By Emma Juniper
Hundreds of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) residents and allies rallied at City Hall on February 26, to oppose the city’s latest attack on supportive housing.
Approximately 300 people attended the demonstration organized by Our Homes Can’t Wait, including groups such as the Carnegie Housing Project, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU), Vancouver Tenants Union and the Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society. The groups came together to deliver a unified message: the lives and dignity of DTES residents must come before profit-driven policies.
Outside City Hall, protesters chanted, “Our Homes Can’t Wait” and “Homes, Not Jails” while inside, City Council considered a motion from Mayor Ken Sim to halt new supportive housing projects.
This motion follows a troubling, leaked plan in which Sim suggests prioritizing real estate investors by accelerating private development approvals, conducting a sweeping review of non-profits providing social services, and even proposing the relocation of Indigenous residents back to their home nations – an act many are calling an outright violation of human rights.
Adding to concerns over transparency, Vancouver’s Integrity Commissioner recently found that six out of seven ABC Party Vancouver Park Board commissioners violated the Vancouver Charter and the Park Board Code of Conduct by holding private meetings to discuss policy before public sessions. This pattern of secrecy and disregard for democratic norms is becoming a hallmark of Vancouver’s city council.
During the rally, DTES residents and frontline workers took the stage, sharing personal stories about the devastating impact of displacement. They spoke of dehumanization, the constant loss of life in their community, and the DTES’s critical role as a space of acceptance, support and survival for those failed by the woefully inadequate systems in place.
Despite approximately 100 community members, shelter workers, residents and addiction service experts signing up to speak before City Council – many detailing how the motion would directly lead to more homelessness, fewer support networks, and preventable deaths – the council pushed it through with a 6-2 vote in favour.
This decision reinforces what many in the DTES already know: the city is in the hands of private real estate interests that prioritize profit over people. Despite overwhelming public opposition and warnings from experts, the motion still passed, furthering the steady march toward privatization at the expense of vulnerable communities.
Now more than ever, we must unite the movement for affordable housing, involve labour organizations, and apply sustained pressure on the city. We need more emergency shelters and transitional housing. We need to build more public housing, creating jobs in related trades and expropriate property from derelict landlords and speculators who keep potential housing empty to increase its value. We need to ensure no one is forced to spend more than 20 percent of their income on shelter.
Together, we can push for policies that protect Vancouver’s most vulnerable and create a more livable city for all.
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