Carnegie Community Centre

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Carnegie Centre

Carnegie Community Centre is located at 401 Main Street at the corner of Hastings Street, in the old Carnegie Public Library building in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia.

In 1901 Vancouver requested $50,000 from industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie for the purpose of building a library. Carnegie agreed provided the City of Vancouver supplied the site and contributed $5000 a year.^[1] The original public library was completed in 1903. For decades, the top floor was the home of the Vancouver Museum. The Vancouver Public Library moved into a more spacious building at 750 Burrard Street in 1957 and the Carnegie building eventually fell into disrepair.

Neighbourhood poverty activists from the Downtown Eastside Residents' Association convinced city council to turn it into a public space for local residents, and it opened as the Carnegie Community Centre in the 1980s. It now houses recreation facilities, a low-cost cafeteria, a branch of the Vancouver Public Library, and a variety of services and programs tailored to the specific needs of the neighbourhood, which is one of the poorest in Canada.

The Carnegie Community Centre is owned by the City of Vancouver and is funded by the Social Planning Department. It is open 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., seven days per week and almost every day of the year.

The Carnegie Centre is often referred to as the "living-room" of the Downtown Eastside and described as an oasis, largely because it provides a safe, drug and alcohol-free environment.

The centre is run by the board of directors of the Carnegie Community Centre Association, which is elected annually from the members of the association. Membership costs one dollar per year and is available to neighbourhood residents, and all the centre's programs are free to members.

There is also an Adult Learning Centre on the top floor, which provides an informal atmosphere and one-on-one tutoring.

The Carnegie Centre puts out a bi-weekly newsletter which features articles of interest the the Downtown Eastside Community.