Downtown Vancouver Supportive Housing at Doug Story Apartments and Social Housing in the Downtown East Side (DTES) | Also Gentrification of Strathcona

Downtown Vancouver Housing Gets Boost at Doug Story Apartments

According to Kristen T. for the Metro Newspaper, forty four low income people whoa re homeless, at risk of homelessness or living in single room occupancy hotels have a clean, safe and affordable place to call home with the opening of the downtown Vancouver Doug Story Apartments. Yesterday was the official opening of the 45 unit social housing building at Richards and Robson Street, one of 12 city owned apartment sites being developed into social housing. Phyllis Alfredson, a resident of the Doug Story Apartment residences who spent two years on the street, said she feels she’s been given a chance to start over. “It’s like a whole new beginning,” she said. “You actually have a place of your own that you’re not embarrassed about, that you can bring people to.” You can believe in yourself for the first time, believe that things can change, that life can get better.” She said she’s physically and psychologically healthier, in part because the neighbourhood of the downtown Vancouver Doug Story apartment homes is safe and quiet. Pat Zanon, with Coast Mental Health said housing is fundamental to recovery from mental illness and addiction. “Without a home, such as the Doug Story apartments, it is absolutely impossible for people to move forward with their lives,” she said. The Building’s Namesake: The Vancouver Doug Story Apartments is named after a SRO resident who was a member of the Coast Resource Centre from 2001 until his death in 2006. Mayor Sam Sullivan attends the grand opening of the downtown Vancouver Doug Story apartments social housing project on Richards Street.

$1.5 Million Expected For Historic City Vancouver Neighbourhoods in the Great Beginnings Initiative

Great Beginnings – as quoted from the MetroNews Vancouver paper: Mayor Sam Sullivan will announce a $1.5 million investment today to revitalize four historic Vancouver neighbourhoods. The funding, part of the province’s $10 million Great Beginnings Initiative, will support projects like community gardens and graffiti removal in Gastown, Japantown, Chinatown and Strathcona in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. The plan and Great Beginnings Initiative includes a new neon sign at the restored Pennsylvania Hotel, a Japantown commemoration project and the expansion of street and lane cleaning to 40 blocks in the Downtown Vancouver Eastside. Mayor Sullivan is expected to mention start of the Great Beginnings Initiative during a conference on sustainability in Vancouver today.

Gentrification of Strathcona Vancouver Attracts Many Home Buyers

As one of Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhoods, Strathcona struggled to survive a proposed new renewal/demolition in the 1950s and is now, half a century later, emerging as an affordable sought after community. Published in 24 Hrs by S. Boyce. Here is where you’ll find the city’s largest concentration of character homes, some of its oldest stores and a vibrant gentrification that’s beginning to attract global attention. Strathcona’s exact boundaries tend to be somewhat flexible, according to who is defining them – some include Chinatown, others not; some say it’s the CNR rail yards that create the southern border, others insist it’s Great Northern Way. However, all agree Clark Drive and Hastings Street are the eastern and northern extremeties of Strathcona real estate. Few single family detached houses come on the market here. When they do, you can expect to pay a minimum of $600,000 for an older home with a typical tall, narrow profile of an early 1900s building. A surprising percentage of existing homes in Strathcona Vancouver have either undergone or are in the process of heritage renovation, and walking much of this area is akin to taking a step back in time. But change is in the air as Vancouver real estate developers eye properties offering affordability and proximity to downtown Vancouver. “As it becomes more and more difficult to find affordable opportunities downtown, people continue to look east,” says Chris Evans, executive vice president of Onni Group of Companies. “First Crosstown had a few projects, then came 33 Living, Woodwards, East, Ginger and Smart Gastown.” Onni, too, is catching the wave with V6A, a nine storey collection of condominiums located at Union Street between Main and Gore. Priced from the low $300,000s, Evans says he believes “V6A provides a unique opportunity for people to buy into a great neighbourhood at significantly less money per square foot than its neighbours to the west.” Earlier this year and around the corner at 718 Main Street (just north of Union) Ginger made a splashy entry into Strathcona with condos priced well under $400,000 and boasting an avante guard, international flair that included individual suite doors decorated with custom black and white photos of the surrounding streetscape. “So many other developments just go for safe, predictable designs,” says Mike Lefeaux, who purchased one of the first Ginger suites with his wife, Amanda Cafearo. “This really stands out – its’ different, very cool, just what we’ve been looking for. We lived in London for a while and Ginger has the same modular, Euro feel to it – it’s about time this style hit Vancouver.”

Supportive Housing Vancouver – In Your Backyard?

A significant majority of British Columbians would welcome housing for people with mental illnesses and addictions in their neighbourhoods, a new poll done for 24 Hrs suggests. More than 83 per cent of people surveyed by 24 hours pollster would say yes to supportive housing in their community. Just over 11 per cent of respondents to social housing in their community said they would be opposed. The results would appear to suggest that the very vocal opposition that inevitably emerges when new proposals for Vancouver supportive housing are pitched could be in the minority. Mark Smith, executive director of RainCity Housing, says the experience of trying to convince local residents of the need for social housing in Vancouver, for a 30 unit facility on Vancouver’s Fraser Street was “awful.” “At the public information session they were lined up and down the two aisles to yess at us,” Smith said in an interview. “I was threatened. It was wild. In my 30 years in this field, I’d never experienced anything like that.” But Smith said he was pleased to see the apparently positive results of the poll on Vancouver social housing in your backyard by 24 hours. Would you be happy to see a supportive housing Vancouver project open up next door to you?

“There’s always such a vocal minority of people that speak up that it feels like the entire community Is just overwhelming against it,” he said. “But I know that there were a lot of people that did support our social supportive housing project on Vancouver’s Fraser Street.” Turning Point Recovery Society Vancouver, another housing project provider, wasn’t so lucky. The group withdrew its application to open a 32 unit recovery house in Richmond BC after facing intense criticism of the project from residents. “We’re up against a very strong opposition,” said executive director fo Turning Point Recovery Society Vancouver, Brenda Plant, who decides what she calls some residents’ NIMBYism – Not in my backyard. “They think property values will decline, children won’t be safe, there will be increased drug activity and drug dealers. These things just simply aren’t true,” Plant said.

In Vancouver, supportive housing projects for mental illness and addictions are overwhelmingly skewed to the east. Excluding the downtown Vancouver social supportive housing projects, there are only three small facilities west of Main Street. Ultimately, supportive housing projects in Vancouver have become concentrated in the Downtown Eastside, even if residents come from all parts of the city. “Richmond is by no means exempt from addictions and mental health challenges,” said Turning Point’s Plant, noing that there are no similar facilities in Richmond for addicted women. Either way, RainCity’s Smith said he was still cautious about the poll results. “It’s easy to respond to a poll when it’s not actually happening,” he said. “How many of them are thinking I’d welcome [Vancouver supportive housing] in my neighbourhood- but not next door?” The poll surveyed 609 British Columbians and is considered representative of the general population within +/- four per cent, 19 times out of 20.

Vancouver Supportive Housing Poll by 24 Hrs

Poll asked… a significant number of homeless people also suffer from a mental illness and/or addition. It is generally acknowledged that there is not sufficient supportive housing in Vancouver for such people. Which statement is closest to your view: 83.7% - I would support a supportive housing project for people with mental illness or addition issues in my community. 11.4% - I would be opposed to a supportive housing project for people with mental illness or addition issues in my community. 4.9% - Don’t Know. Strategic Communications poll for 24 hours on if people support social Vancouver supportive housing in their communities.

Social Housing Facts in a Nutshell

1,720 – Vancouver Coastal Health has 1,72 supportive housing units in the communities across its regions catering to tenants with mental health and addiction issues
?? – Most are found in non-descript apartment buildings
900 – Fraser Health Authority has at least 900 units of Vancouver supportive housing in its communities
137G – Adults in B.C. meet the criteria for having severe addictions and/or mental illness
39G – Adults with addiction and/or mental illness in B.C. are ‘inadequately housed.”
$$ - The average street homeless adult with mental health and addiction issues costs the public at least $55,000 a year
2 Years – Vancouver Coastal Health says many tenants are ready to move on after stays of 18 to 24 months in alcohol and drug-free social housing.
$$ - Providing adequate Vancouver supportive housing reduces the cost by $37,000 a year.
7.741 – A government initiated review of SFU’s Centre for Applied Research in Medical Health and Addiction found there were 7,741 beds with adequate support available to adults with mental health and/or addiction issues in B.C.
Sources: Vancouver Coastal Health, Fraser Health, Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health, City of Vancouver

Vancouver Downtown Eastside Seeks New Lease on Life

So, what does the Downtown Vancouver East Side district have in its future plans? This article published in the Georgia Straight and written by Matthew Burrows analyzes what is to become of the forgotten community in downtown Vancouver. From our standpoint, the Vancouver Downtown East Side (also known as the DTES) will provide great opportunities for business growth, affordable housing and rental suites and an ecletic and boutique retail district. Fresh from lunch on a balmy Saturday afternoon, Councillor Peter Ladner strolls westward from the Carnegie Centre at Main and Hastings and confronts Vancouver’s socioeconomic underbelly. Already on this short walkabout, the NPA’s mayoral hopeful and two term councilor has talked with VPD Sgt. Tim Henschel in an alley, where the officer had recovered a stolen city engineering truck. Flustered Chinatown Vancouver Downtown East Side (DTES) security guard Harold Johnson pulled Ladner aside a minute later to tell him drug users should “start rehab or serve time.” Back on East Hastings in DTES Vancouver, Ladner told the Georgia Straight the open drug use, dealing and general street activity evokes “extreme frustration.” “It shouldn’t happen here. We shouldn’t be putting up with it… I’ve seen the Herzog photos of this place back in the ‘50s and ‘60s. The Smilin’ Buddha, wherever it was – I think right over here – was a great nightclub. It was a normal neighbourhood, and it has been destabilized by focusing all of the region’s problems in this one neighbourhood [Downtown East Side Vancouver]” On Thursday, July 24, Ladner and the rest of Vancouver city council will devote more time to the issue when the city planning and environment committee address two staff reports dealing with “economic revitalization and “commercial revitalization” of the Vancouver Downtown Eastside community.

The first report, for information purposes only, is a 14 page update on the Vancouver Agreement Economic Revitalization Plan and its “Downtown Eastside implementation”. According tot eh report, it builds on principles of a council revitalization strategy established in June 2000; to involve those already in the Vancouver Downtown East side in the renewal; to “reserve and enhance the sense of community” felt by residents there; to listen to those most affected; to improve the “liveability and safety” of the Downtown Eastside; and to develop and implement a well-understood plan that delivers results. The second document will ask council to report back to staff within a year on the effectiveness of current city policy, passed in May 2007, which created the Building Opportunities With Business Inner City Society (BOB). According to the report, BOB is an expansion of a $150,000 lease subsidy program established in March 2000 to help bring viable commercial storefront activity to Hastings Street, between Gore and Cambie Streets in the Downtown Vancouver East Side district. If council sees BOB as effective, the city will kick in $1 million over three years toward the revitalization.

Lawyer David Eby told the Georgia Straight he lives just off East Hastings in what he describes as a “unique neighbourhood”. Eby, who is seeking a council nomination with Vision Vancouver, said the first order of business must be improving housing conditions in the DTES or Downtown East Side of Vancouver “so that people don’t need to spend all their time on the streets because their rooms are infested with bedbugs or they’re scorching hot or freezing cold.” With people’s “personal space” established, Eby said, he would then address mental health and addiction issues, along with the homelessness that he said “plagues” the area. “Without dealing with that, no business is going to want to located in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver,” Eby said, after noting: “Welfare rates are so low. People just don’t have the money to spend on traditional stores, so they buy three processed cheese slices at a time or one piece of fried chicken, or they use food depots…. There are a limited number of people that come from outside to the Downtown Eastside to do their shopping, with the exception of the annual Army & Navy shoe sale.”

City staff have used the phrase “revitalization without [population] displacement,” something Eby describes as “not only important, but absolutely essential” to the Vancouver Downtown East side community. Ladner said he too believed zero displacement was achievable. “All we have to do is ensure that we don’t lose downtown eastside social housing here, and we are not,” he said. “We are losing some, but we are replacing it too, and if you look at the numbers, generally speaking, it is being replaced.”

The Vancouver Downtown Eastside By The Numbers

Number of geographic areas the Vancouver City includes in the Downtown Eastside: 7 (Oppenheimer district, Industrial, Victory Square, Gastown, Chinatown, Thornton Park, and Strathcona). DTES residents interviewed as part of Carnegie Community Action Project visioning sessions: 300. DTES residents who filled out a CCAP questionnaire in March and April 2008: 655. Percentage of questionnaire respondents who would stay in DTES “if they had safe and secure housing”: 95. Units of DTES market housing to be built between 2005 and 2010: 1,597. Total number of units of DTES social housing for singles for same period: 557. Source: Nothing About Us Without Us, an upcoming CCAP housing report (release date: July 28): City of Vancouver housing centre.

What are the chances of the economy in the Downtown Eastside taking off?

Wendy Pederson, Organizer of the Carnegie Community Action Plan: “I think it very well could take off because of Woodward’s and if there is more condo developent that comes into the neighbourhood. I think we could see Gap stores and bigger places in the neighbourhood easily, unless there are some tools to manage change. We don’t see what those are. What is going to protect small business owners and the low income renter in the neighbourhood?” Jorge Mar, Chinatown Shop Owner: “Not in the near future. Because of the price of gas and the U.S. economy, especially in Chinatown here, we are dependent on tourists and that doesn’t help. The past three years have been going down [in terms of revenue]. Last year, really, we felt the effects of the U.S. economy. This year is the worst. I don’t think the city can do much, maybe some cosmetic stuff.” Bernie Magnan, Chief Economist, Vancouver Board of Trade: “There are businesses that are already there in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and doing ery well, thank you very much… What we need to do is help the people – and I’m not just talking about those who have a drug and/or a mental health addiction problem – but also the residents of the downtown Eastside and their children in making sure they get a proper education so they can succeed in life.” David Eby, seeking Vision Vancouver council nomination and DTES-Strathcona resident: “I guess that depends on what you mean by the Downtown Eastside economy. I mean, the Downtown Eastside economy is doing really well. But until we deal with the underlying issues of homelessness, drug addiction and mental health in the Downtown Eastside community, the Downtown Eastside mainstream economy will never take off.”