400 tenants at risk as private Downtown Eastside SROs face sale and foreclosure | Daily Hive

About 400 tenants could be at risk as privately-owned Downtown Eastside SROs face sale and foreclosure

Empress Hotel SRO at 235 East Hastings St., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Some housing advocates are raising new concerns about the future of a number of old single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, warning that up to hundreds of low-income tenants could be at risk of being displaced as properties are sold, foreclosed upon, or placed into receivership.

The Downtown Eastside SRO Collaborative Society — a non-profit organization that advocates for the welfare and safety of people living in privately owned SRO hotels — estimates that about 400 tenants are currently at risk across a growing list of privately owned buildings.

The society is calling on governments to create a permanent acquisition fund that would allow non-profit housing providers and community land trusts to quickly purchase financially troubled SRO properties.

You might also like:

The most immediate concern surrounds the 98-room West Hotel SRO at 488 Carrall St., where the society says a new landlord has been offering tenants money to move out. According to the society, some tenants have been offered alternative housing, while others have not.

The society estimates that 57 rooms in that building are now vacant.

The same owner also recently acquired the 44-room United Rooms SRO at 139 East Cordova St. and the 76-room Empress Hotel SRO at 235 East Hastings St., according to the society, which fears those buildings could face a similar effort to clear out existing tenants.

West Hotel SRO 488 Carrall Street Vancouver

West Hotel SRO at 488 Carrall St., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

The West Hotel SRO and Empress Hotel SRO were already identified just over a year ago as potential triggers for a snowballing and much wider SRO housing insecurity crisis in the Downtown Eastside.

An internal City of Vancouver memo in June 2025 also shows that concerns about the West Hotel SRO and Empress Hotel SRO began well before the latest ownership changes. At the time, lenders had started foreclosure proceedings against both properties. The buildings were owned by Christopher Wall and described by City staff at the time as heavily indebted. The lenders were seeking permission to sell the properties more quickly than under the standard foreclosure timeline.

Most significantly, the foreclosure petition listed vacant possession as a possible remedy. City staff stressed that this had not been ordered by the court and might never be pursued if the properties could be sold with their tenants remaining. However, City staff warned that if vacant possession were granted, protections under the B.C. Residential Tenancy Act would be limited. Approximately 200 tenants were believed to be living across the two hotels at the time.

In June 2025, the society informed provincial and municipal officials that Wall had defaulted on $4.6 million in debt and warned that the foreclosures could destabilize his wider portfolio of seven Downtown Eastside SRO buildings.

City staff also previous indicated the municipal government could not intervene directly in the court proceedings because it was not a party to the foreclosure and held no registered interest in the properties. Moreover, simply emptying rooms would not automatically trigger the City’s SRO conversion rules or the associated $300,000 per room replacement fee payment, because a vacancy alone is not considered a conversion or demolition.

united rooms sro 139 east cordova street vancouver

United Rooms SRO at 139 East Cordova St., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

According to the society today, several other SRO properties are in foreclosure or could soon face foreclosure. They include the 54-room Laurel Apartments SRO at 610 Alexander St., the 36-room York Hotel SRO at 259 Powell St., the 31-room Arlington Hotel SRO at 575 East Pender St., the 85-room Silver Avalon Hotel SRO at 165 West Pender St., the 27-room Persepolise Hotel SRO at 351 Columbia St., and the 32-room Grand Union Hotel SRO at 74 West Hastings St.

The society also says many additional SRO buildings have also been listed for sale.

It is warning that some landlords could seek to empty the buildings, complete relatively minor renovations, and then rent the rooms to students or workers at substantially higher vacancy-controlled rents.

“If we don’t get action from governments to buy hotels, many more tenants will likely face aggressive campaigns to empty, lightly renovate and retenant their buildings with students or workers at the vacancy controlled rents,” the society stated today.

The society argues that the loss of these rooms would place further pressure on Vancouver’s homelessness crisis. SROs continue to serve as housing of last resort for many of the city’s poorest and most vulnerable residents, with many also facing severe mental health and addictions challenges.

The society is seeking immediate government intervention to stabilize buildings already in foreclosure or receivership before more tenants are displaced. It also wants a permanent SRO acquisition fund that would give non-profit organizations the ability to act quickly when a property becomes available.

In response to an inquiry by Daily Hive Urbanized, the B.C. Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs acknowledged that the provincial government and BC Housing are aware of ownership or possession changes involving a number of privately owned Vancouver SROs.

“The Province is actively monitoring the situation,” the Ministry told Daily Hive Urbanized today.

The Ministry noted that its goal is to keep tenants in their homes, but it did not indicate whether the provincial government is considering purchasing any of the properties.

It notes that the SRO rooms do not meet the long-term housing standards, but acknowledged they cannot be eliminated before enough new replacement purpose-built housing is available.

The provincial government adds that it is working with the municipal government to identify opportunities for housing redevelopment and major SRO renovation projects in the Downtown Eastside. It is also seeking to access available funding programs, including federal government funding.

As of early 2023, there were 146 active SRO buildings with a combined total of about 6,500 units in Vancouver, with the vast majority situated within or near the Downtown Eastside. Many of these buildings built a century ago are now in extremely poor condition due to a combination of age, how the buildings are operated and maintained, and the extremely complex needs of residents. At the time, 48 per cent of the SROs were privately owned, 50 percent were owned by governments or non-profit organizations, and two per cent were owned by Chinese Benevolent Societies.

Since 2025, the City has maintained a policy of not supporting any net increase in supportive housing capacity in the Downtown Eastside, citing the longstanding dense concentration of social housing, supportive housing, and social services in the area and the resulting pressures and challenges and questionable outcomes. Instead, the City is looking to focus on accelerating the one-for-one replacement of aging and dilapidated SRO buildings with new purpose-built housing in the area.

Seasonal increases in visible homelessness in and around the Downtown Eastside can also be partly linked to the extremely poor living conditions inside many SRO buildings, particularly during warmer weather, as most lack air conditioning or other effective cooling systems.

You might also like: