From Maggies Crochet-

WEEK IN REVIEW - FREE CROCHET PATTERNS (Click image to view pattern):

Scroll Rose Doily Crochet Pattern

Lantern Potholder

Talula Turtle Soap Cover

Charleston Garden Crochet Afghan

Rose Granny Potholder

New Stitch 'n Bitch book from Debbie Stoller

 A new Stitch 'n Bitch book from Debbie Stoller. This book goes beyond the basics.  It includes chapters on:

*Intarsia/color 

*knitting cables

*lace 

*how to make your own pattern

Looks great and I for one will be looking for this book. Will be published on November 5, 2010. Chapters and Amazon are accepting pre-orders.

Stitch 'n Bitch Superstar Knitting by Debbie Stoller

Her other books are:

Stitch 'N Bitch: The Knitter's Handbook

By Debbie Stoller Published: August 6, 2004 

 

Stitch 'N Bitch Nation

By Debbie Stoller Published: October 4, 2004

 

Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker: Stitch 'n Bitch Crochet

By Debbie Stoller Published: January 16, 2006

Son of Stitch 'n Bitch: 45 Projects To Knit And Crochet For Men

By Debbie Stoller Published: October 22, 2007

 

These are all Trade Paperback books. Check them out!

Cora

Arg...I hate telemarkets and I used to be one.

It is so frustrating! Call came from this number 1-100-9834.

Converstaion goes like this:

TeleMarketer: Can I speak to Mrs. __________

CraftyGal: Speaking:

TM: I wanted to ask you about your mortgage today....

CG: I was called this morning and I asked to be put on the do not call list. WE ARE NOT INTERESTED!

TM: Well we wanted you to....

CG: Put our number on the Do Not Call List. If you don not cease and desist I will be escalating this to an harassment charge with the police.

TM: But....(as I am hanging up the phone.

I am sure this is a scam call so I am putting it out as a warning.

Cora

Housing plan overturns decades of practice

If adopted, proposal would spread subsidized projects throughout city

 

By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal October 12, 2010 6:24 AM

Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Housing+plan+overturns+decades+practice/3656457/story.html#ixzz129xvk3ax

 

Walter Trocenko, head of the City of Edmonton's housing branch, is photographed near inner city housing in Edmonton on October 1, 2010. Trocenko supports a "flexible cap" protocol.

Photograph by: Larry Wong, edmontonjournal.com

EDMONTON - During a tense hearing at City Hall last spring, the head of the housing branch outlined a plan that would be the first of its kind in North America, one that showed how he thinks the city should build homes for the poor and vulnerable.

Walter Trocenko's idea was to hold off on more subsidized housing in 13 inner-city communities, where poverty is already high, quality of life is low, and residents complain of crime, drug dealing, prostitution and cleaning up human feces in their yards.

In the future, he said, the city should only fund more subsidized housing in those neighbourhoods if the communities support the idea, or if it meets one of the city's goals, such as revitalization or ending homelessness.

Meanwhile, city policies should encourage developers to build subsidized housing units in the dozens of neighbourhoods that have very few, or none at all. He called it a "flexible cap" protocol.
"If we are using taxpayer money to provide more subsidized housing, then we need to understand how those investments affect the communities they're going into," Trocenko said recently. "That's what this protocol is about."

If it is adopted, it will be the first such plan in North America, and the city's first attempt to influence the location of subsidized housing since the 1970s.

"This is about reinventing the way we've done things for decades," Trocenko said. "In the future, an instrument like this protocol will significantly influence the redistribution of subsidized housing in a way that is really sensitive to community needs."

Neighbourhoods should get behind the protocol, he said. "It does what they want. It invests in the right projects for the communities, which have the right balance."

At the debate that followed his presentation, however, communities did not get behind the protocol. It raged on for six hours, as frustrated inner-city residents stepped up to the microphone one after another to say their neighbourhoods are on the verge of social collapse.

They said a flexible cap wasn't enough, they want a hard cap and no more low-income housing, full stop. One man, a preacher, said his neighbourhood has become a ghetto.

Concentrating poverty has negative consequences for a city and its residents, whether they live in the core or in the suburbs. But not everyone agrees low-income housing causes the concentration of poverty.

"There is a relationship between subsidized housing and poverty; the question is whether it is a positive or negative relationship," Trocenko said. "On the one hand, when you cross a threshold and you put too much subsidized housing in a specific area, in some cases it has a significant impact. On the flip side, what's wrong with providing a decent, respectful place for someone who is homeless to live in our community? The answer is: nothing."

David Berger is deputy director of Boyle Street Community Services, which announced its first inner-city housing development this year. Like many advocates in Edmonton, he believes well-run subsidized housing makes a positive contribution to inner-city communities because it gets people off the streets and into homes, where they can receive services.

"The next subsidized housing development shouldn't have to pay the price for past failures," he said. "There is prejudice. People equate subsidized housing with social disruption. That is not necessarily the case. One can run a very good housing project, with a mix of people with a variety of needs and backgrounds. It's incumbent on operators and developers to work closely with their neighbours and make sure their projects are a boon to the neighbourhood, not a detriment."

Trocenko's flexible cap protocol is a compromise: it leaves the door open to developments that will benefit distressed communities and closes the door on everything else. It is a part of a solution to developing healthy, inclusive communities. City council's executive committee asked him to start work on the protocol and he expects to present it in the spring of 2011. Council approval, though, would only be the beginning. The protocol will only be binding on money the city controls, not on the tens of millions of dollars the province has poured into subsidized housing since 2007.

A Journal analysis shows $5 of every $10 of the $113 million the province has spent to build more subsidized housing in Edmonton went into four of the city's most blighted communities. In all, $57 million was spent to build more than 500 units in McCauley, Boyle, Central McDougall and Garneau.
Trocenko said the city and province have a strong, collaborative relationship that will make it easier to apply the protocol principles to provincially funded projects. "The protocol is built on trust and a good working relationship -- without that, it will not work," he said.

Housing Minister Jonathan Denis said the province will continue to consult with the city.
"As long as I have been the minister, we've always respected the wishes of the municipality with respect to zoning. If we receive very strong opposition from the municipality not to place a project in a given area, that's something that we would respect."

The trouble is, the power of the protocol is protected only by goodwill, not by law.
Advocates have long called for a legal solution in the form of an "inclusionary zoning" bylaw, which would allow the city and other municipalities to designate a portion of each new development for affordable housing. Under such policies, cities typically designate between five and 20 per cent of a new development for affordable housing. Cities encourage developers to participate by fast-tracking approvals for developments with affordable housing components, for example, or they allow developers to pay a fee instead of building affordable housing.

Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver have all implemented some form of inclusionary zoning. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. has studied the policy in Canada and the United States, concluding it has been effective in creating affordable housing. The corporation reports, for example, that between 1974 and 1995, California's inclusionary housing programs "produced more than 24,400 new affordable housing units without direct costs to the taxpayer." Opponents of such policies include developers, who say such changes would place an unfair burden on their industry.

"The development industry is very supportive of affordable housing," said Ray Watkins, president of the Urban Development Institute of Alberta. "We think that affordable housing, though, is an issue that is the responsibility of society, and society as a whole, not just one industry."

The city would have to pass a bylaw for such policies to come into effect. City administrators say they can't, because the Municipal Government Act only allows cities to control what buildings look like and what they are used for -- not who lives there.

As a result, advocates -- including the government's own Affordable Housing Task Force -- have called for the act to be changed so cities have the power to implement inclusionary zoning policies.
The province, however, insists a change isn't necessary.

"Changes to the MGA are not necessary, as municipalities can already establish zoning to encourage affordable housing development," Municipal Affairs spokesman Jerry Ward said.

"In its literal sense, inclusionary zoning means the ability to zone land for a variety of housing types to serve different types of households. The MGA allows municipalities to adopt this type of inclusionary zoning."
Lawyer and U of A law professor emeritus Fred Laux is author of the leading textbook on planning law in Alberta. He said the MGA is clearly open to interpretation and any bylaw passed by the city could land before the courts. "It certainly seems to me that it is a live issue in the law."

The housing minister said the province will reopen the act next year, but he refused to take a position on inclusionary zoning.

"It doesn't relate to my ministry at all," Denis said. "I'm not going to comment on something that is clearly under the purview of another minister."

In Edmonton, Trocenko is focused on the protocol. If it passes, it has the potential to begin to change the way Edmonton builds subsidized housing, moving the city toward healthier, more inclusive neighbourhoods.
kkleiss@edmontonjournal.com
- - -
SPECIAL REPORT
The province has poured more than $1 billion into subsidized housing since 2007, when Premier Ed Stelmach promised to build 11,000 new affordable housing units. Where did the money go? Journal reporter Karen Kleiss and database editor Lucas Timmons followed the cash -- right into Edmonton's most beleaguered communities. With the municipal election days away, some Edmontonians are wondering: Is this the way we want to build our city?

- - Monday: Why did five of every 10 subsidized housing dollars go to building more units in the city's 13 most distressed communities?

- - Today: The city has a plan to ease the concentration of subsidized housing in Edmonton, but can it work in the long term?

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Housing+plan+overturns+decades+practice/3656457/story.html#ixzz129xibK7i

 

I just wanted to mention that Vancouver had no choice but to include an inclusionary clause as it has very strict boundaries-mountains and an ocean. I have asked about this for years now and have been told can't be done.  I asked why not and I am not given a coherent answer.  I was at the above mentioned hearing on affordable housing and the frustration was not so much on the affordable housing but a lack of respect on council's part. When you have someone that is calling a constituent "discriminatory" because they are asking for a break to let the community heal that is just wrong.  There was clear lack of respect to the communities and the people that reside in the communities that have to deal with the ghettoization of the community.

I see if everyday as I walk along 95 St and 118 Ave. Don't get me wrong I think revitalization has worked to a point but the community is feeling fatigued as they work hard to turn around a community That has worked hard only to see council continually undermine the work that is being done through approving more affordable housing that really isn't geared towards families.  By building big recreation centres instead of supporting the community leagues,  approving "big box" which takes away from the mom and pop stores. 

The city is pushing "Live Local" yet the development that is being built means getting into a car to get there.  I would say using transit however that isn't the case.  It is very hard to get to different places unless you own a vehicle or drive.

Cora

A fantastic article on how social housing affects communities, especially when there is an overconcentration of it....

Housing dollars fuel social chaos: residents

Monday, October 11, 2010

By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal

Martin Garber-Conrad stands in his inner city neighbourhood along 93rd St. near 108th Ave. in Edmonton on September 28, 2010. He is advocating for less social housing in his neighbourhood, with 61 per cent social housing and loads of rooming houses already in the community.

Photographed by:
Jason Franson, edmontonjournal.com

EDMONTON - The province is spending tens of millions of dollars to build hundreds of subsidized homes in Edmonton's most impoverished and blighted communities, which some residents warn will exacerbate the severe social problems in those neighbourhoods.

A Journal analysis of city and provincial data shows nearly 30 per cent of the city's subsidized housing units are concentrated in Edmonton's 13 most distressed neighbourhoods, while more than 60 have none at all.

Still, in recent years half of all the money the province has spent to build homes for the needy has paid for projects in 13 struggling communities, and inner-city residents say their neighbourhoods are on the verge of social chaos.

"It's not unfair to use the word ghetto," said Martin Garber-Conrad, a McCauley resident who has been working to house vulnerable people for more than 25 years. "It got to be too much. It got to the tipping point, where finally there were too many."

There is no question concentrating poverty in small areas has severe consequences for the people who live there.

Studies show residents are less healthy, less educated and have fewer job options, experience more violence and are more likely to join gangs.

Suburbanites suffer too, paying higher taxes to service sprawl and to support high-needs communities they are sometimes afraid to visit.

City leaders have begun to address this concentration of poverty, and have identified 13 extremely distressed "high-threshold" neighbourhoods with soaring poverty rates and a low quality of life.

The high concentration of subsidized housing isn't the sole cause of concentrated poverty in these neighbourhoods, but it is an important contributing factor: On average, 15 per cent of the housing stock in the 13 communities is subsidized, compared to a citywide average of 4.8 per cent.

In Garber-Conrad's community, 61 per cent of the housing is for subsidized tenants.

"When you concentrate hundreds or thousands of people with similar challenges in the same area, it is almost impossible for it to work, no matter how well-funded and how well-run the individual projects are," he said.

"The fact is, when you concentrate poverty and all the associated problems in a single area, you either have, or are at risk of creating, a ghetto."

The provincial government continues to fund the construction of subsidized housing in Edmonton's most troubled communities as part of a five-year, $1.1-billion affordable housing campaign.

The massive influx of cash began in the spring of 2007, when a blistering economy ratcheted rents to new highs and an all-party Affordable Housing Task Force reported that thousands of Albertans were on waiting lists to get into subsidized housing.

The province responded by promising to build 11,000 new affordable housing units by 2012.

Since then, Alberta's Department of Housing and Urban Affairs has poured nearly $934 million into building new subsidized housing units in the province.

Nearly $223 million came to Edmonton, and roughly half went directly to the city and was used to build about 1,600 affordable homes and secondary suites.

The province itself handed out $113 million, asking for proposals from not-for-profit organizations, societies and private developers.

505 UNITS, FOUR AREAS

The $57 million in projects the province funded added 505 new subsidized housing units to four of Edmonton's most distressed neighbourhoods: McCauley, Boyle Street, Central McDougall and Garneau.

One in three units is destined for McCauley, pushing the neighbourhood's rate of subsidized housing above 61 per cent. Central McDougall, where half of all residents live below the poverty line, will get 112 new units. Boyle Street gets 188.

Seven of the city's poor but healthier "medium-threshold" neighbourhoods will get nearly 440 units among them.

Edmonton also has more than 175 low-threshold neighbourhoods: healthy communities that have little or no subsidized housing, mostly financially stable residents and a good quality of life. A total of 111 units will be built in four of those neighbourhoods.

Not a single unit will be built south of Whyte Avenue.

Housing Minister Jonathan Denis said the province relies on proponents to select the locations of new subsidized housing developments.

"If we don't receive any applications for a certain area, we're not able to fund a project there," he said. "We give them information, we give them guidance, but at the same time it's up to the proposer to submit something for a given area. We don't step into that."

He said the province understands the problem and has changed its request for proposals to encourage applications to build scattered, mixed-use housing. The request for proposals now reads: "Preference will be given to proposals ... that do not contribute to the overconcentration of publicly funded or supported housing in any one neighbourhood."

If the department doesn't get quality applications for developments outside those 13 high-threshold neighbourhoods this year, Denis said he will further tweak the request for proposals next year.

In the meantime, this year's proposals will go ahead after consultation with city council and residents.

"We have $188 million that we've earmarked for that, and the premier has a goal of putting in 11,000 affordable units by 2010," he said. "We will work with what we have."

SOCIAL BURDEN 

The best evidence suggests Edmonton's central neighbourhoods ended up shouldering the heaviest social burdens because governments failed to plan otherwise.

In the early 1970s, city council passed an "inclusive zoning" bylaw that required developers to set aside five per cent of land in new developments for affordable housing. The courts struck down the bylaw in 1979, and as a result the majority of new developments in Edmonton have none.

Until the mid-'90s, developers had to conduct a social impact assessment before building, with a view to ensuring that social conditions were factored into development decisions. The practice was abandoned in 1995.

In the years since, the money that trickled into the subsidized housing sector was used by community groups focused on helping vulnerable and disadvantaged people, not on urban planning.

"There wasn't a deliberate plan for targeting where new buildings should be, it really came down to what was the availability of land at the right price," said Greg Bounds, who has been building non-market housing in Edmonton for two decades and is now executive director of the Capital Region Housing Corporation, the largest provider of subsidized housing in Edmonton.

"It was a financial model. We knew what the grant would be, we knew what the rents had to be fixed at to be affordable. The cost of construction was well-known, so what it came back to was the cost of land. It was a market solution."

Once established, it made sense to leverage existing services in known communities.

Bounds said he and his staff are working to implement the changes Denis is encouraging, but the directions aren't yet clear.

"My role as a practitioner and developer is to respond to what has been identified as the need," he said. "I say give us the planning framework, we will work within it. It's very important for us to get those clear directional signals from the province and the city about how they want us to marshal our resources."

While they wait for policy decisions, Garber-Conrad and his neighbours continue the struggle to rehabilitate their communities.

He and other inner-city residents know it's not just the subsidized housing that causes concentrated poverty and the social chaos that comes with it.

Dozens of social agencies draw impoverished and troubled people from all over the city, Garber-Conrad said, and the criminals and drug dealers follow them like predators. Prostitutes come and go.

SLUM LANDLORDS 

Rooming houses run by slum landlords are a big problem, too. Health inspectors say 25 per cent of all homes ruled unfit for human habitation were in three high-threshold neighbourhoods, and Garber-Conrad said slum landlords won't fix up their homes until the province takes them to court.

He estimates 75 per cent of the homes in his neighbourhood are either subsidized housing or rooming houses, leaving precious few homes for families who want to fix up old properties, raise their children and make a contribution.

"This isn't about NIMBY, in fact, a lot of low-income housing is already in our back yard, and we're not trying to get rid of it," he said.

"But it's time for the rest of the city to share the wealth. Those communities that have no low-income housing could move up to seven per cent without harm. We're over 50 per cent. Even one more project is going to mean this community won't work at all anymore."

kkleiss@edmontonjournal.com

- - -

SPECIAL REPORT

The province has poured more than $1 billion into subsidized housing since 2007, when Premier Ed Stelmach promised to build 11,000 new affordable housing units. Where did the money go? Journal reporter Karen Kleiss and database editor Lucas Timmons followed the cash -- right into Edmonton's most beleaguered communities.

With the municipal election days away, some Edmontonians are wondering: Is this the way we want to build our city?

- Today: Why did five of every 10 subsidized housing dollars go to building more units in the city's 13 most distressed communities?

- Tuesday: The city has a plan to ease the concentration of subsidized housing, but can it work in the long term?

- Online: Go to edmontonjournal.com/housing for an interactive map and a searchable database where you can see how much subsidized housing is in your neighbourhood, and who lives there.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

A Very Lily® Halloween

A Very Lily® Halloween
Lily has been crafting a very special brew this Halloween. In preparation for her annual Halloween party, she is working up a delicious treat. Lily knows that all parties need both snacks and style. She's all set in her witchy costume and has some great decorations to boot.  For all of your Halloween celebrations this year, you can crochet a holiday Lily doll and liven up your house with these great new patterns. Jump into the festivities and have a blast!

Witchy Lily (crochet)

Just in time for Halloween, New free patterns from Lily Sugar'n Cream! MONSTER TRICK OR TREAT BAG (Crochet) SPIDER & HIS WEB (crochet)

To complete your Halloween preparations, download these patterns from the Lily Sugar'n Cream pattern library.  Trick or Treat (to crochet) Skull Trick or Treat Bag (to crochet) Witch Dishcloth (to crochet) Ghost Dishcloth (to crochet) Bat Dishcloth (to crochet) Jack O'Lantern Dishcloth (to crochet) Enjoy! Check them out! Cora

June Gilbank wrote a book called The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amigurumi

June (aka PlanetJune) who has been producing some awesome designs for a while now. I love her amigurumi designs and I know I will enjoy crocheting out of her book.

This is what June wrote about her book on her blog...

Amigurumi (pronounced ah-mee-goo-roo-mee) is Japanese for “crochet (or knit) stuffed toy.” Although the concept originated in Japan, the amigurumi craze is taking over the world in waves of crocheted cuteness! From adorable fuzzy critters, to sweet-looking fruits and vegetables, to quirky comic book and cartoon characters – if you can imagine it, you can crochet it!

Ravelry Link to the Book.

Whether you’re an experienced crocheter or have never taken hook to yarn, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amigurumi shows you everything you need to know to hook your own delightful amigurumi. This helpful guide includes:

Click through to see a larger version of my book trailer at YouTube    All the amigurumi you see in the video are made from the patterns in the book. These are exclusive patterns that I created for the book – you won’t find them anywhere else.  All along, my plan for this book was to create the definitive reference guide to amigurumi techniques, not just another pattern book, and I hope that’s what I’ve achieved. I’ve put a lot into this book, and I hope that you’ll get a lot out of it, whatever your skill level or experience with amigurumi. It’s the only book of its kind, and I really hope you’ll enjoy it – and please let me know if you do!  If you haven’t ordered a copy yet, they should be in bookstores any day now, if not already, or you can order online from such fine retailers as Chapters/Indigo, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon.ca.Yay!

* UK folks, looks like you’ll have to import a copy or wait till December to get your hands on a copy I expect the delay is while they translate it (back) into British English and into UK crochet terms – just guessing…

Please support our designers...

Cora

Crochet 2011 Day-to-Day Calendar

So I have a pattern in this calendar...so excited! I submitted it a year ago and only just found out as the calendar was sent to me. I submitted my Felted Mandela Bag that I designed in memory of a very dear friend, Nancy Murdoch who passed away unexpectedly in April 2009. River City Yarns in Edmonton is selling it. I believe it will be available starting in November at local malls.  I am so proud of the design and I am working on another one that needs to be submitted by October 15th. Wish me luck.

Cora

Felted Mandela Bag