Last week I received a telephone call from Dan Fumano of the Vancouver Sun. He was writing a story about deferring property taxes and came across several articles I had written, and media interviews I had given in years gone by on why I thought the current provincial program was absurd and should be improved.
My primary concern was that as designed, while the program did benefit house rich/cash poor seniors, (and perhaps some younger families) too often the beneficiaries were well-to-do people in their 50s and 60s who didn't really need government help. However, they were smart enough to realize they could borrow cheap money at prime MINUS 2% for investment purposes or other discretionary spending.
While the cost to the government was essentially the spread between its borrowing rate and prime minus 2% along with administrative costs, I thought that if the government wanted to address housing affordability with cheap money, there were far better ways to do so. (For example, lend the cheap money to first time buyers needing a second mortgage.)
Also, why set the age threshold at only 55? Why charge families with children a higher interest rate than well-do-do 55-year olds?. Why charge simple interest, rather than compound interest like other provinces do, especially when the government must pay compound interest on its borrowings? .
Dan Fumano undertook quite a bit of research in putting the story together. He discovered wealthy homeowners living in $20 million plus homes who, like me, were taking advantage of the program even though they didn't need the money At the same time, he learned from the Seniors' Advocate that many seniors who could truly benefit from the program were not even aware of it.
Feedback. While many agreed with me, other people on social media questioned and mocked my concerns. One Facebook follower suggested I was simply seeking headlines. He was right.
As you can see below, my concerns have warranted headlines in the past and as a result there has been increased program awareness and take up, both from those who need it and those who don't. But surprisingly, my concerns have not prompted the provincial government to address what I consider to be absurd aspects of the program.
Hopefully this new article will inform more seniors who could benefit about the program and prompt the government to finally make improvements, especially at a time when deficits are growing and housing affordability is a major concern for so many.
Here are links to previous media and columns on the topic including comments from David Eby.
For many years, any success enjoyed by Michael Geller & Associates Limited (MGAL) was attributable to my employees. These included Chris Robertson, now a senior official in Vancouver's Planning Department, and Norm Shearing, who joined me with an impressive background as an architect and developer.
When MGAL closed its doors in 1999 so I could join the SFU Communit Trust, Norm went off to far more significant roles as Director of Planning for the Grand Bahama Development Company, VP Development Parklane Homes, President of Dockside Green in Victoria, and eventually president of Open Form Properties, the real estate arm of the Open Road Auto Group. You can read more about his background here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/norm-shearing-690a1152/?originalSubdomain=ca
Throughout his career, Norm has also been very dedicated to community and charitable activities. His latest endeavour is organizing a fundraising evening in support of Hogan's Alley. In preparation, over the past year, he has created 100 paintings which will be distributed at the event.
As noted in the evening announcement, "this evening is about more than art. It’s about bringing people together — through dance, through creativity, through community. The best part? Proceeds go directly to Hogan’s Alley Society, an incredible, Black-led nonprofit building community and preserving Vancouver’s Black history to create a vibrant, inclusive future.
By attending, you’re not only enjoying an unforgettable night of art, wine, and music — you’re helping rebuild a community that was once erased from Vancouver’s landscape. Together, we can celebrate resilience, joy, and belonging.
It’s going to be a lively night of art, music, dancing, great food, and an open bar. Every ticket admits TWO guests and includes a limited-edition art print to take home — so it’s basically a night out and a piece of art in one.
I’d love for you to join us, and if you have another couple you think would enjoy it, please bring them along! — there are only 100 tickets being sold so if you wish to join us, please act quickly before they are all gone through our CanadaHelps link here
During my initial years at CMHC, I spent a lot of time addressing the housing needs of seniors. In Ottawa I participated in the drafting of the CMHC publication 'Housing the Elderly' and in Vancouver reviewed plans and recommended loans for several 'independent living' projects for seniors developed by non-profit organizations.
In those days, CMHC funded some long-term care facilities, but did not fund extended care facilities that were the responsibility of the provincial health programs. Care facilities were never combined with independent living homes.
Within CMHC I often questioned longstanding policies and urged management to try out new approaches to housing. Eventually, I convinced management to undertake a demonstration project that would combine independent living and long-term care in the same building. The result was Haro Park, https://www.haropark.org/ which today is described as a 'campus of care' in the West End. I have vivid memories of working with a delightful lady named Elizabeth Bristowe who was with the Ministry of Health at the time, who helped make it happen.
While at CMHC I noticed that when it came to suitable seniors housing, you were better offf being poor, since only governments were building housing designed for seniors. The private sector ignored this market, other than for extended care facilities. When I left CMHC I planned to become involved with private sector development of alternative forms of housing for seniors. I joined the long-range planning committee of the Louis Brier Home and Hospital, a facility catering primarily to the Jewish Community. I attended conferences to learn about 'Congregate Care' and 'Assisted Living' projects and for a while was invited by CMHC to review private sector proposals for congregate living. My firm was subsequently involved in several new independent living and care projects, including a condominium for Jewish seniors on Oak Street between West 42nd and 43rd.
I happily gave many talks on how to design and develop different kinds of accommodation for seniors until one day when I met a gentleman named Lloyd Dettweiler. He told me, in a very nice way, that while it was noble to promote new types of housing developments for seniors, what most seniors really wanted was to stay in their own homes. After all, for one thing, once they gave up their larger home for a one-bedroom apartment, their children and grandchildren would no longer come over for family dinners. While I might include communal dining rooms in my projects, this was not the same thing.
Aging in Place in a Safe Home. In subsequent years as I and my friends have aged, I realize that Lloyd was right. While many seniors are ready to move into a new, single-level apartments, a significant number want to stay in their longstanding homes as long as possible, especially if they can be modified to be more suitable. It was in this context that I recently wrote an article about modifying a home to make it more suitable for aging for Senior Line magazine, which is published by the Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia (JSABC), an organization on whose board I serve as a director. You can read the article on page 30 here https://jsalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/SL_Vol321_Summer2025-Final-Web-2.pdf
Jeff Moss is the Executive Director of JSA and has considerably more experience in addressing seniors issues than me. Which is why I was most interested in an op-ed he recently wrote for The Independent, a newspaper serving the Jewish community. Not only does he think its important to allow seniors to age in place, like Lloyd Dettweiler, he thinks its good policy, especially given the housing crisis facing BC seniors. I think he offers a lot of good analysis of the current situation and some sound recommendations on what needs to be done. I'm therefore pleased to reprint his article below. It is well worth reading.
Investing in home care is not just compassionate, it’s economically sound, argues Jeff Moss, executive director of Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia. (photo from yahhomecare.com)
Let’s stop pretending our seniors are a priority. The proof is out there to show they aren’t. Despite all the platitudes from politicians about “valuing elders” and “aging with dignity,” the truth is glaring. Successive British Columbia governments have been abandoning their commitment to seniors and punting the issue down the road for 30 years or more. We have long known of the coming bubble in seniors that might risk the Canada Pension Plan. How can we not have planned for the needs of seniors’ care and support when we all knew this crisis was coming? The cost to us all is financial, moral and systemic.
The crisis is no longer looming, it’s here. Right now, more than 3,000 seniors are languishing on waitlists for long-term care (LTC) beds. By 2040, that shortfall is projected to balloon to 30,000 beds. The government’s response? Studies and painfully slow progress. Since 2020, only 380 of the promised 3,300 new LTC beds have been built. This is critical, with ramifications we experience today.
The Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia is actively lobbying the provincial government to make changes that would increase access to home support immediately. JSABC’s seniors-led committee has created short videos sent to politicians to further raise awareness of the issue. Using the videos as a platform, JSABC has met with more than 20 MLAs from across the political spectrum, including Minister of Health Josie Osborne and Parliamentary Secretary for Seniors’ Services and Long-Term Care Susie Chant. Meetings with the Conservative critics for health and seniors have also been successful.
These meetings have not amounted to change. Yet.
While the Ministry of Health is reviewing bed planning to ensure “value for public investment,” seniors are dying in hospital hallways and are also trapped in expensive alternate level of care (ALC) beds with nowhere to go. And seniors are dying at home, too, lonely, isolated and lacking the support they need. This is not a system that’s strained, it’s a system collapsing under the weight of political inertia. Well-meaning as they are, our elected officials are paralyzed by changing economics and the hope the systemic hurdles will just go away.
It doesn’t take a policy expert to understand the math. Building LTC beds at $1 million each is unsustainable. The Office of the Seniors Advocate estimates it would take $17 billion over the next decade to catch up. This massive number reflects how far we’ve fallen behind – not because it’s an impossible investment, but because successive governments have delayed, deferred and deflected. Action needed to be taken at least 15 years ago, not five years in the future.
Our seniors are left behind facing a decision between paying for rent, food or home support – having all three is a luxury many can’t afford. But there is a solution staring us in the face: radically expand free home support services.
Most seniors want to age in their own homes. By providing essential services – housekeeping, meal preparation, personal care – free of charge, we can drastically reduce demand on LTC and hospital beds. This isn’t a pipe dream: Ontario and Alberta already provide an hour of daily home support to seniors at no cost.
In British Columbia, a senior earning $30,000 a year could be forced to pay up to one-third of their income just to receive basic home support. It’s a shameful policy that penalizes seniors for wanting to live independently and it crowds our LTC homes with people that can be better served at home. Moving to LTC is a personal choice that many families and individuals need to make, but it should not be a forced choice to save money because the cost of care at home is too high.
Investing in home care is not just compassionate, it’s economically sound. Home support reduces hospital readmissions, prevents premature institutionalization and frees up desperately needed acute care beds. British Columbia has the highest rate of overpopulation of LTC beds by those who could be cared for at home with just a couple of hours of care daily. Yet, every year, reports from the Seniors Advocate highlight the same issues and, every year, the gap between need and availability widens. We advocate that family doctors be able to prescribe home support for seniors to reduce the burden on our overworked social workers.
The Ministry of Health boasts of past “recommendations adopted” and new federal-provincial funding agreements, but where is the action plan? Where are the benchmarks, timelines and deliverables? Families are being forced to shoulder caregiving burdens they are ill-equipped for, quitting jobs, exhausting savings and compromising their own health because the government has downloaded its responsibilities onto them. The toll on family caregivers is an immense burden not accounted for in traditional studies.
The impact of these failures on family caregivers is felt cross-culturally, impacting families as they try to support aging loved ones. Family support leading to burnout is felt equally among the Jewish population as it is across multiple faith and cultural backgrounds.
The failure to invest in home support and community-based care isn’t a policy debate – it’s a moral failure. If we continue down this path, we will soon see wards filled with seniors waiting to die, while the promised LTC beds are perpetually “under review.” The backlog will grow, hospitals will become gridlocked, and the human cost will be immeasurable.
Additional study is meaningless when there is no sense of urgency, no detailed plan and no political will to make the bold decisions needed now. The ministry’s token investments – $354 million over three years and a $733 million federal agreement – are a drop in the ocean compared to what’s needed. Without a clear commitment and path to expanding home support now, every new bed built will still leave us desperately behind.
We cannot allow this crisis to deepen for another 15 years while seniors suffer as political collateral. The government must:
1. Immediately make home support services free and universally accessible.
2. Develop a transparent LTC expansion plan with real timelines beyond 2030.
3. Set measurable wait-time reduction targets for LTC placement.
4. Increase community-based respite and adult day programs to relieve families.
5. Provide public accountability with regular progress reports and public data.
British Columbians need better. Seniors deserve better. If we don’t act now, the future will be one of overcrowded hospitals, overwhelmed families and government scrambling to explain why it didn’t act sooner.
The time for reports is over. It’s time for action.
Jeff Moss is executive director of Jewish Seniors Alliance of British Columbia.
John Clerides, is an outspoken Vancouver businessman who worries about the deteriorating economic healthy of Vancouver. I met with him yesterday to discuss what might be done to address the deteriorating situation in the Downtown Eastside. Last night, h sent me this article written by someone who manages SROs in the community. I find it quite horrific, and while it is a very long article, I think it's well worth reading.
Daily fires and unchecked chaos have escalated the Downtown Eastside into a state of emergency – the situation is unsustainable, writes Jillian Skeet
The Downtown Eastside in Vancouver is under siege, battling an undeclared fire emergency.
Single room occupancy hotels in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside average a fire a day and thousands of police calls a year, but instead of treating it like the crisis it is, municipal and provincial governments are shirking responsibility for their failed policies and doubling-down on programs that aren’t working.
Ongoing chaos and deterioration in the Downtown Eastside (DTES) have escalated to a state of emergency. The situation is unsustainable.
Single room occupancy hotels, mainly in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), average one fire a day, with first responders attending up to five fires in one day.
One provincial government-funded SRO, Hotel Canada, was the source of more than 500 fire department calls in 2022. Shortly after Vancouver Fire Rescue tweeted that fact, the post disappeared. Possibly because government is downplaying the seriousness of the situation, worried the incessant fires will raise questions about the effectiveness of their policies and programs.
But for anyone with eyes to see, there’s no denying the emergency in the Downtown Eastside.
I’ve worked in single room occupancy hotels in the DTES for a decade and now help manage three privately funded SROs in the area, long known as the most poverty and drug-afflicted neighbuorhood in the province. We recieve no government support and no funding.
In July, over a two-week span, there were four fires within a one-block radius of our facility. Three were in other SROs, the fourth began between our building and the business next door, which sustained damage and was forced to temporarily close.
Vancouver Fire RescueService estimates 24 per cent of fires they attended in 2024 were deliberately set and 61 per cent were caused by cigarette or drug smoking materials, such as “drug users dropping butane lighters with the flame locked on, setting fire to themselves or their surroundings.”
Government-funded advocates fight evictions of dangerous tenants
Besides the fires, SROs have unending conflicts and dangers to manage – many created by damaging public policies like safe supply and decriminalization and government-funded tenant advocacy organizations.
Between 2019 and 2023, five DTES facilities drew 31,000 police calls – which averages out to almost 6,200 calls per hotel – including a weapons-related call every 40 hours, according to data obtained by the Daily Hive.
Those of us trying to run safe buildings find ourselves constantly defending against state-funded advocates who fight our efforts to evict residents when they pose a serious danger to other tenants.
We were dragged through Residential Tenancy by a DTES advocate-lawyer funded by all levels of government, who fought an eviction of a dangerous tenant. The tenant had a jerry can filled with gasoline and threatened to burn down the building. We won the case, but we’re not lawyers and legal challenges like these stretch our resources to the limit.
As a result of actions of advocates, we had the Residential Tenancy Branch conduct a hostile six-week investigation after we boarded two rooms as unsafe. One, after the tenant lit his room on fire and admitted to the fire investigator that he had been smoking drugs when the fire occurred. The other, after an unauthorized guest was left alone in a room and took a hammer to the sprinkler, flooding the building and destroying a $12,000 fire panel.
In both cases we were threatened with thousands of dollars in fines if we did not immediately restore the rooms and allow the tenants to return.
While many advocacy and outreach programs in the DTES were initiated with good intentions, most have run unchecked and often counter to the best interests and safety of the DTES and its residents.
Supportive housing has failed
The Howard Johnson Hotel on Granville, now known as the Luugat, was purchased in 2020 by the provincial government for an eye-watering $55 million ($500,000 per room), one of many such property purchases by BC Housing at many times the assessed value. Classified as ‘supportive housing,’ the Luugat recently logged its third fire in a month. Since 2020, 44 fires and 900 emergency calls have been reported at this facility, along with 4,000 calls to police in 2024 alone.
This model of ‘supportive housing’ is obviously not working.
As years-long chaos and deterioration in the Downtown Eastside escalated to a state of emergency, housing and SRO owners in particular, were blamed for the problems in the DTES. Then, when
For years, I’ve seen private SRO owners vilified and scapegoated for the problems on the DTES. Blaming private SROs is to a large extent what has allowed the situation to deteriorate for decades because the government would say, ‘Look over at them, they are the problem, don’t look at us.’
Now that the province, the city and their agencies own and operate single room occupancy housing facilities in the DTES, the narrative has changed.
The Winters Hotel, operated by the B.C. Housing agent Atira – at the time, the highest publicly funded non-profit housing agency in the province – burnt to the ground and killed two people. I do not know of a single privately owned and operated SRO that has had that kind of devastating fire.
The fire and police calls to the provincially funded Howard Johnson/Luugat and Hotel Canada are off the charts. And their operators have access to government coffers and all sorts of supports we can only dream of having. Yet they have probably the worst records of any SROs ever. We’re not perfect but we sure do a lot better than them.
Since the province and city entered the SRO business, the lack housing is no longer blamed on operators. And the term ‘slumlord’ was quietly retired once governments became landlords. Now the culprit is more often identified as the buildings themselves, leaving the non-profit operators and government funders free of responsibility.
The term ‘slumlord’ was quietly retired once governments became the SRO landlords.
Again and again, government officials suggest that old SRO buildings are the cause of the dramatic escalation in fires and safety violations. But if you pay attention to fire officials’ reports, the major cause is most often tracked back to incidents of residents smoking drugs – not the inanimate buildings that house them.
Yet the blame strategy is prevalent.
In a press conference on air pollution in supportive housing facilities, former BC Housing minister Ravi Kahlon downplayed the levels of airborne fentanyl levels as unsafe, despite WorkSafe BC testing at several supportive housing facilities revealing fentanyl smoke exceeded safety guidelines in some buildings, including in shared hallways, common rooms and administrative offices. In one West Hastings facility, fentanyl pollution “grossly exceeded” air safety limits.
When asked about the negative health effects of fentanyl exposure on staff in supportive housing facilities, the Ministry of Health recommended: “For prolonged or higher dose exposure to smoke from unknown substances, including fentanyl or other opioids, go outside into fresh air as quickly as possible and monitor symptoms in case medical attention is required.”
According to the minister, the problem didn’t seem to be provincial policy or how provincially funded operators managed the facilities, both of which quite obviously allow unfettered drug use throughout the buildings. Rather, the culprit was the outdated ventilation systems that needed upgrading.
Negative consequences are there for all to see
The provincial government is not alone in its failed duty to protect residents, staff and first responders forced to deal with these dangerous conditions. All levels of government have played a role in creating the current dysfunctionalsituation.
The federal government is responsible for lax justice system allows criminals to thrive in the DTES with minimal legal deterrent. Criminals are often caught and released multiple times in succession, failing to appear for each rescheduled court appearance. One hardened criminal we crossed paths with in our hotel was on the run from a warrant for a year before he was caught. Shortly after his arrest, he was released with a new court date and has been on the run again for more than nine months.
Like closing the Riverview Mental Hospital in 2012 and leaving those with serious mental illness without adequate care, the provincial government’s decriminalization has skyrocketed public drug use and fuelled a flagrant disregard for rules. And “safe supply” has added to the supply of drugs on the street, as many of those who are addicted sell the pills to dealers to buy fentanyl. The negative consequences are in plain view to all but the wilfully blind.
The now well-recognized diversion of safe supply drugs to criminal entities, and even youth in our province, has also brought a new layer of criminality to the DTES. And there is a disturbing correlation between the disastrous escalation in SRO fires since 2023 and the pervasive use of smoked fentanyl – which coincidentally tracks with the Provincial Health Officer’s 2023 report advocating to expand access to smokeable fentanyl via the safe supply program.
According to fire officials, the last two years have broken the record for the greatest number of fires in Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services’ history. These fires – the majority in the DTES – have had a devastating impact.
SRO fires
Firefighters attended this SRO for three fire alarms and two overdoses in one shift; this dumpster fire was one of 19 deliberately set fires in four hours in DTES/Chinatown; a typical X post updating the public on fire locations, which often include SROs. [Vancouver Fire Rescue Service X posts]
For those in the SRO sector, the situation has become unsustainable from both an economic and safety standpoint. Financing has become increasingly impossible to obtain for private operators without the deep pocket backer of BC Housing. And insurance, besides being very difficult to find, has skyrocketed. At the same time, restoring fire systems and undertaking repairs can cost tens of thousands of dollars for which, private operators get no assistance.
Government funding buys scandals and loyalty in DTES industry
None of the $600 million spent in the DTES each year provides support to those outside the government system. But it buys a lot of loyalty from organizations and individuals for whom the havoc and disorder in the DTES are a lucrative business.
We’ve had clues over the years that the problems of the DTES go far beyond untreated mental illness and addiction to the very core of the harm reductionindustry that was developed around this human tragedy.
There was the Portland Hotel Society scandal in 2014 where government funding for the homeless was diverted to limousines, luxury hotel rooms, cruises and even a family trip to Disneyland.
The $600 million spent in the DTES each year buys a lot of loyalty from organizations for whom the havoc and disorder in the DTES are a lucrative business.
Then came the numerous,long-standing conflicts of interest perpetuated by the former head of BC Housing when he bypassed accountability processes to award funding and lucrative government contracts to his wife’s non-profit company, Atira – blatant ethical lapses that were the talk of the DTES for many years prior.
The B.C. government only launched an investigation when the conflict was likely to be revealed during an inquest into the deaths of two residents in a 2022 fire at the Winters Hotel, run by Atira at the time. The fatalities inspired a class action suit on behalf of hotel residents, alleging negligence by the operators.
By May 2023, Atira was back in the good books of the city at least, when it reportedly got $800,000 in grants. In a strange twist, Atira announced this spring it was suing two former residents for starting fires the organization alleges contributed to the fatalities.
A more recent scandal involved the lucrative contract given in secret to Michael Bryant to assess and make recommendations regarding the DTES, allegedly based on Premier David Eby’s recommendation. When news of the contract broke three months after it began, most of the major stakeholders in the DTES knew nothing about the appointment and had not been contacted to provide input.
Violent tenants are often cycled back into the same housing
Then, on June 30, after all but ignoring years of complaints from supportive housing operators, the B.C. government acknowledged the need to “take action” to protect tenants. Then Housing minister Ravi Kahlon (since moved to the Jobs ministry) announced his government would put together a working group “to act on requests from housing providers for more authority to respond to urgent safety issues” involving weapons, criminal activity in supportive housing facilities.
“We have heard from providers that they need more authority to take action and keep people safe and we will be working with our partners to find a path forward that ensures people can live in a safe, inclusive and supportive environment,” said Kahlon.
Call me underwhelmed.
Because in the meantime, housing operators like ourselves continue to bear the brunt of failed government policies.
Even in instances of brutal assaults, tenants are usually released back to the same housing, with providers helpless to keep them out. After working through the Residential Tenancy Branch to evict tenants in these situations, tenants are now often given as long as two months to find housing while they continue to endanger both the staff and the building they were ostensibly evicted from.
Even in instances of brutal assaults, tenants are usually released back to the same housing.
We’ve had two recent cases where the occupants of rooms brutally assaulted our managers and were blocking egress – leaving items in hallways and other common areas that must be kept clear for evacuation in case of a fire – in violation of the fire code.
Another time during Covid, we had a tenant illegally occupy the room of an absent tenant, while subletting his own room to a couple who shot out all our security cameras with a BB-gun. The couple was removed by police. The same tenant then assisted a dangerous drug gang to gain access to another vacant room in the building. When police attended, they were met at the door by a 17-year-old with a loaded gun and subsequently removed a huge cache of weapons, ammunition, body armour and drugs from the room.
We have an excellent relationship with the police, who respond quickly when tenants and staff are endangered, but they too are restricted by a dysfunctional system.
When police attended, they were met at the door by a 17-year-old with a loaded gun.
Despite our efforts to expedite the eviction of the clearly dangerous tenant, it took six months between the time we filed for eviction and the rental tenancy board hearing. We went to the BC Supreme Court to obtain the requisite Writ of Possession and hired a bailiff for $1,800 to evict the tenant from the two rooms.
Unknown to us, while the bailiff was finishing up, the tenant was in front of a judge with an outreach worker from Vancouver Coastal Health who had been advised of the reasons for the eviction some two weeks earlier, yet was nonetheless assisting the tenant in requesting a ‘stay of eviction.’
The Supreme Court judge, knowing nothing of the reasons for the eviction, and seeing the support of Vancouver Coastal Health, granted the stay. The tenant then proceeded to drag all his belongings back into the building.
What ensued was ten days of back-and-forth to court, trying to get the stay lifted. During this period, the fire department did a surprise inspection and, despite being told the story, advised us that we were going to be fined $2,000. We begged for a reprieve of two hours, assembled a team and removed all the tenant’s belongings to the alley where we risked fines from the city and retribution from the tenancy board.
These are just a few examples of many involving advocates from a range of government agencies that compound the serious flaws of the criminal justice system and contribute to the dangerous and unsustainable situation in the DTES.
We are continually placed in impossible situations like this.
‘Vancouver is known as a place to hide’
At the same time that government-funded advocates and outreach workers fight our efforts to remove dangerous and/or destructive tenants, the city and the fire department hold us accountable for the tenants’ behaviour. The city fines and even charges us with bylaw infractions, and the fire department charges us $210 every time there is a false fire alarm – usually caused by tenants smoking drugs or cigarettes. In 2024, firefighters responded to more than 15,600 false alarms in Vancouver.
We have accumulated thousands of dollars in fines for false alarms over the years. At the same time, the city, in collusion with the province, has defied two court decisions and imposed vacancy controls that prohibit the raising of rents between tenants to cover rising costs.
One city-funded agency spends our tax dollars to help the homeless find support and housing in the DTES – but a significant number of the people they assist are fugitives fleeing criminal prosecution from other jurisdictions in B.C. or beyond.
We discovered the hard way we need to carefully screen everyone referred to us by this city-funded agency after one tenant drew a drug gang turf war inside and immediately outside of the building. As we tried to unravel what was going on, we learned that the tenant had previously been the subject of an Abbotsford police “most wanted” poster for violent home invasions and drug gang activity, and had a current outstanding arrest warrant.
We learned the tenant had previously been the subject of an Abbotsford police “most wanted” poster for violent home invasions and drug gang activity.
While it may be honourable to provide housing and assistance to anyone who needs it, the constant influx of people from other jurisdictions – some with serious criminal pasts or fugitives escaping justice elsewhere – has been a major contributor to the continuing deterioration of the Downtown Eastside.
Vancouver has become known as a place to hide where you’ll be assisted with housing and basic needs – no questions asked. And, of course, it’s viewed across Canada as the most drug-friendly jurisdiction, where you can receive all manner of harm reduction support, including government supplied drugs and drug use paraphernalia.
I have met people from all over Canada who found their way to Vancouver for these reasons. I even had a mother from the Yukon who flew her son to Vancouver to take advantage of B.C.’s free safe supply opioids.
As with so many initiatives in the DTES, good intentions often run amuck with dire consequences.
We are on the frontlines with no vested economic interest in the status quo. We have repeatedly attempted to alert the city and the province to the reality on the ground. We have sent three registered letters with receipts over the last two years.
To-date, all our requests for urgent meetings have been ignored as the housing situation continues to spiral out of control. Our governments continue to facilitate rather than curb drug use. They force violent offenders to live in facilities unequipped to manage their dangerous behaviour. And they have made no apparent progress addressing the mental health crisis in the province’s most troubled neighbourhood.
Meanwhile, as governments look the other way, the Downtown Eastside continues to burn.
In July I met with Julie Landry, a journalist with Radio Canada in a Downtown Eastside cafe. She was preparing a short documentary regarding the challenges facing the community and had come across my previous articles and speeches regarding the need to create a new plan to 'regenerate' the neighbourhood.
In addition to speaking to me she met with Jean Swanson (of course) and Dan Garrison, the city's director of housing. Suffice it to say, my message was quite different than those from Jean and Dan.
My view is that in order to create a healthier neighbourhood, with fewer vacant, derelict storefronts, and a greater sense of civic pride there is a need to revise the plan to allow a broader mix of housing, including ownership housing. Otherwise, there won't be the buying power to support the local shops.
Jean and others take this to mean I want to gentrify the area and force out the poor people. Not at all. But over the years the DTES has deteriorated to the point that there must be a new approach.
At 7:10 this morning, David Ley and I were invited to join Chris Walker, (the CBC Kelowna morning host who is filling in for Stephen Quinn) to discuss a letter sent by a group of planners, architects, and academics to David Eby and Christine Boyle on how to advance housing affordability. This letter was similar to the letter sent to Prime Minister Mark Carney and federal housing minister Gregor Robertson, and referenced in some of the previous posts on this blog.
At issue is what is the best way to address housing unaffordability and stimulate production at a time when the presale condominium market is dead, and many purpose-built rental projects are also stalled or being put on the back burner.
Chris Walker noted that while I signed the letter to the federal government, I didn't sign the most recent letter to the province. The reason is that I differ somewhat from the rest of the signatories in terms of what needs be done to stimulate new projects and the role of the private sector. I also have a difference of opinion in terms of how we should finance growth.
More specifically, the signatories generally think we should look at the current crisis as an opportunity. We must not continue doing what we have been doing which has got us into the current situation. Governments should focus on the construction of non-profit and rental housing and the conservation of older apartment buildings that offer affordable housing.
While I agree with this, especially since I was once CMHC's manager of social housing in the mid 1970s, I also think we need to figure out how to put the private sector back to work, since without new projects many people in the allied professions and construction trades are going to be put out of work. While more housing does not necessarily lead to more affordable housing, if we stop building, the situation will not improve.
The real problem. As long as banks insist on presales, developers must design and market their projects to investors. 'End-users' including move-up buyers and move down 'empty nesters' do not want to buy a home three years before it is completed.To my mind, this is the real problem. So what's the solution?
Back to the future. When I first started in the housing development business, there was no such thing as a presale requirement before a condominium project could be financed by the bank. The lender reviewed the developer's market analyses and track record, and underook its own analysis. It then made a decision on whether to finance a project or not. As the project neared completion, model suites were set up and the homes were sold.
To a certain degree, this changed in the mid-80s as a result of a project by Tridel in Toronto, called The Polo Club.The presale program included 'priority registration', the brainchild of Stan Kates, a Toronto marketing consultant. It was the first significant pre-sale condominium project with buyers lining outside a sales trailer on Bay Street.
The success of this marketing program was featured on CBC's The National anchored by Knowlton Nash. Developers across Canada took notice.
I know about this since at the same time I was involved with the development of The Lagoons in False Creek in partnership with the Belzberg's First City Financial. Brent Belzberg saw people lining outside the sales centre and asked me to invite Stan and his sidekick Marty Atkins (with whom I went to highschool) to Vancouver to see if they could work their magic on our project. They came to town and we put them up at the Hyatt. But once we showed them our plans, they told us we had the wrong type of project. For their program to work we could not have more than three different unit designs!
Eventually Bob Rennie and Dan Ulinder began implementing presale programs in Vancouver. I believe the first project was for Wall Financial on Howe Street. Before we knew it, aggressive marketing programs offering smaller condos targetted to investors became the norm and lenders soon decided that rather than try to properly assess a project's feasibility as they had done in the past, they would simply demand presales as proof of a project's viability. And the situation ballooned from there.
So, to my mind, the best way Mark Carney and David Eby can bring back some normalcy to the housing market would be to tell the banks to stop demanding presales. Allow projects catering to homebuyers, not investors to proceed, because once they are finished, if they offer good suite layouts and fair pricing, they will sell upon completion.
Now you might reasonably ask why all the current unsold condos aren't selling?
For several reasons. Firstly, there is a lot of uncertainty in the market. But more importantly, too many of the unsold condos in Metro Vancouver are smaller studio, one-bedroom and 'junior' two-bedroom suites designed to be purchased by investors and rented, not lived in by end users. Unfortunately, since rents have come down, (yes, a good thing if you're a renter), and there is little expectation that prices are going to keep going up, the economics of buying and renting these small units no longer work.
While our 11 minute time limit this morning didn't allow me to get into all of this, you can listen to this morning's interview at the link below:
ps. Someone observed that Chris Walker seemed very prepared for the interview. That's because like Stephen he's obviously a very intelligent guy. But credit should also go to Caroline Chan, a journalist and story producer at the CBC with whom I spoke yesterday afternoon and asked some very thoughtful questions.
.png)
