There are a few areas of confusion around that I want to use this post to clear up.
First, we here at Artspace Under Siege are just a bunch of Artspace members, friends and family. We do not speak for Artspace Housing Co-op. We do not speak for SAIL. We speak for ourselves and for our community.
Second, I want to clarify what is what.
Artspace Housing Co-op is an intentional community. You can read about what co-ops are, here. Artspace consists of an 8 story high rise and a row of townhouses, totaling 88 units.
Artspace is unique among co-ops, however. Twenty four years ago, a dedicated group of people with disabilities, their families and their supporters, fought - and won - to have affordable housing that would allow individuals with various disabilities to be able to live independently, rather than in institutions. Through their strength of will, Artspace was created and became one of the few housing co-ops with a large percentage of units that are wheelchair adapted.
Which leads us to the next part about Artspace that makes it unique.
SAIL. Supports for Artspace Independent Living. SAIL is run by a volunteer board, and answers to Alberta Health (AHS) and SAIL user members. Some of the board members are also SAIL users, so there is significant incentive to ensure it is run well. The SAIL office is located in one of the 88 units of Artspace, a converted 2 bedroom apartment.
SAIL staff consists almost entirely of Home Care Aides, plus a director and LPN who provide the medical care the HCAs are not allowed to do. Unlike most HCAs, they do not have to travel from site to site, but remain available at SAIL during unscheduled hours - down time - in case a user member has an unexpected need. If someone falls, has a spill, or has some other issue that they cannot handle on their own, a HCA is just a page or call away. Though it often means the HCAs have anywhere from 4-7 hours (depending on the shift) of down time per 8 hour shift - essentially being paid to wait around in the SAIL office, just in case - this 24/7 availability is an essential part of the in-house home care model.
SAIL is funded entirely by AHS. The funding is based on assessed care hour needs of however many user members there happens to be, which can change dramatically, as members might need to switch to Self-Managed Care, move on to long term care if their needs exceed what SAIL or SMC can provide or, sadly, pass away. There can be up to 30 members using SAIL, but at the moment, there is about half that number. That funding SAIL receives covers costs plus staff wages.
It is the SAIL Home Care Aides that chose to go on strike, and are now locked out. See the timeline here.
The first problem for Artspace members is that AUPE and the striking care staff are not picketing SAIL, but Artspace. This has been an area of confusion for people, as Artspace has often been mistakenly referred to as a care centre, care facility or even as SAIL itself. AUPE has designated Artspace as a number of things, from being a care facility, to being a work site, etc., to justify their picketing of our private homes.
For those who have been trying to understand this, here are some photos to explain where SAIL is, and where Artspace is.
This is SAIL.
This area here is on the East side of the high rise.
The graveled area is where SAIL staff would park their vehicles, and there is the path up to the SAIL office.
(August 12 update: This morning, picketers gathered in a group on the graveled parking area here - not in the area of the photo, but farther in. On seeing someone take video of them trespassing, one of them claimed that this is where we have said they can be.
No. This is not where anyone said they could be. They need to ask permission to go onto private property, and Artspace members need to give it. Until then, they are still trespassing our homes. That includes the parking spots members pay to use.)
(update again: somehow, in adding the previous update, the original text for the above photo disappeared. New description has been added.)
Unfortunately, after the strike began, these signs had to be put up. The first, in red on the left, directs people to the Artspace entrance. This entrance (the door next to these signs) is for SAIL only, not Artspace. The office, of course, also has an inside entrance, as staff go from the office to the private homes of user members in the high rise.
The second sign had to be put up after picketing staff ended up inside the high rise, having been allowed in by someone who didn't know better at the time. That sign is on other entrances as well.
These are the grounds in front of SAIL. This is private Artspace property, however Artspace members would have been willing to allow the picketers to use this space (it would probably have had to go to vote). As you can see, it's a rather pleasant area, nicely shaded from the summer sun, with some shelter from the elements.
Here are the grounds from the other side. They could have set up their Timmies table, and probably their shelter as well. It likely would have killed the grass, but grass can be reseeded.
In this location, they would have been picketing the employer's place of business and, as per regulations, they would have been able:
to persuade or endeavour to persuade anyone not to
(a) enter the employer’s place of business, operations or employment,
(b) deal in or handle the products of the employer, or
(c) do business with the employer.
That's not what they did.
This is Artspace.
This photo includes part of the East raised bed gardens. These were designed for accessibility, including the ones on the foreground that are designed so a wheelchair can fit under the table planter (it was even built to a custom height for a member with a slightly taller than usual wheelchair). Several people have signed up for specific plots that they tend. Too bad you can't see the amazing tomato plants in a bed off frame to the right. They're huge!
The high rise address is the official picket line, as published by AUPE, rather than just unit 103, the SAIL office.
The picketers don't usually go this far, except when the media are around, or if they're going around to the lane to the back of the high rise.
They do tend to go in front of the main doors, where the awning is, and hassle people trying to go in and out of Artspace, people doing deliveries, or the DATS drivers trying to do pick-ups. They were very upset when the DATS drivers put the needs of their passengers over the union's demands that they force disabled members to go beyond Artspace for pick up. If the picketers decide to hang out during their 4 hour lunch break, mail does not get delivered. They hassle the mail carrier, too, so he won't cross the picket line.
When it comes to Artspace members and visitors, they pick and choose who they hassle. Some people get bothered a lot, others have never been hassled at all. A transparent tactic to try and play Artspace members against each other, as well as against SAIL.
For a while, they would set up chairs, facing the lobby, where one or two of them would sit there, watching the lobby. Their previous "captain" would sit there using his bull horn sometimes, when he wasn't going around Artspace, recording video of people's homes and activities, stalking people walking their dogs off site, and generally earning the nickname, Captain McCreepypants or Creeper - though when he was seen peeing on the sidewalk, people started calling him The Urinator. Before than, he was the Red Hat Guy.
This is the West garden bed. Lately, this space at the sidewalk is where they set up their Timmies table. This garden bed is where they most often congregate, sometimes setting up folding chairs or a camera tripod. They lean and sit on the walls of the garden bed a lot.
It was not built to support that sort of use.
For greater accessibility, the area was divided into two sections, so that gardeners could reach farther into the beds. The section on the left is one beam higher.
Though clearly marked as private property, picketers ignore the signs. They go into the path and are sometimes seen mucking about in people's plants. There are often one or two of them with their butts parked on the higher side and their feet up on the lower side.
Did I mention these weren't built to support this kind of use? The occasional sitting or leaning wouldn't be a problem, but not to this extent!
These garden beds are only a few years old. After they were built, we would get people walking onto our little, hidden street to look at them and take pictures. It wasn't unusual for them to stop and ask questions, too. It was all very pleasant and community friendly.
No one does that anymore.
They also go along the West wall of the bed, towards the patio. Again, private property and well past the 4 ft easement, which is supposed to allow picketers to step off public sidewalks briefly onto private property and not get hit with trespassing. This makes sense, as it allows picketers to move out of the way and allow people to go by, go around things, or just accidentally step off the sidewalk.
They ignore the 4 ft easement rule completely and just part their butts on the wall, or wander into...
... here. These are the entry and exit driveways to the underground parking. They block a lot of people here, going in or out. These are folks just trying to go in and out of their homes. There have been a few incidents of picketers jumping in front of moving vehicles here, striking the vehicles with their hands and sometimes claiming that they were hit. The first time that happened was on the first day of the strike, as someone was trying to go into the underground parking.
One of the things Artspace does is have an annual cleaning of the underground parking. Members who pay for spots in there are asked to park their vehicles elsewhere until it is done, and the doors are left open for some hours.
We were advised by the police to skip the clean up until after the picketers are gone, as it would be a security issue to have the doors open while they are here.
Artspace also has a spring and fall clean up day, where members spend a couple of hours picking up garbage, raking lawns, sweeping the sidewalks, etc. Weather willing, spring clean up is done in April. Weather was not willing this year, so it was to be done in May.
It got skipped this year, because of the strike.
This is the driveway into the above ground parking. In order to prevent blocking the road, the picketers allow the security vehicle with replacement worker to go past the sidewalk, and the picketers are allowed to go past the 4 ft easement and not be charged with trespassing.
Unfortunately, they ignore that, too. Not only do they wander past the 4 ft easement, they have been seen cutting through the parking lot to get to the back, where some of them park their cars on 94th Street.
Aside from the security vehicle, which they have blocked for more than an hour, and even as long as 2 hours, they also block people going in an out that are members living here, or people who are visiting. Who they block and for how long seems to depend on what mood they're in that day.
Lately, they've been spending a lot more time wandering around at - and in - the driveways. Apparently, it's because that's where the people they need to talk to are. Who that might be, I have no idea. Aside from the security vehicle, no one who goes through here is doing so to "do business with the employer." They are going through because they live here and that's where their parking spots are, or they are visiting and need to access the back area for some reason.
This is where, in the AUPE video, an organiser is seen lining the care staff up like bowling pins. Kind of puts a different twist to the term, "throw them under the bus."
This is the pee patch. It used to be a grassy area, but it was gravelled over so that members could take their dogs there to pee, without the urine burning any grass. The use of gravel also leaves less scent for coyotes from the river valley to come up and investigate.
Yes, we have coyotes in downtown Edmonton.
There used to be a "private property" sign taped to the Artspace sign, but the weather tore that off long ago. The picketers ignored it, anyhow. They'll go into the pee patch and lean on the sign, put their camera tripod in it, set chairs up in the gravel (then drag them out, around the curb, taking gravel out with it), sit on the curb or against the street light. There have been times when they have brought kids to the picket line, and they've been seen playing in there, too.
Of all the places to choose to trespass, their insistence in using the pee patch is perhaps the strangest - and grossest - of all.
This is part of the back of the above ground parking. Picketers will sometimes hang out here, too, either at the posts, or inside the parking lot, sitting on the curb.
This cul de sac is also where they have recently blocked one of the care workers; the only SAIL staff to vote against unionising, but who also provided Self Managed Care for an Artspace member as a second job. She still provides Self Managed Care, and has been horrifically targeted for abuse by her former co-workers. She's the one a former co-worker was threatening in the security video montage.
She was blocked farther ahead on this street, about where the farthest parked car can be seen in the above photo, for 1 1/2 hours, enduring abuse the entire time. What's most disturbing about watching the short bits of video she posted on Facebook is just how much they all seem to be enjoying tormenting her.
She's a really amazing person, and I admire her for her strength and dignity through months of harassment, and am disgusted that it has been allowed to get as bad as it has, without any consequences.
Beyond the parked cars is the grounds to the old Alex Taylor Elementary School, now home of E4C. Members go to the grounds to walk their dogs. One of our members, who has PTSD and uses a walker, was stalked by Creeper as he walked his dog there. As you can see, this area well away from SAIL or Artspace.
Now, we move on to the townhouse side of the street. Each townhouse has its own street address, so they are not part of the official address for the picket line. There is one member in the townhouses who used SAIL, but after the strike started, he stopped the service so that the replacement workers would not have to put up with abuse while crossing the street to provide his care. No, he does not have Self Managed Care. He is making do without the home care he qualifies for.
They still picket on this side. They sometimes sit on the stairs (yes, more trespassing) to upper level units, hang out at the mail box and use it as a table and sometimes set up their chairs at the top of the ramp to the lower townhouse entrances. The two posts in the foreground frame the top of the ramp.
The rental van is theirs. This is the van they claim has been vandalised several times, and which they say has had its tires slashed several times. I have only been able to confirm a flat tire, once, and the only damage seen on the vehicle was damage they had done themselves. I have not been able to find anyone who has seen signs of vandalism.
Sadly, vandalism is not an unusual thing in our neighbourhood. About a month ago, a member with an above ground parking spot found her windshield smashed. A couple of nights later, the vehicle next to hers was entered and rifled though. There is an ongoing problem with people finding ways to enter the high rise, then breaking into units - or using the laundry room! There have been break-ins in the townhouses, too.
Such is life in the downtown area.
Sometimes, they will set up their chairs by their rental van, either on the sidewalk or on the street behind it.
Then there is this area. You can see the rails to the ramp in the back, and somewhat closer, the hand rail to a set of stairs to the lower level sidewalk.
The paved section is next to the few parking spots on the townhouse side. This is where the picketers would camp out, with their chairs, sometimes a cooler, sometimes their table. They just move right in. Again, while part of it falls into the 4 foot easement, they are still trespassing when they set up camp here. There used to be a private property sign there, too, but as usual, they ignored it.
Lately, they haven't been using it much - either because the weather had cooled down and they no longer wanted to use the shade of our tree, or because of the attention of this blog. Or they're just playing games with us again. Who knows?
AUPE justifies picketing our homes by claiming Artspace as a work site. The work site is the SAIL office. That the care staff would leave the office to go to user members' private homes does not change that. They are not there to do renovations; they are there to do personal care, assist with meals, and housekeeping/laundry, in people's homes. They are there for the person, not the unit they are in (and as co-op members, we can transfer units as our needs change and availability arises).
That is the difference between Artspace in general, and the SAIL office.
That's the difference between our private homes and property, and the place of employment.
(update: edited for typos, Aug. 12, 2014)
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