Can Wealth and Poverty Co-exist in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside? by Gordon Keith Wiebe

Recently, CBG unveiled its supportive housing expansion plans for 2013-14. The plans include proposed acquisitions of at least two of the 100 privately-owned Single Room Occupancy buildings left in Vancouver (SROs).

In addition, CBG plans to purchase low-income units in new-construction market housing projects in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside (DTES) and make them available as low-income rentals. The combined efforts could increase CBG's low-income and supportive housing stock from 250 units to 500.

CBG has learned that the DTES Not for Developers coalition is opposed to its proposed partnership with developers in Vancouver. The coalition has singled out the Sequel 138 project, a mixed market and low income housing initiative, currently under-construction near Hastings and Main on the historical Pantages Theatre site. According to the developers, the project will provide 79 entry-level condominiums, 18 low-income rental units, commercial rental units and studio space for the arts. DTES Not for Developers states the claims Sequel 138 makes about low income housing benefits are exaggerated.

More importantly, the coalition also believes that projects like Sequel 138 will displace existing DTES residents and also take usable commercial space from local artists and shopkeepers.

CBG is not connected to the Sequel 138 project, but has proposed to partner with similar, small-scale market housing developers. CBG partners will build market housing units on empty lots in the DTES and sell 20% of the units to CBG to rent as low-income housing.

Even though the developers will offer the units to CBG for about 50% of fair market value, the units won't cash flow for CBG because they will be rented for $375, well below market rates. CBG will look for low interest or no interest loans to make the projects work.

Gentrification perceptions have polarized interest groups in the DTES. The City of Vancouver has attempted to hear both the voices of developers and community groups but so far an impasse still blocks development. The blockage exists, not because developers can't get the City of Vancouver to approve their plans, but because community agreement in a sensitive neighbourhood is far from being realized.

CBG hopes to bring meaningful dialogue to the table by constructively stating its position and also asking for a rebuttal from the DTES Not For Developers coalition. CBG promises to publish the response in future CBG communications.

CBG argues that core urban neighbourhoods can house persons of different economic stratification because in emergent environments, like cities, the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. It is reductionist thinking to draw a straight cause and effect line between the addition of upscale housing and the elimination of low income housing.

Complexity breeds life into old neighbourhoods. The only difference between a desert and a forest is diversity. The sun's energy shines on both equally. A desert reflects the sun's energy back from whence it same. A forest absorbs the energy and shares it over and over.

Wealth is coming to the DTES, like it or not. It is time to adapt, not to entrench. A social housing desert is a bad option and will never be supported in Vancouver, nor should it.

Canadians of wealth and poverty can live side-by-side and both groups can benefit from the experience. The question is, "Are the two sides willing to share a community?"

In some cases, gentrification is displacing DTES tenants. In 2012, CBG fought hard to protect the Palace and Wonder Rooms from falling into the trap of SRO gentrification; a practice of some developers to renovate SROs and then rent units from $500 - $700 to young working persons and foreign students.

CBG has worked with private investors to provide supportive housing in privately-owned SROs since 2002. Bottom-up operational models meant supportive housing could be provided through self-sufficiency and tenant ingenuity; without expensive program funds from provincial health or housing resources (CBG has been a beneficiary of some development funds from the federally-funded Homelessness Partnering Strategy and Supportive Communities Partnership Initiative since 2005).

CBG has operated the Jubilee Rooms on Main (79 units) and The Dodson Rooms in Hastings (71 units) within a block of the Sequel 138 project and a higher end market initiative, the Koret Lofts, built by the same developer. Little has changed in the Jubilee and Dodson since the opening of the Koret Lofts.

Both the Jubilee and Dodson SRO buildings have been offered to CBG to operate as supportive housing for persons of low-income, indefinitely. The buildings are set to house persons of low-income for decades, even as persons of means are moving into the neighbourhood.

I sometimes wonder if the core of the argument is more political than practical. Vulnerable persons who need housing are not disadvantaged when businesses and charities team up. In true public/private partnerships, both sides should roll up their sleeves and work for the greater good. CBG is not naïve to the fact that the private and public efforts have not always born fruit in community development, but neither is CBG cynical about partnering with community forces for the benefit of all.

Government-funded social housing has a strong purpose in the Canadian social fabric, but a community without private housing chokes self-determination and resourcefulness. A social housing ghetto also cuts low-income tenants off from the natural market environments. The insistence by coalitions that governments should solve all social housing problems could easily be seen more as a political statement than a community development statement.

I have lived in the SROs CBG operates in the DTES since 2002. The buildings were purchased by wealthy Canadians for DTES residents suffering from generational cycles of poverty. Over the years, the tenants have become my friends. Many have lived in the buildings for 10, 15 years, and longer. For some, high mortality rates and multiple illnesses prevent the possibility of meaningful employment and create a palpable difference with other Canadians. However, in many ways the low-income tenants I know are just everyday Canadians, who gladly blend in with all types of income groups in Vancouver.

Before I moved into an SRO, I had bought into the thinking that people living in poverty are not proponents of widespread development. I will never forget a defining moment in my attempt to understand more about the life and perspective of tenants living in the DTES. The moment came over a year after I moved into the Jubilee Rooms on Main in May, 2002.

I moved into the Jubilee when I retired from 30 years of community development work, mostly sponsored by church organizations. In my new life I didn't want to be religious, I just wanted to listen to people living in isolation and poverty. I wanted to understand their sorrows, but also their joys and aspirations.

On July 2, 2003, as many Canadians waited anxiously while the International Olympic Committee prepared to announce the winning city for the 2010 Winter Olympics, I sat on my bed in room 218 at the Jubilee, not at all mindful of the imminent IOC decision. I was startled by a sudden collective cheer which erupted on that hot summer’s day. The tenants were jubilant. Vancouver was the winner.

CBG applauds DTES Not for Developers coalition for standing up for the housing needs of persons affected by poverty. But CBG invites more action-based public discourse focused on creative and diverse housing solutions for the most vulnerable persons.