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Accelerating
development
The DTES has become the new focus of development
in Vancouver, with the successful sale of all units of the
Woodward’s development in two days, the International
Village, and the Carrall Street Greenway. However, it is also
the home of almost 5,000 SRO rooms, or 82 percent of the SRO
rooms in Downtown Vancouver.
• Research conducted by the authors found
that for the Oppenheimer sub-area of the DTES, 55 development
permits were issued between 2000 and 2005, almost double the
28 permits issued between 1995 and 1999.
• Between 1994 and 2004, the Victory Square
sub-area of the DTES had only 48 market housing projects completed.
In June of 2005, there were 158 market housing projects in
progress.
Substandard living conditions
The quality of low-income housing for many in the DTES is
so poor that some participants in this study prefer to sleep
on the streets. Many identified major problems with essential
services such as heat, toilets, hot water, running water,
roofs and pipes, and non-functional elevators in their buildings.
Health problems due to landlord failures to address mould,
bedbug infestations, and rats are common.
Several affiants provided evidence of routine
refusal by landlords to return damage deposits, extortion
of guest fees from tenants, room entry without permission,
seizure of property, and illegal eviction of tenants. For
many victims, there is no effective recourse due to the delays,
inaccessibility and complexity involved in the residential
tenancy arbitration process. |
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The
City could prevent further closures and significantly improve
the conditions of existing hotels by enforcing the Standards
of Maintenance By-law. Yet, according to findings in the report,
the City’s willingness to issue orders to repair has
dropped dramatically in recent years from a high of 106 orders
in the DTES in 1999 to a low of just eight orders in 2005.
In addition, the City has only once exercised
its power under City by-laws to go into buildings, make repairs,
and bill those repairs to the owner, despite a finding by
the B.C. Supreme Court that lower standards do not have to
be tolerated by inspectors in poorer areas of the city.
There is a direct link between loss of low-income
housing and homelessness, public disorder and visible poverty.
Between 2003 and 2005, Vancouver lost 514 low-income housing
units. During that same period, the number of homeless people
rose by 663.
Based on projected rates of low-income housing
unit loss and construction, rising rental rates and immigration,
authors of this report predict that by 2010, Vancouver will
see its street homeless population triple to over three thousand
people.
Visible poverty and public disorder affect everyone, but the
solutions are not as simple as increased policing and enforcement.
Continued...
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