Hamilton FreeSkool is a community education project dedicated to collaborative, egalitarian ways of learning. FreeSkool has been running in this city for over two years now, and has offered dozens of fun and exciting classes for anyone to join.

In this month’s Mayday Magazine, we return in more detail to some of the issues that came up around our November issue. Whether or not you think development in downtown Hamilton is gentrification, it is important that we not become bogged down by the definition(s) of a word. Some of the specific trends and symptoms of this development are harming people and reducing the health of our communities. We cannot afford to ignore this, regardless of our thoughts on the G-word.

There was once a time when the nuts of the American Chestnut tree fed the eastern half of this continent.
Each winter, millions of humans and other animals relied on them for survival. As time went on and settlers arrived here, even as they destroyed the forests, they planted the Chestnut in their fields. One such place was the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital, now known as St. Joesph’s Centre for Mountain Health Services (CMHS). The gardens, food trees, and forested patches on the hospital grounds provided patients there with activity and refuge and, for a time, almost all of their food.

VOICES ON ITS CAUSES AND CONCLUSIONS

Joan Jones, a hospitality worker at McMaster University and a union steward with SEIU Local 2, described the success of the recent hospitality workers strike at McMaster to Mayday.

“They really hoped they could push us to settle. They didn’t think we were strong enough to do what we did.”
This is how Izabella Felinczak also works in hospitality at Mac and elaborated on the same idea:  “I believe Human Resources were convinced they’d get their way and we’d lose our jobs. I don’t think they expected women, single mothers, and little old ladies were going to stand up to the university. They thought the university would have power over us.” It is estimated that three-quarters of hospitality workers at McMaster are women.

We're sorry to announce that Mayday has ceased publishing with its June 2011 issue.

ABOUT MAYDAY

Mayday is a movement to create and strengthen local, alternative news media in Canada.
Funded entirely by Mayday Magazine Sustainers, Mayday has the freedom to express its views and the views of its members through the Mayday Presents series and to give Mayday Magazine a true mandate of progressive, investigative journalism and commentary.

Mayday Thanks our Institutional sustainers:

Canadian Labour Congress,
Hamilton District Labour Council,
CUPE 3906,
Hamilton Wentworth Elementary Teacher’s Local,
Ontario Secondary School Teacher’s Federation District 21,
McMaster OPIRG
*The opinions expressed in Mayday do not necessarily reflect those of Sustainers*

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KNOWING THE LAND IS RESISTANCE

The afternoon is full of sunshine, warming our cheeks into squinting smiles. Today there's a street festival on James Street North, and it's easy to get caught up in the joyful atmosphere. These festivals are a much-celebrated vision of the new downtown, but are they really increasing the health of our communities?

Hamilton is littered with the abandoned storefronts of former development enthusiasm – is the trend on James North any different? And what would building a healthy community even look like? With these questions rattling around inside us, we descend the hill along the West side of the James Street bridge to explore the meadow that grows by the traintracks there and seek some clarity.

BY KEVIN MACKAY

I have lived in downtown Hamilton for over 15 years now. I first moved here in 1994 and I was in my fourth year as an undergraduate student at McMaster, studying psychology and anthropology. I was also an artist, and shared a small studio space with a friend on James St. North. In those days our second-floor, one-room studio ran us the incredibly low price of $140 per month.

Living as an artist in the core in the mid-90's was only possible due to the ample cheap space available. People with limited resources but ambitious visions could find affordable places to live and work, and a unique and vibrant scene emerged amid the decay of Hamilton's downtown. One manifestation of this scene was the Sky Dragon Cooperative, started by a collective of artists, students, and community activists.

The downtown that I knew in 1994 is long gone.

BY PETER ORMOND

November 11th means much more than sporting a poppy and attending a ceremony that honours our past war veterans. Back then, many of our ancestors gave the ultimate sacrifice for the betterment of humankind. My uncle Charlie Adams was one of them. Thanks to him and many others, today we have democratic freedom.

Have we forgotten this responsibility to participate as active citizens?

BY DANIEL O'ROURKE

Let's cut the crap — what's happening on James Street North is gentrification. Phrases like "economic development" and "revitalizing the core" are just euphemisms for the stark reality of replacing one group of people with another, more desirable group

We in the arts scene, along with politicians and business owners, often talk about improving the downtown community. But too often that phrase means "we want our community to exist in the space where yours used to be".