Despite Habitat Housing initiative, many provincially-owned single room occupancy hotels in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are still far below rental standards, a year later.
One former-resident believes it’s because the city needs to dedicate resources to improving the lives of those living there as a method for then improving the living conditions.
Attn: CBC Vancouver Investigative unit
Through a data-based analysis of licensed rental properties with five or more units that have current unresolved by-law issues, I have found a pattern and I think it is worth investigating further, on the ground level.
When sorting for the properties with the most outstanding issues it became apparent that all of the addresses on the list are known to the city as problem locations. So much so that in 2012 the city of Vancouver devised, in conjunction with the Ministry of Energy, Mines and Natural Gas and the Minister Responsible for Housing, a plan to address these in-distress buildings.
This plan stated that the hotels will be renovated sequentially, beginning with the Marble Arch immediately.
However, The Marble Arch Hotel located at 518 Richard St. as of Dec. 7 had 81 outstanding bylaw issues, making it the property with the most in that month. In November, the hotel had zero outstanding. A year ago last November, prior to the redevelopment; the hotel had 141 outstanding issues.
I would like to divulge deeper into the reasoning behind this fluctuation. Is the location ultimately the determinant of the properties regeneration? Or were the plans implemented not followed through successfully?
Gladys Radek believes it is because the people living there need a similar focus of improvement when it comes to mental health and substance abuse problems. As a long-time resident and volunteer in Vancouver’s DTES she has seen firsthand the perpetual cycle SRO’s in disarray can cause.
I plan on speaking with bylaw services, Councillor Kerry Jang, who has worked closely on housing standards and management for areas like the Downtown Eastside, and the current owner of the property to develop this.
Most of the other ‘worst offenders’ topping the list are worth noting, as a further development were also included in this redevelopment project. They included:
The Regal Hotel, 1046 Granville St., which through research has been established as having bed bug issues.
The Clifton Hotel, 1125 Granville St., noted to have melted electrical devices, no running water for six days, the lack of fire walls between floors and walls, inoperable washrooms and feuding owners.
Hazelwood Hotel, 344 E Hastings St., which also has been flagged as having beg bugs.
Although construction is expected to be completed over the next five years I feel there is enough workable material through various aspects of this data that this could turn into more than a single item, and has potential to become vignettes of the area as a whole, through the lens of these various property issues.
They’re have been slow improvements, however, through archive research I have seen that the numbers for these buildings a year ago, were only incrementally higher than they are now.
Because the data is updated daily, I have been, and will continue to take snapshots of the data on the same day each month to continue to monitor the patterns.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and developing this pitch into a workable, impactful and interesting story.
Vancouver outstanding bylaw issues Nov. 7 [15 or more]
Vancouver outstanding bylaw issues Dec. 7 [15 or more]
http://infogr.am/residential-by-law-infractions-slow-to-change?src=web
Rachel Aiello