Vancouver council to debate plan to improve, replace SRO stock

A Vancouver city councillor is proposing a suite of actions aimed at improving living conditions in the city’s Downtown Eastside.

ABC Coun. Rebecca Bligh’s motion takes aim at Vancouver’s 146 single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels, many of which are in the DTES, and are notorious for squalid conditions.

The proposal would ask staff to come up with options to boost supportive and social housing in city, including finding ways to speed up the full replacement of existing SROs.

It also proposes a pilot project to support the repair and renovation of SROs on an urgent basis, with help from BC Housing and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

Bligh’s proposal also calls on the city to look at updating the DTES Area Plan, which requires all new buildings in the neighbourhood to have a mix of market and social housing. In the 10 years since the area plan’s inception, just two new projects have been built.

The motion also points to the outsized role senior levels of government play on the housing file, laying out numerous avenues to pressure the province and Ottawa.

Among those are advocating for the federal government to reinstate an SRO-specific funding stream, and pressing the provincial government to increase the number of shelter spaces and supportive housing units across the entire Metro Vancouver region — not just in Vancouver.

More than 75 per cent of the region’s shelter spaces and 77 per cent of supportive housing units are currently located in the city of Vancouver proper.

City staff would, additionally, be asked to prepare a 20-year needs assessment for social and supportive housing in the city.

Bligh’s proposal is slated to go to council next Wednesday.