, you know, make improvements and continue to build some form of resources or wealth for their families. Also, they paused kind of the issuance of development permits, building permits in the area, which had, like a real impact on people being able to continue to develop in the area. So there was also reduction of municipal services in the area, such as, you know, garbage pickup, or, you know, as people started to move away, in some instances, the city was leaving homes abandoned to fall into disrepair. All of that was contributing to this narrative that existed around the neighborhood of it being a blight on the city that needed to be remedied. And so when the city commissioned a transportation study in 1967, the research— They had done previous assessment and identified Strathcona area as in the highest need of redevelopment. And that gave justification then for their transportation plan to build a highway that would be cutting through the area and also would have a significant impact on Chinatown itself. This was part of, you know, broader urban renewal policies across North America, which often had significant impact on racialized neighborhoods, as municipalities were trying to connect growing suburbs to the downtown core and in advancing kind of this car forward culture, building highways that would cut through, often Black and brown neighborhoods and displace those populations. So this plan had been put forward for a six lane highway that would cut through the Hogan's Alley area. Had a significant impact on Chinatown as well. Vancouverites actually protested against this highway cutting through the city, and those plans were stopped, but the damage was already done for the block in the Hogan's Alley area, and we saw those homes being removed and replacement housing being developed, such as McLean park.
Am Johal 8:59
Yeah. Certainly saw that in New York, Robert Moses and all of that development in Toronto and just about most of the urban centers. Over the years, there have been so many projects in the Black community attempting to revive Hogan's Alley as an idea, or to keep that memory alive. I think of some of the work that Wade Compton has done over the year, both in terms of his writing, but also art projects. There was one with Lauren Marsden many years ago that I that I remember, and even now, people continuing to do documentaries. I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to the Hogan's Alley society, and sort of, you know, when did it start? How did it get going? What were the ideas behind it in terms of trying to intervene in these urban questions now and to reimagine what Hogan's Alley can be today?
Djaka Blais 9:57
Yes. So when the city started planning, it's planning for the Northeast False Creek planned development and engaging with community, there was, you know, pushback from the Black community for the city to really acknowledge the existence in a meaningful way of this Black community that had existed in the area as part of the development. And initially the conversations then, and that's where the— sorry the establishment of the Hogan's Alley working group that helped inform the Northeast False Creek plan, specifically the redress, cultural redress section of that plan, which speaks to cultural redress to Chinatown as well as the Black community through Hogan's Alley. Initially, the commitment was for a cultural center to be built on one of the blocks that would be freed up by the removal of the viaducts and as community members were meeting with the city as part of these conversations, they realized that, you know, the potential plans for from the city for the rest of the block, like they were going to be selling off to developers, and so the idea of having kind of million dollar condos around this cultural center, how feasible it would be for Black community members to actually go and engage in that space in a way that they would feel welcome when often, you know, there's experiences of not feeling welcome in other public spaces. That's when the push came for, you know, trying to get the full block as part of redress for the displacement, and for that to be held within a community land Trust, so held within community ownership to prevent it from being sold to, you know, market developers into the future and prevent future displacement of community as well. So Hogan's Alley Society was established to continue negotiations with the city, building on the work of previous organizations and grassroots efforts such as the Hogan's Alley memorial project that Wade Compton led, and the land trust efforts that were led by Anthonia Ogundele and kind of bringing those two together to move forward with the Hogan's Alley Society and negotiate with the city. And in 2022 after, you know, several years, at least four years of negotiations led by our volunteer board of directors, we were able to announce that we'd signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Vancouver to enter into a long term lease for the East Block that'll be freed up when they remove the viaducts and develop that block. So the development would deliver a cultural center, significant amount of social housing, space for small businesses, and child care and other amenities for community.
Am Johal 13:14
I know that the viaducts have been approved by the city to be taken down. I know they're caught up in budgeting and planning and Northeast False Creek has been held with Concord Pacific for some time. We'll come to that in a bit, because I know there's some work going on to kind of elevate that conversation, to push some action on that front. But in terms of the consultations and outreach that you've done with the black community here in Vancouver, what are some of the ideas and inspirational pieces of what people would like to see happen there? You mentioned arts and culture. You mentioned small businesses. Is there, are there other pieces or more specific things that people are looking for?
Djaka Blais 13:58
Yeah. I mean, a key thing that keeps coming up over and over, is just space for people to deliver, like, the amazing programming that they're delivering, you know, like right now, it's such a struggle for the organizations to access space on a regular basis in a way that is affordable and where their community members feel welcome to participate. But also space for small businesses, entrepreneurs. You know, the idea of having flexible, live, work kind of accommodations was there, you know, space for like, something connected to food and restaurants, especially going back to the history of the businesses that were in the area that continues to be a key part of culture and how people want to come together. But ultimately, you know, housing remains an area that, you know, we're— No surprise that it's coming up as a key challenge for community. We actually conducted two research projects over the last few years. The first one, our housing solutions lab, looked at the... Had two components. The first one looking at the experience of black renters across Metro Vancouver. What came out of that was really significant amounts of anti Black racism that people are facing in trying to retain or secure housing, as well as challenges in finding suitable housing that meets both their accessibility needs, in some cases, needs for potentially larger or intergenerational family living situations and being pushed further further out into other municipalities just to find anything that might be suitable, and often is just to be able to fit in with someone's budget. It's not necessarily suitable to what they're needing. The other component of the research project looked at the impact of financialization of housing. So looking at housing as a commodity rather than a human right, and the impact that that's having for Black populations in Metro Vancouver in particular, we're seeing kind of a growing impact of commercialized landlords purchasing low rent buildings, and then redeveloping those to bring in what they call more highly desirable renters and pushing people out of out of affordable housing situations. So in that having a significant impact on Black populations, which came up as some of the most highly rent burdened in the area. And then our third research looked at the housing needs and demands for Black population in Metro Vancouver, identifying some of the parts of our community, such as youth and seniors as being among the most in core housing need and needing targeted approaches to support them.
Am Johal 17:08
Yeah, when I hear the work that you're all doing at Hogan's Alley Society, I just think it's so inspirational. There's like nothing controversial about it, and at the same time, you're dealing with urban structures and cities and their processes, big developers who have other agendas. And so I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit to that entanglement as a community organization, as you're interacting, intersecting with these bodies, where are the barriers of imagination that you run into in these kind of broken structures that we live in? Because it seems to me that, you know, pretty much everyone in Metro Vancouver would want this to happen and to succeed, and we would want to go there and see what the community can present in its various ways. And just adding to if this was Chinatown or Punjabi town or whatever, there's the communities have had this look— in any big North American cities, but US and Canada has a neighborhood such as the one that you're all envisioning, but wondering if you could speak to kind of, where did the resistances come up with a with a project like this?
Djaka Blais 18:22
Yeah, I think there's a few things, but one that comes up often is just this sheer pushback around the numbers. You know, do you have the numbers in terms of population size to justify this type of investment, this type of targeted approach? And this came up in particular, for example, when our society was working with the city and BC housing around Nora Hendrix place, and in pushing for that housing, which is supportive housing, to actually be targeting Black community members, and the pushback came from government that, well, we just don't have the numbers to justify targeting that community in particular. So that's when our society pushed for actually having a race based question on the point in time homeless count. And so the last two point in time homeless counts have had that question in there and showed a that Black population was over represented in the homeless population in Metro Vancouver. So does the need for more disaggregated race based data to inform policy decisions and programming decisions is is key. Then there's also this idea of from a scarcity mindset, where we end up being pitted against other communities, right? From government in particular, to say, as opposed to us being able to work together, ultimately, to address the impact that colonialism and systemic racism have had on our various communities. We're pitted against each other to compete for a scarcity of resources, and that has a significant impact on a community that has been historically under invested in, that is working to build up structures, you know, community bonds, community connections, I mean, to political capital, to be able to advance work, to meet the needs of our community. And having to be put into competition against other communities, as opposed to working together, is really not going to help us advance. Ultimately, what we're trying to do at Hogan's Alley is recreate a hub for the Black community, so that people have a place that they're drawn to, that they can see, like, they can build connections, that they can feel that sense of belonging. They can find the products, the foods, the sights, the smells, the sounds that may be familiar to them, and connect with and see representations from across the African diaspora and all its beautiful diversity. But through that connection and convening and centralized hub, you're building that momentum for people to support each other and feel less isolated in their experiences.
Am Johal 21:34
Djaka, I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to how you arrived into the work. What's your own story? What gets you up in the morning in doing this work? What did you used to do before you came to work at Hogan's Alley society?
Djaka Blais 21:47
Yeah, my background actually is in grant making and philanthropy. I worked for most of my career in federal government and then moved to philanthropy, but always was involved in organizing with the Black community, often either volunteering or off the side of my desk through my work. And as a funder, I was always struggling to move, you know, resources and funds to Black led organizations. There's so many barriers, regardless of the institution or organization I worked for. So in 2020 I joined a small group of individuals from across Canada, and we worked to establish the first— The foundation for Black communities, which is the first philanthropic foundation focused on Black communities in Canada. We were able to secure a $200 million endowment to help seed the endowment for the foundation. And the intention around that is really to build a philanthropic home for Black communities, where resources are within the hands of communities and those decision making is done there. That then, when I was approached around this opportunity to be the first executive director for Hogan's Alley Society, I really saw the opportunity to work on building a cultural and physical home for Black communities in Vancouver and kind of and using, you know, my experience around there to help build that here. So actually moved with my family about three years ago from Calgary to come and start work with this organization. And I was really inspired by the work that had been led by primarily volunteers, a volunteer board of directors, as well as, you know, some contractors that were helping in different aspects of the work, and so much had been accomplished, you know, just based on their work. And so the ability to imagine, like, what is possible when we have staff working on it full time, and that we can like be dedicating our efforts to that has been really exciting.
Am Johal 24:05
Well, we're very lucky to have you here, Djaka. I'm wondering if you could— I know that in the next couple of months, there's some programming planned to elevate this discussion on Northeast False Creek, which has been in this gridlock between the city of Vancouver and Concord Pacific. But I'm wondering, by the time this episode comes out, that may or may not have already happened, but if you could just speak to the kinds of conversations that you and others are trying to elevate to help speed up the process. So this conversation on Hogan's Alley, but the broader bringing down the viaducts and all those pieces move forward in the discussion.
Djaka Blais 24:49
Yes, so we're working with you know, different folks in community to organize a conversation in 2020... Connected to 2026, which is the 40th anniversary of the Expo '86 and that is when the initial transfer of the lands, then the commitment to remove the viaducts happened. And at the time, the commitment was that the viaducts would be removed 20 years later. We're now 40 years out from that, and we still have, you know, parking lot in the middle of Vancouver, in the middle of a housing crisis, with no clear plans on how that will be moving forward. The Northeast False Creek plan is contingent on the viaducts being removed, and within that plan, there's so many community amenities as well as significant amount of housing, including affordable housing, that will be delivered. And conditions have changed since when the initial plan was approved, and so that's where you know some of the holdup is coming from, but the conversation we're seeking to have is encouraging the city and the province and the main developer in the project, Concord Pacific, to see this really as an opportunity to be contributing to city building, to be advancing much needed housing and other amenities by moving forward and committing to the removal of the viaducts, which, like you said, has already been approved by city council, but we just need that commitment for it to actually... To happen, and in particular for Hogan's Alley Society, it's really key in terms of, you know, the viaducts need to be removed for us to be able to move forward with the development of the one block and to deliver a significant amount of housing on that block as well.
Am Johal 26:54
Djaka, is there anything you'd like to add?
Djaka Blais 26:57
While we're awaiting for that project to move forward as part of our community land trust, we are moving forward with our first development, which is actually just across the street from that block. And it would be a 12 story mixed use residential development that would provide independent, affordable housing for community members as well as community space for, you know, small businesses, as well as community gathering and the building itself has been designed both to meet the housing needs of communities, taking into account, you know, different family sizes, accessibility needs, but also from visual perspective, we used Afrocentric design principles to inform the design of the building and so that it is the space that community feels proud of and really feels that sense of connection and belonging.
Am Johal 27:56
Djaka, thank you so much for joining us on Below the Radar.
Djaka Blais 28:00
Thank you so much for having me.
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Samantha Walters 28:03
Below the Radar is a knowledge democracy podcast originally created by SFU’s Vancity Office of Community Engagement. The Below the Radar B-Sides are supported by Vancity Credit Union. Thanks for listening to this episode with Djaka Blais. Find out more about Hogan Alley’s ongoing projects in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in!