Local artists and cultural workers express their concerns about gentrification and the housing crisis in Hamilton
C/O Hamilton Artists Organizing
The arts and artists have long been associated with the gentrification of inner-city neighbourhoods, the displacement of vulnerable groups and working-class communities. With increasing focus on creativity in urban development, artists and cultural workers have become a vital part of city revitalization projects.
Yet their creativity has become highly valued not so much for their innovation, artistry or vision, but more for its power to attract investors and wealthier residents. This has caused real estate values to rise, residents to be pushed out and poverty conditions to intensify. Hamilton is no exception to this trend of art-stimulated gentrification.
Walking down James Street North, you may have seen the slogan, “Art is the New Steel”, on public art, t-shirts and posters. The emerging arts districts in Hamilton have brought social and economic changes, leading to the recent dramatic shifts in housing costs and migration of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour groups to more marginalized neighbourhoods.
Walking down James Street North, you may have seen the slogan, “Art is the New Steel”, on public art, t-shirts and posters. The emerging arts districts in Hamilton have brought social and economic changes, leading to the recent dramatic shifts in housing costs and migration of Black, Indigenous and People of Colour groups to more marginalized neighbourhoods.
Reports from the Social Planning and Research Council of Hamilton in 2019 revealed that about 45 per cent of residents spend a disproportionate amount of their income on their rent. Furthermore, between June 2019 and June 2020, the city’s rents experienced the highest spike in the country, increasing by 33.5 per cent.
The rise in unaffordable housing is one of the seven urgent issues highlighted by Hamilton Artists Organizing in a letter to Mayor Fred Eisenberger and the city council. HAO is a loose collective of artists, musicians, writers and cultural workers mobilizing against gentrification in the city.
The rise in unaffordable housing is one of the seven urgent issues highlighted by Hamilton Artists Organizing in a letter to Mayor Fred Eisenberger and the city council. HAO is a loose collective of artists, musicians, writers and cultural workers mobilizing against gentrification in the city.
The group formally formed in 2019 and began drafting the letter prior to the COVID-19 pandemic; however, a larger group of local artists, including current members of HAO, have been assembling and discussing the involvement of the arts in gentrification for some time.
They have engaged in conferences such as Gathering on Art, Gentrification and Economic Development at McMaster and Pressure Points: Gentrification and the Arts in Hamilton at Hamilton Artists Inc. art gallery. Sparked by these conversations, the collective ultimately formed to take direct action and break the cycle of art-powered gentrification.
“The fact is that artwashing and these kinds of vanguard behaviours by artists to move into communities and gentrify them is a historical relationship that needs to be interrupted,” said Derek Jenkins, a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker and member of HAO.
The letter was written as a group, with perspectives and contributions from artists who are new to the issue and by those who have been researching the issue for a long time.
In addition to rental costs, the letter questions and demands the current plan of action with regards to the shortage of adequate social housing; class-based disparities between neighbourhoods; poverty; homelessness and loss of service providers; with references to impacts of climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Until the Hamilton city council responds and meets these demands, the group and supporters have promised to withhold their services and focus more on highlighting the actions, or the lack of actions, from the city.
Since being published in January of this year, the letter has garnered more than 580 signatures from community artists and cultural workers. There have also been overwhelming inquiries from local artists to join HAO.
HAO believes the purpose of the letter is two-fold: it is aimed at both the city counsellors and artists. Artists are in a unique position in that they are at both ends of the gentrification cycle. They not only help fuel it, but they are often part of the group that experiences displacement due to redevelopment.
It is easy for artists to become ensnared in a vicious cycle of moving to a cheaper area and then being forced out due to their creative activities that raise the economic potential and property cost of the neighbourhood. Take Barton Village as an example.
It’s considered one of the cheaper neighbourhoods in Hamilton; however, it has seen a recent boom of cafés, expensive restaurants and art spaces due to the high saturation of artists in the area who help raise civic interest.
As an artist, it can be challenging to not be complicit with gentrification.
“Many artists are precariously employed and many are experiencing the housing crisis as well. It can become a very difficult problem for artists to weigh the costs of opportunities that may adversely affect their living situations,” explained Jenkins.
“Many artists are precariously employed and many are experiencing the housing crisis as well. It can become a very difficult problem for artists to weigh the costs of opportunities that may adversely affect their living situations,” explained Jenkins.
However, it is often these city and corporate-funded work with less community-minded interests, such as painting a mural in a derelict area, that fuel the cycle.
Members and supporters of HAO hope the letter and their continuous work will help raise more awareness about the power of the arts in gentrification.
“I hope that the artist community can lend our support in ways that we can. As part of our practices, we have all of these skills that we can offer in various contexts. I think it would be really exciting to see how artists can support local organizing,” said Danica Evering, writer, sound artist and member of HAO.
In the coming months, HAO is planning to have general meetings to continue the conversation around gentrification and expand the collective’s network. They encourage student-artists and activists to join.
In the words of Hayden King, an Anishinaabe writer and educator: “Artists must recognize that they're an active player in gentrification and if they are committed to social justice, they should devote their energies to ensuring that people are not being displaced.”
In the words of Hayden King, an Anishinaabe writer and educator: “Artists must recognize that they're an active player in gentrification and if they are committed to social justice, they should devote their energies to ensuring that people are not being displaced.”
It is these words that drive Jenkins, Evering, HAO and the artist community to continue raising their voices against the housing crisis in Hamilton.
By Rob Hardy, Contributor
The aging FirstOntario Centre, formerly known as Copps Coliseum, is reaching the end of its lifespan. It is generally agreed that tearing down the building in the coming years is the best option ahead. But, as with the Ivor Wynne stadium debate, what to do after the demolition has become a question which has fallen onto our councillor’s laps.
Here we go again with the latest disastrous drama that has befallen Hamilton’s hapless city councillors. What should have been a relatively straight-forward process has become yet another muddled affair that will trap citizens in a never-ending debate as things progress painfully slowly, in true Hamilton fashion.
With the recent renovations in our downtown core, the plan to build a new arena somewhere near the current venue seemed to be a no-brainer, up until recently. Incoming proposals to switch arena locations to a mountain site have suddenly complicated matters greatly.
FirstOntario Centre’s biggest tenant is the Hamilton Bulldogs, the OHL team which relocated from Belleville a few years ago. At the time, the Hamilton Bulldogs relocating here was considered a consolation prize when Hamilton’s AHL team, also named the Bulldogs, left in 2015. However, local businessman Michael Andlauer, owner of both teams, had always planned on a new facility for our city and his new franchise.
Now, City Council’s big dilemma is the possibility of the Bulldogs relocating once again due to poor ice arena conditions. Meanwhile, we are left with the task of having to build a new arena. Building the new arena on the mountain, the preferred outcome for Andlauer and his partners, might secure lucrative investment as the Bulldogs would be a large tenant. But this leaves a gaping hole for Hamilton in the downtown entertainment district, where the LRT will supposedly begin running. Yet, proceeding with plans for a downtown arena risks making the project suddenly more expensive if the Bulldogs wind up heading to Burlington.
Keeping the Bulldogs in town might involve having to spend municipal tax dollars to build an arena in a location which simply doesn’t serve local interests. Further details are yet to be released, and negotiations are ongoing behind the scenes, but this is already proving to be a lose-lose situation for our city. Operating any arena at all will prove very tricky without an anchor tenant.
The arena issue was already fuelled with some trepidation, as it also brings to the fore any future intentions Hamilton might have in pursuing a possible NHL team. However, the general instinct to build a “right-sized” arena for our city is without a doubt the best approach. If we are currently unable to accommodate even an OHL team, it should be clear to anyone that spending resources to entice the fickle NHL is a fool’s errand, especially when many factors well beyond the city’s control will also play into such decisions.
Hamilton’s councillors could greatly help itself by getting real and understanding its limitations. We desperately need to start getting things done and stop being weighed down by divisive back-and-forth issues. That we might lose another hockey team is an unfortunate situation that will no doubt have many people bummed out. But we have to remember that such teams often relocate, and could very well do so down the line, even if we yield to building a sports complex at Limeridge Mall.
Unforeseen events should not distract us from our vision and throw us off track. We might have to further downsize the number of seats in the new arena, and realize that certain acts would now pass on playing in Hamilton due to our lower capacity. But at the same time, we’re not Toronto and need to stop over-reaching as if we have the tax base to support projects bigger than we can manage. If we work on our problems and resolve to become the best city we can, given our demographics, then we needn’t worry as we will surely find a measure of pride, success and satisfaction.
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By: Drew Simpson
The Division of Labour exhibit portrays sustainable ways of creating art while also looking at the difficulties of creating a sustainable art career. Housed in the Workers Arts and Heritage Centre’s main gallery space until April 20 and accompanied by a panel discussion, Division of Labour warns of the scarcity of resources, labour rights and living wages of artists.
Division of Labour also serves as an educational tool to communicate and start discourse around the issues regarding sustainability. The Socio-Economic Status of Artists in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area discussion, which was facilitated by Divisions of Labour curator, Suzanne Carte, and included panelists Sally Lee, Michael Maranda and Angela Orasch, encouraged artists to be vocal and seek action.
“People want to be around artists, but they really don’t. If they were living in the reality that a lot of artists are living in, it would not be favourable. What they want is the pseudo creative lifestyle. They want to be around beautiful things and smart people, but they don’t really want to be assisting with making sure artists are making a living wage and that artists are being supported financially,” explained Carte.
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For emerging artists, this exhibits presents a valuable learning experience as it informs them of community issues. This topic is particularly important since emerging artists are often asked to work for free, often under a pretense that the work will add to their portfolios or lead to exposure. However, Carte argues that asking artists to work for free devalues the work they do.
“Because you are emerging, and because you’re new to the practice does not mean that any institution, organization or individual business, whatever it might be, can take advantage of you and use it as exposure… it’s not about gaining experience — I can gain experience on the job. I can gain experience while being compensated for what I do,” explained Carte.
While Carte encourages individuals to stand up for themselves, she understands that many artists may not be in a position to be able to reject sparse opportunities. She, alongside the panelists at the discussions, further discussed ways emerging and established artists can fight for their rights.
Lee gave an overview of organizations and advocacy groups that focus on bettering labour and housing situations and are making communities aware of gentrification and the living experiences of artists in Hamilton and Toronto.
Maranda added that lobbying for bigger grants or funding is not enough. The community also needs to be advocating for the improvement of artists’ economic status through establishing a basic or minimum hourly wage, affordable rent and transportation.
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Recently, Maranda was a quantitative researcher for the Waging Culture survey. The survey investigated home ownership in Hamilton compared to Toronto. Maranda concluded that Hamilton artists are less reliant on the private market and contribute more to the public art community.
The survey also suggested an artist migration from Toronto to Hamilton due to Hamilton’s lower rent and higher artist home ownership. This leads to a domino effect as real estate agents and developers follow the migration and aid gentrification.
Orasch stated that real estate agents and developers have secretly attended similar panel discussions. The panelists speculated they do so to learn how to market housing to artists. However, the overall sentiment was that they crossed into an artist-designated space to further exploit artists.
“Developers are taking advantage of the language that we have been able to construct for ourselves, to be able to be attractive to other artists or other individuals who feel as though they want an “artsy” experience out of life,” explained Carte.
Lee emphasized how all these surveys and discussions need to reach key decision makers. The Division of Labour exhibit and the panelists at the discussion have repeatedly stressed that talk is merely educational, the true goal is action and change.
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In recent years, Hamilton’s downtown core has changed rapidly, with many businesses closing down and new ones popping up, just as fast. While some may welcome these changes, many others point to a loss for the LGBTQA2S+ community, with many popular gay bars closing down as the city evolved.
In the early 2000s, there were five major gay bars people could go to: The Werx, the Rainbow Lounge, The Embassy, M Bar and The Windsor, all of which were located in Hamilton’s downtown core. Since then, all of these bars have shut their doors.
For James Dee, a McMaster alum and Hamilton resident since 2004, bars such as the Embassy were an important aspect of their experience with Hamilton’s queer community as a place where they could go without threat of violence.
“We maybe have a little bit of drama and be kind of mean to each other….But when the lights came on at the end of the night you know everyone was checking in with each other like 'text when you get home and so I know you're safe,'” Dee said.
While Hamilton’s queer scene thrived in 2004, it was not without violence. In that same year, Hamilton Police Services, among other municipal agencies, raided the Warehouse Spa and Bath and arrested two men for indecent acts. That raid was followed by protests from Hamilton’s LGBTQA2S+ community.
“It felt a lot more dangerous to be visibly queer in 2004,” Dee said. “I think it's easy to kind of romanticize the time when we had brick and mortar spaces but it's also easy to forget why we needed those spaces so much.”
Dee believes that, to some degree, places closed down due to a decline in need, but also points to the gentrification of Hamilton as another key reason these spaces disappeared.
“It's not just the story of queer Hamilton, it's the story of Hamilton in general… a lot of the places I used to enjoy hanging out [at] are now bougie coffee shops,” Dee said.
For example, following the shuttering of the Werx’s door, the building was converted into the Spice Factory, a popular wedding venue.
“All across the board, [the gay bars] catered to people with less money,” Dee said. “They don't survive downtown anymore.”
For Sophie Geffros, another long-time Hamilton resident and McMaster graduate student, the loss of brick-and-mortar spaces has meant a segregation within the community.
Geffros, who spent their teen years in Hamilton, had many of their formative experiences at bars such as the Embassy, where they met older members of the LGBTA2S+ community in addition to those their own age.
“There is still an isolation that I think that can only be combated by in-person interaction,” Geffros said.
“We're a little more fragmented. Like if I'm going out… I'm going to be going out with people I already know who are members of the community,” they added.
For Geffros, the loss of Hamilton’s queer spaces is especially harmful, as these spaces were often the most accessible hangouts for queer people living in rural communities that lack direct bus service to Toronto.
“Those are people who are particularly isolated, who are often closeted throughout the week and would come to Hamilton on the weekend to blow off steam and be amongst themselves. That's a real loss,” Geffros said.
While there are no longer any physical LGBTQA2S+ spaces, there are opportunities for Hamilton’s queer community to converge. Dee is one of the founders of Queer Outta Hamilton, a collective that runs monthly queer pub nights, typically at Gallagher’s Pub.
In addition, there are other organizations that offer workshops and events, such as Speqtrum Hamilton, the NGen Youth Centre, Pride Hamilton, the McMaster Students Union Pride Centre and others.
There are also many LGBTQA2S+-friendly bars and clubs, such as Sous Bas, which offers queer events, typically in partnership with Queer Outta Hamilton.
While Hamilton may have lost its major physical queer spaces, the community continues to support each other the best they can.
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In attending events on gentrification, Angela Orasch realized that the conversations on this issue were happening in several discrete places. The McMaster University political science PhD candidate decided to plan an event to bring the different groups together in hopes of creating a network to mitigate the negative effects of gentrification.
The result was the Gathering on Art, Gentrification and Economic Development, funded by The Socrates Project and McMaster University’s Office of Community Engagement. The free public forum, open to all interested individuals, took place from Nov. 9 to Nov. 10 at The Spice Factory.
On Nov. 8, a door by donation kick-off party occurred at This Ain’t Hollywood, featuring performances by Lal, Lee Reed and Cheko Salaam. All proceeds went to the Tenant Turn-Up fundraising tour, a mini-tour connecting the housing struggles of Stoney Creek Towers in Hamilton, Parkdale in Toronto and Herongate in Ottawa.
The two-day forum consisted of a mixture of performances, panels and workshops, allowing individuals to both speak to their personal experiences and share strategies to work against the pitfalls of gentrification.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqAzq-aHz84/
“We wanted to have varied programming… so [people] could learn differently through different means and be engaged in the process…. I think it was just a way to avoid the standard almost academic style of conference… it just didn't feel right for the collaborative spirit of what we wanted GAGED to be,” Orasch explained.
The programming was designed to bring multiple perspectives into the same space so individuals could ask questions to and learn from one another. There were contributions by frontline workers, individuals discussing LGBTQ2S+ concerns regarding gentrification, the Disability Justice Network of Ontario, COBRA and the Hamilton Tenants Solidarity Network, among others.
The participants discussed a wide range of topics, such as the role of art in the economic development of Hamilton, what gentrification means for Hamilton’s Indigenous community, the role of McMaster University in the gentrification process, the service industry and gentrification and the perspective of new Hamiltonians.
“I think ideally if we can build bridges and capacity between groups to start challenging some of the negative stuff that's happening… that would be a great takeaway. [By] connecting and networking with various groups… there might be some room for… mutual interest and mutual goals,” Orasch said.
The goal of GAGED was to produce a report of actionable items and best practices models that will be made available to the public and distributed to City Hall, McMaster University, arts organizations and community groups.
However, this forum is only the first step in what Orasch would like to do about tackling gentrification. As with any multi-faceted and unfolding issue, it is impossible for the negative effects of gentrification to be alleviated overnight.
Orasch would like to see GAGED continue into the future, becoming a hub to connect different affected individuals and groups. She would like to see a team associated with GAGED that can continue organizing events, lobbying and creating publications and policy briefs to tackle this ongoing issue in a sustained way. Looking further into the future, Orasch would like to see the work of GAGED extend to other cities.
“I guess one thing is that it's not just gentrification… but it's a broader economic system that's unfair, inherently unfair, and gentrification is just… one way in which the economic system unfolds in cities. But maybe because it's a cohesive concept it's a good one to latch on to it and create an activism around,” Orasch said.
GAGED could become a model for other cities seeking to confront gentrification. It could also evolve into an inter-municipal forum, uniting the strategies, ideas and expertise of groups affected by gentrification in different cities. GAGED is part of the first step in creating an increasingly cohesive strategy.
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By Nina Gaind
Walking through Supercrawl felt different this year. I felt weird about the presence of five Toyota cars positioned directly across from an art installation. I also felt a bit out of place, as many local faces and businesses from the past had disappeared, replaced by shiny new coffee shops and boutiques. The unoccupied lot beside CBC Hamilton was empty, where in past years it has been populated by local artists selling their unique DIY crafts and teenagers hanging out in the back (do you know what I’m referring to?).
Despite these changes, the thing that made me the most uncomfortable was the couple comments I heard from Supercrawl goers, referring to Hamilton and the space they were occupying. I heard people making jokes while in a long time standing James Street North shop, laughing about how outdated and cringe it was. I heard people snickering at the presence of homeless folks, and making a joke out of the poverty in Hamilton. These deeply unsettling comments symbolize a larger problem with the changing scene in Hamilton, and the language people use causes further harm to the people being pushed out of these social spaces.
Growing up in a town on the edge of Hamilton, I noticed ways in which people spoke about Hamilton. People talked about the city’s poverty with disdain, associating low-income areas with crime, rather than compassionately understanding the drive behind the perceived danger. With the recent wave of gentrification, more people from outside of the downtown area have been spending time in in the downtown core, changing how the city is perceived. This is exemplified in streets like James Street North and Barton Street being described as “up and coming”, while not even 2 km away there are some of the highest poverty rates in the country. With this rapid gentrification, Hamiltonians who have historically occupied these spaces are being pushed further and further away from these areas. For example, an affordable housing project in the North End was recently bought out by investors, leaving people who relied on this without homes. As a student who spends time in these spaces, I listen as the language used to describe people of low-income neighbourhoods becomes increasingly harmful and offensive. Local Hamiltonians are spoken about in ways that stigmatize their lived experience calling certain areas “sketchy”, “ghetto” and “ratchet”. These terms are highly racialized and classist, and do nothing but further the marginalization low-income people face throughout the development of Hamilton.
This issue is highly complicated and has many layers to it. Gentrification is not a simple concept, as development in the city has positive and negative consequences. As a student, I want to use my voice and privilege to acknowledge the power I and my peers have when we occupy spaces downtown. Students are positioned in a very grey area when it comes to gentrification and development. On one hand, we are not the people directly investing and developing land in Hamilton, rising rent prices and pushing low-income folks to the margins. On the other hand, we engage and spend time in these new coffee shops and stores, supporting local businesses and enjoying these spaces. While we might think our presence as students is trivial, our identities as students give us social power. Our identities as educated individuals give us more mobility to access physical and social spaces than local Hamiltonians. It is important for us to be mindful of this fact and reflect upon how and why we perceive others to be different from us. This being said, I recognize that university students come from diverse backgrounds and experience oppression in many aspects of society and this should not be ignored when talking about this issue.
This city belongs to the very Hamiltonians we ridicule. As we continue to spend time in gentrified areas in Hamilton, we should be aware of the language we use when talking about others, specifically marginalized folks who are being negatively impacted by the cities changes. Using divisive language feeds the narrative that people who live in poverty are bad and dangerous, which physically and socially separates people more in society. When we start to change the tone of how we describe others, it can help to create more respectful relationships between people we may deem different from us. We must respect the history of Hamilton and recognize presence of poverty, looking to the root causes of inequality. I am hopeful that we as students can continue to enjoy Hamilton while being mindful of our identities and interact more positively with local Hamilton community members.
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Hamilton was overcome with shock and disbelief as the stories of shattered windows and egged storefronts unfolded after the vandalism incident in the Locke Street neighbourhood on the evening of March 3.
Hamilton police responded to a “mischief in progress” call when thirty masked individuals gathered in Durand Park on Park Street South. The group, clad in all black, marched with a painted banner that read “We Are The Ungovernable”.
As police called for backup, the group began making their way towards Locke Street South near Aberdeen Avenue. It is unclear whether the group originally intended to cause damage to the small businesses in the community or if the acts of vandalism were not planned.
The first business to be egged was Earth to Table: Bread Bar, a large stone was smashed into a Pippa & Prue window, while two windows were smashed at the Beverly on Locke. The momentum of damage increased as the group marched west along the street, pelleting stones and setting off fireworks.
Donut Monster appeared to sustain the most damage. Eight windows and the front door were shattered before the group caused damage to Bitten on Locke, Condo Culture, Neo, Locke Street Meats and Cima Enoteca. My Dog’s Café Bar and Mattson Co. were also egged.
Police have not made any arrests in connection to the incident and are currently investigating evidence that they have received linking the incident to the anarchist book fair that took place at Westdale Secondary School the same weekend.
The Tower, an anarchist social centre in Hamilton, which organized the book fair, released a statement claiming that they did not organize the rally, but are in support of the incident.
“[Small businesses] aren’t the ones redeveloping whole blocks or carrying out mass evictions. What they have done, though, is to put themselves on the side of the speculators and landlords, positioning themselves to profit off forces that harm most of their neighbours,” read the statement.
The Tower made an additional post on Facebook following a break-in to their premises. Their same statement alleges that alt-right groups have sent threats to the community library in the days before the break-in.
Following the aftermath of the attack, Locke Street business owners and community members took to social media with emotionally charged messages of love and support. Countless comments were left by people sending their well wishes and offering to help clean up stores.
By the afternoon of the next day, it became nearly impossible to walk, let alone drive through Locke Street, as hundreds of people, children and pets took to the streets for a day of local shopping and supporting small businesses.
In an effort to move past the incident, Hamiltonians came out to embrace Locke Street, and in turn, businesses showed their gratification for their community while also encouraging positive conversation.
“Please stop in if you would like to say ‘Hi’, you will be welcome to start a conversation with your neighbours on keeping peace and promoting good connections here in #HamOnt,” read a post published on Donut Monster’s social media.
“To those who took part in the destruction on the street last night: the damage you caused has impacted the lives and wellbeing of fellow Hamiltonians that work and reside in your city. While your actions were confusing and hurtful and your intentions unclear, you are also welcome at the shop today — minus the masks and rocks — to add your voice to a peaceful discussion on reconciliation and moving past violence.”
Donut Monster’s call to conversation was heard as people stopped by for coffee and took the time to chat with owner Reuben Vanderkwaak and his wife. The boarded-up doughnut shop quickly became a canvas for visitors’ positive affirmations and doodles of doughnuts, hearts and sunshine.
Conversation transcended on social media, amalgamating around the question on everyone’s mind: why did this happen?
Some drew a connection between last summer’s vandalism on businesses on Barton Street and in Westdale, which have been linked to a campaign against gentrification in the city by anarchist groups.
Others claim Locke Street, a relatively wealthy neighbourhood, has been undergoing changes for years, making its small businesses a target of anti-gentrification groups.
However, in an anonymous article written by an attendee of the rally on Anarchistnews.org, the author explains that small businesses are not exempt from contributing to the city’s gentrification.
“The problem isn’t the size of the business, it’s that the relationship is exploitative. When someone decides to be a capitalist, making money through their investments rather than through their labour, their position relative to changes in the city becomes fundamentally different,” read the article.
Pippa & Prue owner, Prudy Allison, claims that urbanization may have played a motivating factor for the rally, but they do not justify the attacks on businesses.
“This isn’t a community that’s been urbanized so that all the old buildings are gone. [My] store looks exactly the same way it did, we’re going back 60 to 70 years, the front of this store is almost the same,” explained Allison.
“All the buildings are trying to preserved, as much as they can, and they’re all small businesses here… we’re holding on to our roots here, we’re just not letting it decay.”
If the purpose of the rally was to deter people away from Locke Street, then the efforts weren’t fruitful. According to Allison and other business owners in the area, new faces have been coming out to shop at their stores and the community received extensive media exposure.
“It was surreal. What’s going on. The outpouring of support was immediate. This is Locke Street, the community loves it, a bunch of punks aren’t going to change that. That’s all they were because if they had a statement, they weren’t smart enough to put it out there very well,” said Allison.
The community is planning on holding a #LoveLocke Day on Saturday, March 10. Hamiltonians are encouraged to visit and shop at local small businesses.
Donut Monster also released a new “Make Lemonade” flavour for this week, complete with glass-like shards of lemon candy made by Sweet Simple Co., a nod towards the weekend’s events. All proceeds from the “Make Lemonade” donut will be donated to Indwell, a non-profit organization that creates affordable housing communities in Hamilton.
Locke Street is a strong community built on support and collaboration between businesses and community members. Last weekend’s events were a testament of that.
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Rife with homegrown talent, Hamilton has undergone a transition from blue collar steel town to a revitalized entertainment hub with a thriving arts and culture scene. But one person’s revitalization is another’s gentrification, and Hamilton locals and newcomers find themselves at odds about what changes mean to the city and those who reside in it.
Critics of gentrification argue that the hike in Hamilton’s real estate market has displaced lower income households from their own neighbourhoods, all the while replacing districts of hardware stores and thrift shops with new lofts and trendy restaurants.
On the other hand, supporters suggest new investments will bring more opportunities for those in the city, particularly for the young creatives of the arts and culture scene.
But how, exactly, has gentrification affected those in the city, particularly the “young creatives” it supposedly benefits? What is Hamilton’s elusive arts and culture scene really like from the inside?
For most of her childhood, Sahra Soudi lived in Dundas, a predominantly white constituent community within Hamilton. As a Somali-Canadian, she did not grow up with people who looked like her. She still recalls a particular instance where someone spilt burning coffee on her Somali-Egyptian mother, who wears a hijab due to her Muslim faith. They only responded with a facetious and unapologetic “oops”.
Today, the multimedia student uses art as a means of expressing her experiences as a woman of colour. From selling totes, stickers and buttons adorned with her artwork at art crawls and O’s Clothes to creating her first zine for the Hamilton Feminist Zine Fair, Soudi tells her personal narrative through the marriage of art and activism.
Although Soudi is now a member of Hamilton’s inner art circle and considers it a friendly and welcoming space, she did not always feel encouraged to participate.
“I can name maybe two [notable artists on Hamilton’s art scene] who are Black… Kareem Ferreira [and] Stylo Starr. The lack of representation has a lot to do with [my feelings of discouragement],” she said.
“[Rarely do people encourage] Black, Asian [or other racialized] children to be artists. It’s a very hegemonic, white-dominant scene… same with music, you don’t see a band that is solely people of colour here.”
"It's a very hegemonic, white-dominant scene... same with music, you don't see a band that is solely people of colour here."
Sahra Soudi
Hamilton artist and Multimedia Student
Although forging her own path in Hamilton’s art scene has not been easy, Soudi accredits inclusive art spaces like Casino Artspace and HAVN for supporting aspiring artists in their communities. For instance, HAVN will be adding Soudi into their collective, where she hopes to curate and create narrative-based art that is telling of experiences of marginalized communities.
While Soudi agrees that some changes have brought opportunities into the city, she wonders who these opportunities are for. Recently, there has been a divide between the youth of Hamilton and newcomers. Although she grew up in Hamilton, she now feels uncomfortable walking down King William Street. She doesn’t feel as though she belongs with the patrons of the new, upscale restaurants. Despite current feelings of unease, Soudi plans to stay in her hometown for the foreseeable future.
“I’ve been [in Hamilton] for so long… it would be hard to leave it in the state that it’s in and start somewhere else completely new,” says Soudi.
“My goal is to create more spaces for people who don’t have that avenue to express themselves through art. I think being who I am, looking like I do and entering predominantly white spaces [like the arts and culture scene in Hamilton] is pretty cool and radical. I want to show others that you can exist in a scene that wasn’t necessarily made for you, and that you can thrive within it.”
An avid cyclist and coffee aficionado, Steve Good has been a part of Hamilton’s arts and culture scene and as a barista for nearly eight years.
For five of those years, Good worked at Café Domestique (now closed), a cycling cafe in Dundas that harmoniously combined his passions for biking and coffee. Currently, he works at Smalls Coffee, a tiny coffee take-away spot located on Cannon Street East.
Good’s long-time involvement with Hamilton’s coffee scene provided him with an in to the rest of the arts and culture community.
Through meeting customers who are often young artists and musicians, Good has become a frequent patron of art spaces and performance venues throughout the city.
As such, he’s seen first-hand how rising rent due to gentrification has priced out local businesses and spaces for artists to collaborate, replacing them with bars and restaurants.
“The opportunities that bars and restaurants offer are not necessarily available or desired by artists because that just isn’t their kind of space,” said Good.
“When you have affordable spaces, there’s a higher likelihood for performance… and currently, the arts and culture scene has been suffering due to the lack of these spaces.”
Critics of gentrification have drawn correlations between new coffee shops and rising rents.
Good believes this to be a general rule in a society that follows trends; when something becomes cool, as coffee culture did, it becomes a product of capitalization.
Good has only seen inclusivity towards the community from within the coffee industry.
However, he also recognizes his privilege as someone who could benefit from gentrification as he works in the service industry.
“It’s a double-edged sword… gentrification is basically the commodification of cool and does not necessarily benefit the people who put the neighbourhood where it is, which is unfortunate,” he said.
“I do feel a little guilty for participating in the coffee aspect of the arts and culture scene when injustices — such as people losing their businesses or art spaces — are taking place… but my take is that we can’t just sit and complain… it’s important to adapt. It is unfortunate that businesses are hurting and people are being priced out…but what is there to do? We just have to [keep these people in mind, help when we can], and adapt together as we move forward.”
"The opportunities that bars and restaurants offer are not necessarily available or desired by artists because that just isn't their kind of space."
Steve Good
Barista
Smalls Coffee
Despite the challenges that come with being a young artist in Hamilton, members of the local art scene are working to help their community adapt to fit artists’ needs as their city changes. Soudi and Good all wish to continue creating spaces for their work. They hope that in the near future, they can create an art scene that is even more inclusive then what Hamilton’s current neighborhoods can offer.
Edgar’s posters have become the symbol of the No! Downtown Hamilton Casino group, a collection of activists, businesses owners and Hamiltonians that is extensively involved in raising awareness about the casino. Graham Crawford, owner of the Hamilton HIStory + HERitage storefront museum on James North, is a prominent member of the No! Downtown Casino group and has made a different poster opposing the casino every day for nearly the last two months.
“I’m almost embarrassed to say to people how little time it takes to make the posters,” said Crawford modestly. “I can’t draw, so the posters become my editorial cartoons because you don’t have to have much skill to make a poster.”
Crawford’s posters, which he shares through his Facebook page, make it clear that the result of the casino debate is something he cares deeply about. But the posters have convinced a lot of other people to care as well.
“My first ‘the new Hamilton’ poster focused on Supercrawl,” said Crawford, “and even I am social media savvy enough to know that when you get 236 shares in one day about something local that doesn’t involve cats it’s a big deal. The reach of the poster was probably tens of thousands. I’ve never had anything shared that much, ever.”
Everything that has changed James North over the last few years – the galleries, art crawl, Supercrawl – has done so slowly, deliberately and empathetically. Downtown Hamilton has showed us is that there’s a way for development to be good for everyone. Countless arts programs like Roots 2Leaf, the Urban Arts Initiative and Hamilton Artists for Social Change are dedicated to addressing poverty in many forms. What makes Crawford’s Supercrawl poster so affecting to so many people is that it puts into stark contrast Hamilton’s recent downtown development and the type of development that a casino represents - fast, less engaged with the rest of the city and harmful to at least some.
“A casino is completely inward facing by design, not by accident,” said Crawford. “Once they get you in there they don’t want you to leave. It’s why there are no windows. It’s why there are no clocks.”
Certainly PJ Mercanti, one of the main people involved in the proposed casino, is not evil. I’m sure he doesn’t see the city as just a source of income. It’s just that his vision and Crawford’s vision for the future of Hamilton are fundamentally different. One will probably never agree with the other, no matter how much debate. But even if a resolution will never be reached, at least there are people who care enough the city to see that it’s worth arguing about.
First, the context.
About three weeks ago I wrote an article about art and Hamilton that argued the development of a neighbourhood does not do much to resolve poverty, and that low-income neighborhoods are a symptom for problems like unemployment, crime and poor health instead of a cause. I wrote that art should be used to express the full complexity of a neighbourhood, rather to simplify it, and that a neighbourhood should be something that every one of its members has the ability to change.
On the website where the article was posted, Jeremy Freiburger, the founder of a local non-profit arts service Cobalt Connects, left a comment saying he found the “article painful to read” and that the “distanced academic approach to understanding cultural community growth [is] as thin as the paper [the] article is written on.” So, naturally, I contacted Freiburger for an interview.
Part of what Freiburger’s organization does is figure out how buildings can be renovated and repurposed to best suit the needs of artists. Frieburger is almost like the poster child of gentrification, the process of a neighbourhood’s buildings being developed and increasing in price. In my article, I criticized the type of neighbourhood development that Freiburger is involved in as not actually being helpful to those in poverty. After speaking to him, I’m not so sure.
The Mulberry Street coffeehouse on James Street North is the result of work by Freiburger, and was also the place where he and I met. Before it was a coffee shop, Mulberry was Hotel Hamilton – infamously run-down low-income housing. I had seen the Mulberry coffee shop as the quintessential example of gentrification: a coffee shop for the wealthy took the place of housing for the poor, who ended up displaced.
“I’ve been involved in this industry for a long time – the idea of regenerating buildings – and I totally understand the conversation around displacement,” said Freiburger. “The gentlemen that lived at Mulberry, the owners actually found them better housing, on [James] street for the same price they were paying here.”
The stories of displacement are told often, and loudly. The stories of how that displacement is prevented? Not so much.
Though I saw Frieburger as a figurative poster child for gentrification, it turns out that this had literally been true - but it was by no means Freiburger’s decision. “Maybe about a year or so ago, there was a big push from a group out of McMaster that came out on an art crawl, and had made up stickers about gentrification and calling people ‘fat cats,’ me in particular, and a number of other people, but I was named specifically,” said Frieburger. “They stuck them to buildings, they stuck them to artists’ artwork, they went around stickering wherever they wanted. That caused a huge rift in the community, for sure.”
This sticker campaign was needlessly confrontational, and I’m sure that it didn’t help anyone better understand the reality of how gentrification is playing out in Hamilton.
“To be equally confrontational, I found out who was leading that group of people, in my view, and found out that the person leading it was actually a professor from McMaster University,” said Freiburger. “So I wrote a rather scathing email to her and to Patrick Deane and her boss, and was responded to by the legal department at McMaster, asking me to cease and desist my actions or face a lawsuit, because what I was doing was defamatory. Yet, putting stickers with my name on it throughout the community saying I was an evil fat cat who was displacing poor people isn’t defamatory?”
Before speaking to Freiburger, I wasn’t sure what to expect. What ended up happening is like when a character in a movie seems like a villain, but they actually end up being pretty good. Snape provides a perfect example. When talking about difficult topics like gentrification, it’s important not to dismiss anyone.
“I think Hamilton is still at a point where we can shape how we want to change this city,” said Freiburger. “But if we can’t find a way to have positive dialogue about it, no one is going to change their ways.”
