Vancouver mayor urges other cities to create more supportive housing | Daily Hive

Interview with Vancouver mayor on the "unsustainable" state of supportive housing, and the need for other cities to do more

Howard Johnson supportive housing at 1176 Granville Street (left) and Murray Hotel SRO at 1119 Hornby Street (right) in downtown Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

As concerns over crime and public safety continue to grow in the Downtown Eastside, Vancouver mayor Ken Sim is defending his administration’s approach.

Speaking in an interview with Daily Hive Urbanized on Monday, Sim defended measures such as increased policing and enforcement against illegal street vending, arguing that these efforts target organized criminals who prey on the city’s most vulnerable residents.

He maintained that while the work is ongoing, his administration remains committed to meaningful and lasting improvements in the neighbourhood.

You might also like:

Just over a month ago, during the Safe Our Streets forum, Sim first announced a three-pronged approach to address the issues in the Downtown Eastside.

One key component ramps up the Vancouver Police Department’s efforts in tackling organized crime that targets on individuals experiencing homelessness, mental health, and/or addictions issues. This is now well underway through Task Force Barrage.

Over the short- and medium-term, the 2014-enacted Downtown Eastside Area Plan would be amended to introduce a more diverse mix of housing for a wider range of incomes to create a more balanced neighbourhood for the desired health and safety outcomes.

Currently, the area plan reinforces a growing concentration of supportive housing, social housing, and related services.

With this in mind, as another short- and medium-term action, Sim has proposed the temporary pause on any net new supportive housing units within the Downtown Eastside, instead urging other municipal jurisdictions in Metro Vancouver to enable more of these projects in their own communities.

The city of Vancouver represents 25 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s population, but its municipal government takes on a disproportionate financial and resource burden on the challenges that directly and indirectly come from being the location of 77 per cent of the 8,150 supportive housing units found across the region, 67 per cent of the 2,088 shelter beds, and 50 per cent of all social housing. Beyond merely providing a roof over their heads, many of the residents in these units having highly complex needs.

“It’s unsustainable,” Sim asserted during the interview with Daily Hive Urbanized.

According to a new City of Vancouver staff analysis, if the distribution of needed supportive housing units in Metro Vancouver were to be calculated on a proportional basis, there would be no net new supportive housing units in Vancouver, as “there is already a large proportional surplus of supportive housing units in Vancouver.”

Currently, about 12,065 supportive housing units are needed across Metro Vancouver against the figure of 8,150 units that actually exist, including the 6,264 units within Vancouver. This leaves a need for 3,915 net new supportive housing units, but none of these should be located in Vancouver. Instead, on a proportional basis, the net new supportive housing units should be located in:

Surrey: 802 net new units for a total of 1,694; 892 existing units
Burnaby: 600 net new units for a total of 742; 142 existing units
Coquitlam/Port Coquitlam/Port Moody: 598 net new units for a total of 726; 128 existing units
Richmond: 561 net new units for a total of 626 units; 65 existing units
North Vancouver/West Vancouver: 533 net new units for a total of 580; 47 existing units
Delta: 309 net new units for a total of 323; 14 existing units
Langley City/Township: 295 net new units for a total of 481; 186 existing units
Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows: 124 net new units for a total of 328; 204 existing units
White Rock: 65 net new units for a total of 65; 0 existing units
New Westminster: 27 net new units for a total of 235; 208 existing units

Only New Westminster comes anywhere close to meeting what would be proportional for its jurisdiction.

Earlier this month, due to public opposition, Richmond City Council cancelled BC Housing’s plan to build a new permanent supportive housing building in its jurisdiction, which would have generated 90 units.

When it comes to emergency shelter bed spaces, Vancouver is again oversubscribed based on City staff’s analysis of what would be proportional. At the moment, there is an identified need for 3,832 shelter bed spaces, but the number that actually exists is 2,088 beds, including the 1,400 beds that exist within Vancouver.

This leaves a deficit of 1,744 beds across Metro Vancouver. But once again, on a proportional basis, Vancouver would not see any additional beds. Instead, other cities in Metro Vancouver would absorb the net new shelter bed spaces:

Surrey: 410 net new beds for a total of 710; 300 existing beds
Burnaby: 271 net new beds for a total of 311; 40 existing beds
Coquitlam/Port Coquitlam/Port Moody: 237 net new beds for a total of 304; 67 existing beds
Richmond: 232 net new beds for a total of 262 beds; 30 existing beds
North Vancouver/West Vancouver: 198 net new beds for a total of 243; 45 existing beds
Delta: 0 net new beds for a total of 135; 135 existing beds
Langley City/Township: 142 net new beds for a total of 202; 60 existing beds
Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows: 83 net new beds for a total of 138; 55 existing beds
White Rock: 27 net new beds for a total of 27; 0 existing beds
New Westminster: 8 net new beds for a total of 99; 91 existing beds

Moreover, Vancouver has 14 of the 30 overdose prevention sites (OPS) in Metro Vancouver. Some cities do not have any OPS facilities.

According to City staff, the municipal government spends nearly $47 million annually to address and mitigate the impacts of homelessness, mental health, and addictions crisis, including $5.3 million to manage sheltering and maintenance/repairs in parks facilities, $9.1 million for street cleaning and garbage removal, $21.5 million for various community services, and $10.8 million for Vancouver Fire Rescue’s overdose response and fire calls.

This overall figure is based on the provision of supporting services and managing the impacts to public spaces across the city, but it does not include the significant costs incurred by the Vancouver Police Department to support public safety, non-market housing operations, and the cost of building and improving non-market housing.

Sim’s new motion on a temporary pause on net new supportive housing in the Downtown Eastside — based on his Safe Our Streets forum announcement — will come to a head in the City Council meeting on Wednesday, February 26, 2025.

Over the last few days, ahead of this meeting, this motion has been overshadowed by a leaked confidential draft internal memo created in October 2024 on the potential approach the City could take.

The memo, shared with Daily Hive Urbanized by the Mayor’s Office, notes that the City spends about $87 million each year on the crisis, including additional policing services, community services, fire and rescue, street cleaning, and staff health and safety. Since 2018, the municipal government has also set aside 201 City-owned properties, created 469 new shelter spaces, 1,273 new supportive housing units, and 3,900 new social housing units.

And in the 2024 capital budget, $600 million was set aside to address homelessness.

“The impacts on community, resources, and finances are no longer sustainable for the City and its residents and businesses,” reads the memo, suggesting the toll these regional- and provincial-level costs are taking on the municipal government.

This memo also outlined a wide range of proposed action items, including the temporary suspension on net new supportive housing units and encouraging other cities in Metro Vancouver to pick up their proportional share, along with a new focus on building new permanent purpose-built supportive housing to replace SROs that are in poor condition and temporary modular housing units. A new “good neighbour policy” would be created for the operators of supportive housing to make these organizations more accountable for their wrap-around services, security, and the cleanliness of their streets.

It emphasizes a need to create a mixed-income Downtown Eastside neighbourhood by adding market rental and strata ownership housing in a “thoughtful way,” which would also encourage businesses to return to the area. At the same time, it also acknowledges a need to be “thoughtful of past gentrification campaigns,” avoiding a repeat of Yaletown in the 2000s, which forced more vulnerable people into the Downtown Eastside.

“If the Downtown Eastside is gentrified on the same scale as Yaletown was, residents will be simply forced into surrounding areas,” asserts the memo.

To achieve a mixed-income neighbourhood, the City would partner with the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, and perform “smart” spot rezoning to “quickly to get the outcome we desire.”

But aside from the proposed temporary suspension of net new supportive housing, the memo also contemplated creating a “roundtable” with Indigenous groups to discuss the reunification of Indigenous residents to their home communities, whether it be a local First Nation, the Metis, or another nation. It was stated that “many members of the Indigenous community have expressed desire to live in their home nations,” noting that “some local nations are open to welcoming their members return to the community.”

The Downtown Eastside’s Indigenous population is highly disproportionate compared to the rest of the city. Within the area, they make up roughly one-third of the neighbourhood’s population.

The suggestion of reunification has been particularly controversial among the Mayor’s critics, but like other proposed action items in the memo, it is not being put forward at this time.

For clarity and brevity, this is an edited and condensed version of the questions and answers from Daily Hive Urbanized’s interview with the Mayor:

I’m wondering if you’re able to shed some light on the leaked internal memo, and how that evolved into the current iteration of the proposal?

There’s nothing much to it. I think everyone understands that the Downtown Eastside’s been a challenging neighbourhood for decades, and we were very clear that we were elected to be change agents. The status quo isn’t working.

I’ve personally told people that one of my five things to do as mayor is to make significant improvements on the Downtown Eastside.

So I don’t think anyone should be surprised that we put a bunch of notes on a piece of paper. We fleshed it out, and we worked on it. It’s unfortunate someone decided to leak that document, but we stand by the fact that we want to improve the neighbourhood, and these things are a work in progress.

Were First Nations consulted in the creation of these plans?

We consult with everyone all the time, and we’re in discussions with stakeholders, we walk through the Downtown Eastside, we’ve spoken on a whole host of issues with Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations and organizations in the Downtown Eastside. We’ll continue to do it, and it helps us form better ideas and policy.

Everything we do, and not just in the Downtown Eastside, we’re very conscious of First Nations feedback. They’re not only our partners, but they’re friends as well, right? And so, here’s an example: we were just at Musqueam earlier today, invited by Chief Sparrow to witness a historic event of the federal government sharing revenues from YVR with Musqueam.

Everything we do is with those lenses, and I think, zooming back out, we’re still trying to deal with the humanitarian crisis in the Downtown Eastside, and we’re going to use every single tool available to us.

The draft memo mentioned the idea of consulting with First Nations on bringing their people back home to their own communities. Can you shed more light on this approach?

Well, look, once again, these are draft versions. What I can tell you is it’s not just First Nations. It’s anyone, for that matter.

If someone expressed an interest to go back home, we would work on an individual basis to see what we can do. But, you know, what we’re dealing with is we’re dealing with humans. Every situation is unique, right? And so, you really have to look at the fact of what’s going on. What are the unique situations of any individual down there?

And what we do is we approach things from a very compassionate and empathetic approach. As long as our actions are done with a lot of empathy and compassion, we’ll feel good about it.

What’s your assessment of the progress made by the provincial government in improving the Downtown Eastside since late 2022, when Premier David Eby took a new lead over the efforts?

What I can tell you is we still have a lot of work to do in the Downtown Eastside. I can only speak for what the City has done.

The de-encampment, as an example, was one once again in an empathetic way. It took us eight months. We made sure everyone had housing and we took care of everyone’s belongings.

We stopped the illegal market, you know, people vending illegal goods. We enforced that bylaw.

Having an empathetic approach towards Crab Park took us a little longer than we would like, but at the end of the day, we made sure that [was done] empathetically and compassionately.

It was seven people, the last ones we gave a place to stay before we cleared up the park. And for the first time in a long time, I think 6,000 people living within a 15-minute walk of that park finally have access to the area.

And you know, there’s also street cleaning. There are a lot of things we’ve done, so I can comment on that. I think it’s been very successful, but we still have more work to do on other matters.

You mentioned people vending illegal goods, and we’ve known that retail theft has been a huge issue for London Drugs and Nester’s Market at Woodwards. The losses from theft have gotten so bad that London Drugs is now considering closing that location. Have there been any changes in the right direction for these anchor businesses not just for Woodwards, but for the wider area?

What I can tell you is we toured London Drugs, and we have open lines of communication.

If there’s ever a challenge, they can give us a call. But, you know, to their credit, they’re doing the city a big favour by sticking it out down there. It’s still a tough place to do business.

The lengths that they go to to protect their people and their merchandise, it’s incredible.

And things that we’re making progress on, for example, by stopping the sale of stuff illegally at street markets there. A lot of the items got fenced through there, right? And so, that should have a positive effect, not just on London Drugs but throughout the city.

Adding the community policing centre down there and adding more beat cops there, Project Barrage… these are all examples of our commitment to improving public safety and going after organized crime and the predators that are preying on our most vulnerable population and creating chaos in the neighbourhood.

Last month, during the Safe Our Streets forum, you mentioned the existence of a poverty industrial complex. Can you perhaps elaborate on what you mean by this?

I do want to qualify this. There are a lot of great organizations doing a lot of great things with a lot of great people.

When you look at the concentration of all the services in a very small, 4 sq. km. area, what happens is you create this honeypot. Then organized crime can come in and they can prey on our most vulnerable residents.

I think the stat is, you know, if you are experiencing severe poverty, you’re 19 times more likely to be a victim of crime. If you have a significant mental health challenge or substance use disorder, you’re what, 23 times more likely to be a victim of crime.

So, you know, what we’re trying to do here is a couple of things.

One, get rid of the honeypot. For lack of a better term, spread it out… but it’s not about just, “hey, let’s spread the problem out.” Very far from it. If I were to tell your readers that there was a supportive housing building at West 16th Avenue and Dunbar Street, 99% of them would be shocked because it’s run really well.

I also live right across the street from a social housing project where you have people recovering from substance use disorder, and we know them as friends and everything works really fine. It’s part of our community.

The reason that works is you don’t have a massive concentration, and they’re well run. You don’t have a massive concentration where then you have organized crime that goes in and says, “we can target all these individuals.”

When you spread it out, not only do you set people up for success and these projects work, you have the added benefit of making it really hard for organized crime to prey on these individuals. So all we’re saying is let’s spread it out.

What we’re asking others in the region to do is build some in their communities. Some of the residents of the Downtown Eastside would rather be in their home communities… With the exception of Surrey, every other municipality in the region has less than what we’re adding in one year.

If you speak with any resident of the Lower Mainland, regardless of whether or not they want supportive housing units in their city, I think the vast majority would agree, yeah, there’s an imbalance there.

We’re just saying, “Look, we want the other cities to step up and add more net supportive housing units.” We’re still going to support the ones for seniors and youth, anyone with medical issues, and replace crumbling SRO stock. Anything that comes off the [existing] inventory of units, we’ll add them back. So, there are a lot of units being built.

We’re just saying no net new supportive housing until Delta has more than 14. Like, it’s absolutely crazy.

There have been some suggestions of auditing or conducting an in-depth review of the non-profit organizations in the Downtown Eastside that receive public funding. Currently, roughly 60 non-profit organizations operate in this area. Is an audit something you still support?

I think it’s healthy when we work with the province to coordinate efforts and just review.

It’s not a bad thing. We’re talking about taxpayer money, and we’re talking about effectiveness to help people with their lives, our most vulnerable residents. And so, this is a good thing, because there could be duplication.

We could be missing things. And so, you know, reviews are great.

Do you believe that there are certain entities or individuals who don’t want to see any change in the Downtown Eastside?

Sure, change is hard. And it’s not just in the Downtown Eastside. You could say that about every single neighbourhood.

There’s always going to be individuals who do not want to see change, despite things being in a really bad situation or a great situation. You’ll have the same people that don’t like change.

With the Downtown Eastside, I think we can all agree that it’s a very challenging neighbourhood. It’s not working for a lot of individuals.

And so, we have a choice — affect change and make a difference or don’t. And our administration, we were elected to be change agents.

What’s your response when some people suggest that your proposed actions might improve the Downtown Eastside area, but won’t improve the lives of its residents?

Well, there’s a couple of things. First of all, I do spend some time down there in the Downtown Eastside. And I can tell you, when we removed the very dangerous structures, we did that with empathy, compassion, and housing, and everyone had their belongings stored for them.

When you walk down the street a couple of weeks later, a lot of the residents thanked us. They said, “for the first time, I can actually go out of my building safely, I can actually go to the pharmacy and pick up my meds, and the streets feel safer. I’m not getting threatened.” That’s an example.

Our engineers, police officers and other City of Vancouver team members, they improved the lives of the people that live down there, for sure. And they’ll continue to do so.

Recently, you put a new emphasis on ramping up Vancouver Police Department efforts through Task Force Barrage. What’s your response when some people say that more policing isn’t the solution? Why are you putting more resources in this tool in the toolbox?

There’s two things to this. First of all, it’s one of the only tools we have in the toolbox of the City because we are not healthcare.

We’re not in charge of changing the laws to address bail reform for repeat offenders. We can’t build hospitals. We can’t build long-term care facilities. That’s not in our jurisdiction.

There’s organized criminals, there are predators who are preying on our most vulnerable residents. People who are experiencing severe poverty, significant mental health challenges, or significant substance use disorders are getting preyed on by these criminals.

And so, what I would say to them is, “Look, we’re going after organized crime and the predators.”

I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. We’re going to do it because I’ve seen these criminals on the streets and they don’t care about the people that are down there.

So we don’t really care about them, the organized criminals and predators, that is.

Are we too bogged down with the process instead of focusing more on the actual results?

I’d support the process if the outcome was good. In fact, I’d even support a process that, even if it didn’t work the first time, was still the right process.

I think we’ve had a challenge for 40 years in the Downtown Eastside, so whatever process we’ve been using isn’t super effective.

We’ve got to look at doing things differently. Again, we were elected to be change agents, to be bold, and to do things [in] an empathetic and compassionate way. If we’re not creating change, we’re wasting everyone’s time. And unfortunately, the byproduct of not doing something is there are a lot of people that get harmed along the way.

It’s a tough neighbourhood and people are literally dying in the streets on a daily basis. That’s not humane, that’s not compassionate, and so, we have to make some hard decisions and we save lives. I’m okay with that.

You might also like: