the impatience of a man who wants the housing market to crash in Vancouver

Yvonne and I have been talking about opening a new Catholic Worker house, to help expand the Van CW. This is something I've been hoping to do since I first got involved with the movement. My mom has pledged to help buy the place and I have a small inheritance that I don't want to use in any other way in total between us we have $500,000 to buy a house and make whatever repairs need to be made to the place. You might look at that figure and say to yourself "that's a lot of money" and anywhere else in the world it would be more than enough to buy an aging house in a working class neighbourhood, maybe even with enough left over for emergencies, not in Vancouver. I know, I've been looking. If you reading this are from Vancouver you'll no doubt be thinking as you read this "well duh but wait until after 2010". Of course the Olympics have destroyed any normal person's abillity to own his/her own home. I went on craigslist after getting sick of real estate websites and for 200,000 I could own a house on two acres on the top of a hill with a panoramic ocean view and a basketball/tennis court near Panama City in Central America.

Of course While I have no idea if Panama could use a CW community I don't think that it's my calling to start that one. I'm grasping at straws here, Perhas I ought to try and write to church communities here in Van and see if that would work. I know already that the Catholic Arch Diocese is a write off but perhaps the Anglicans or United Church would be able to oblige. if you're the praying sort could you please keep the Vancouver Catholic Worker in your prayers and especially for our small community to grow a little? Also, if you happen to know of a nice old house in the Downtown East Side or Mount Pleasant that could house more than three people and is selling on the cheap (for vancouver) that would help as well.

I think I'm going to write up a basic form letter to send to church groups.