Background

Vancouver, BC’s Downtown Eastside has a rich history of culture and community, having been home to indigenous populations and communities of color for decades. The Downtown Eastside neighborhood has also experienced significant removal and displacement driven by economic and policy decision-making. As a result, the neighborhood currently experiences high rates of residents facing precarious employment and housing and heightened illicit activity. Despite these challenges, there remains a strong sense of pride in the Downtown Eastside, championed by longtime residents and local business owners. This is illustrated in the dedicated efforts within the community to address the current challenges, as conveyed to the panel by stakeholders.

The panel’s recommendations are anchored in honoring the history and resilience of the Downtown Eastside neighborhood. This includes recognition of indigenous populations, acknowledging historically originated patterns of discrimination and dispossession, and lifting and strengthening human dignity as central tenets. The panel also notes the importance of the city of Vancouver’s presence in addressing the presented challenges, particularly when addressing issues of affordable housing and housing creation. Panelists acknowledge the importance of expanding their conceptualization of the problem beyond the Downtown Eastside neighborhood to conceive of sustainable solutions while remaining rooted in addressing challenges specific to the area. Recommendations fall into two broad categories: (1) Commitment to production and affordability and (2) Enhancing and strengthening housing and employment-focused supportive services.

Key recommendations from the panel include

The panelists’ key recommendations include the following:

• Explore opportunities and challenges related to limited land availability by creating incentives for affordability and development, re-zoning strategies, and cultivating Environmental, Social, and Government focused REITS that would buy and manage with long-term affordability in mind, among others.
• Reduce development timelines through enhancing stakeholder engagement, increasing regulatory clarity, and identifying and enhancing innovative community benefits.
• Produce and preserve affordable and workforce housing.
• Expand and deepen community partnerships to better coordinate a system of service delivery.
• Establish a robust system of housing navigation and tools to support housing accessibility.
• Establish housing and worker-focused peer-to-peer networks, utilizing the success of similar recovery-focused models in the area.
• Establish a new housing authority that would focus on the DTES and include tri-Governmental cooperation, with affordable housing creation as a central goal. Specific structural examples from Vancouver, BC and Toronto, ON were provided as examples.