Vancouver city staff report progress on ‘uplifting’ Downtown Eastside

Work is underway on a Vancouver city councillor’s plan to uplift the city’s most impoverished neighbourhood, with staff providing an update Tuesday on ways to increase social housing, employment, and more.

“If we want to uplift the Downtown Eastside, we need to make sure it’s a place where people can get a job, can shop, hang out in a way that connects them to community,” said Coun. Rebecca Bligh.

“Staff are now letting us know what they’ve completed… but also how they’re going to stage the work in reports back to council.”

Bligh’s plan sits in the shadow of another motion, from Mayor Ken Sim, going to council on Wednesday that aims to pause all net new supportive housing builds in Vancouver.

Avery D’Eufemia, who has been waiting for supportive housing for two years, says they’re sad the mayor’s motion is being considered.

“I’ve seen how much the supports around here have helped people,” said D’Eufemia.

D’Eufemia says they have been saving money, just in case they don’t get a housing offer by the time they have to leave the transitional housing program at Union Gospel Mission.

“I think there is a thing that says, because there is supportive housing, people are coming. But there are people who live here who have been here all their lives, and when the supports come, they get help. It’s not that they’re going to go away when the supports go away. And I think that needs to be understood so people can realize that we’re not leaving, we’re not going away, we want to be here in Vancouver as well.”

Vancouver’s most recent count found that the unhoused population in Vancouver increased by 33 per cent in 2023, compared to 2020 levels. It was the largest increase in homelessness ever recorded since 2005.

It also found the majority of unhoused people in Vancouver were already living in the city.

Nick Wells, a spokesperson for Union Gospel Mission, says it continues to see the demand for supportive housing.

“And while we do the best we can every day, we don’t have the funding or support that your municipal, your federal and provincial levels of government have,” said Wells.

Mayor Ken Sim proposed his motion last month, saying the rest of Metro Vancouver has to pick up the slack in building supportive housing — not just Vancouver.

But Bligh says hosting the majority of the region’s supportive housing makes sense for a big city, and she hopes the mayor’s motion fails tomorrow.

“The Uplift Downtown Eastside plan was about investing in the community, not just financially of course, but political will, resources, coordination, partnering with senior levels of government. It’s about building up the community. The plan tomorrow that the mayor’s bringing forward is regressive. It’s saying, ‘let’s cut off, let’s freeze any supportive housing units that would be new stock,’ in the middle of a homelessness crisis? It just simply doesn’t make any sense.”

A protest, opposing Mayor Sim’s motion, is planned to take place outside Vancouver City Hall Wednesday.