HenriRobideau.ca

HenriRobideau.com

Riley Park

Vancouver Canada

 

June 6, 2013. Out for a photography walk along Main Street with Fred Herzog, we come upon The Last Of The Little Mountain Hold-Outs. Built in 1954 as Vancouver’s first social housing development, Riley Park’s Little Mountain Project had 37 buildings with more than 200 tenants, most of them Canada’s war vet families. For 50 years, these modest four-plexes provided affordable housing for the city’s low and fixed income renters.

In 2007, the Canadian government, under its LAND IS WORTH MORE THAN PEOPLE PROGRAM, relinquished the Little Mountain Project to the British Columbia government, freeing up more than three city blocks of prime real estate to redevelopment. The tenants were evicted, but promised that their social housing units would be replaced (in about ten years) and that they would have first priority to move back in (if they survived). All the residents relocated, except Building 37’s occupants who held-out when the bulldozers arrived in 2009.

Henri Robideau 2013

Small photo captions:

(Left) After 1954, Riley Park à la Google

(Right) After 2009, Rile Park à la Google

 

Exhibited April 2014, Winsor Gallery, Vancouver Canada

Exhibited April 2015, Eraser Street show, grunt Gallery, Vancouver Canada