Downtown Eastside - Building a Common Future

POLICY REPORT

URBAN STRUCTURE, SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT,

HEALTH AND PUBLIC SAFETY

Date: July 17, 1998

Author/Local: TDroettboom 6254

CC File No. 8104

TO: Vancouver City Council

FROM: General Manager of Community Services

SUBJECT: Downtown Eastside - Building a Common Future

RECOMMENDATIONS

A.THAT Council reaffirm the following principles to provide general guidance to Downtown Eastside actions and planning:

…Housing for existing residents will be maintained and upgraded;

…Diversity of housing will be encouraged;

…Adequate services for treatment of addiction must be provided;

…Criminal activity will not be tolerated;

…Legitimate commercial activity will be encouraged; and

…The entire community will be encouraged to be part of the revitalization of the area.

B.THAT the recommendations contained in the attached report, A Program of Strategic Actions for the Downtown Eastside, be referred to a Committee meeting in September after community review.

C.THAT the attached reports — Background Paper on Drug Treatment Needs in Vancouver; A Housing Plan for the Downtown Eastside, Chinatown, Gastown and Strathcona; The Victory Square Area Concept Plan; and The Gastown Land Use Plan — be received for information and be provided as background for discussions on planning the future of the Downtown Eastside and surrounding communities.

D.THAT, following public and senior government consideration of the proposals in the Program of Strategic Actions, City staff report back on a detailed process for involving all community stakeholders and responsible governments in defining a common future for the Downtown Eastside and building a longer-term action plan to ensure that future.

COUNCIL POLICY

Council has adopted the following principles which are relevant to City initiatives and planning in the Downtown Eastside:

…Housing for existing residents will be maintained and upgraded;

…Diversity of housing will be encouraged;

…Adequate services for treatment of addiction must be provided;

…Criminal activity will not be tolerated;

…Legitimate commercial activity will be encouraged; and

…The entire community will be encouraged to be part of the revitalization of the area.

Other relevant policies are set out in the attached report.

BACKGROUND

The Downtown Eastside is one of the City’s oldest communities and the historic heart of Vancouver. Once the City’s principal shopping district, it attracted people from throughout the region. Above the retail facades and in hotels, the area housed a large low-income population composed mostly of older single adults who found a seasonal or permanent home in the area. The hotels and other residences were also shared by an urban First Nations population and by waves of poorer immigrants.

The Downtown Eastside has consistently accommodated more than its fair share of people with problems. Some residents have had physical or mental disabilities, been the victims of dysfunctional families, or been addicted to alcohol or drugs. The area holds the City’s highest concentration of licensed liquor establishments and social services.

Until recently, in spite of many difficulties, the Downtown Eastside has maintained a healthy sense of community. People cared for one another and visitors felt safe, if not entirely comfortable, on the area’s streets.

However, the last few years have not been kind to the Downtown Eastside or to its residents. While many residents continue to look after one another, the streets have been taken over by a younger, rougher, meaner crowd attracted by an active drug market. The drug of choice is increasingly injection cocaine, a drug that requires its hyper-active victims to shoot-up as many as twenty or even more times a day. To support their constant craving, cocaine addicts steal and steal again. Auto glass from car break-ins litters the area’s curbs and gutters. Pawnshops and second-hand dealers have sprung up to receive stolen merchandise and provide the cash required for the next fix. All-night cafes and convenience stores have become fronts for drug dealers, replacing the retailers that used to serve the neighbourhood and visitors. Now many of the area’s visitors are only there for the drugs and related activities. Of those arrested for criminal activity in the area, the majority live outside the neighbourhood.

The new drugs and associated crime have brought new problems. Increased injection drug use and sharing of needles have contributed to an HIV epidemic. Unable to attract and retain legitimate tenants, many of the area’s storefronts have been closed and boarded up. Parts of the Downtown Eastside look abandoned. Some poorly managed hotels and rooming houses have been effectively taken over by drug dealers and strung-out addicts. Rooms and entire buildings have been trashed, reducing the stock of acceptable housing for everyone.

The phase-out of the Province’s mental health institutions has brought more disturbed and disturbing people into the neighbourhood. Without housing and support services in their own communities, the mentally ill turn to the Downtown Eastside for its inexpensive housing, social services, and high tolerance.

The neighbourhood is becoming more and more isolated from the rest of Vancouver and its residents are feeling increasingly under siege. Perceiving the area as primarily as a haven of drugs and crime, fewer and fewer people who live elsewhere go there now. Although still a community of many strengths, the Downtown Eastside is in a downward spiral, which severely threatens its continued health and security.

Adding to the sense of threat is new development at the area’s edges. Some people worry that new condominiums in International Village, in Gastown and in City Gate, and the planned Trade and Convention Centre on the waterfront to the north will bring further development interest to the area. Although new investment can assist with the Downtown Eastside’s revitalization, some see it as conflicting with the neighbourhood’s traditional role as a place for the less advantaged. Low income resident groups have clashed with new higher-income neighbours and with Gastown and Chinatown business groups about the area’s future.

DISCUSSION

Within its limited jurisdiction and resources, the City of Vancouver has been working hard to assist the Downtown Eastside. It has increased police on the street, opened new neighbourhood safety offices, passed by-laws to limit the growth of pawnshops and second-hand stores, and closed problem hotels and businesses. The City has also required business plans and good neighbour agreements from new businesses, sought increased security in vacant buildings, enhanced street cleaning and lighting, provided land for new social housing projects, and supported the neighbourhood in clean-up and beautification projects.

Many of these initiatives are described in A Program of Strategic Actions for the Downtown Eastside, which accompanies this policy report. Some of the initiatives may be having an effect, as the rates of crime and of HIV infection are beginning to decrease.

The Program of Strategic Actions also recommends some new initiatives that the City can undertake to further its commitment to the neighbourhood and to the restoration of basic livability. Other necessary actions can only be taken by the senior governments responsible for the Criminal Code, the justice system, immigration, drug treatment and prevention, health, social housing, and social welfare. The Program of Strategic Actions addresses short-term steps which need to be taken now either to put City initiatives into gear or to persuade senior governments to honour their mandated responsibilities. By tackling immediate problems, it establishes a foundation for future positive change. It is expected that the proposals in this document are widely supported. Full and immediate implementation is recommended, subject to community review culminating in September.

Also accompanying this policy report are four draft documents (on file in the City Clerk’s Office) which are longer-term in nature and intended to serve as background for discussions about the future of the area. These are:

•740•Background Paper on Drug Treatment Needs in Vancouver;•740

•740•A Housing Plan for the Downtown Eastside, Chinatown, Gastown and Strathcona;•740

•740•The Victory Square Concept Plan; and•740

•740•The Gastown Land Use Plan.•740

Some of the long-term proposals in these reports are controversial. They raise questions about what long-term actions will secure the future of the area as a viable place to live or conduct business. We recommend that Council not deal with these documents at this time, but instead receive them for information and provide them to the public as context for a community-building exercise to take place this fall. Work is also underway evaluating the desirably and feasibility of contentious mechanisms for managing the conversion of single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotels. This work should be available for discussion later in the fall.

The area’s problems are hugely difficult, and there are no simple or easy answers. Effective solutions to similar problems in other cities throughout the world have eluded governments and city administrations. The initiatives contained in the Program of Strategic Actions will begin to provide a foundation upon which we can build longer-term initiatives to stabilize and improve the area. However, these actions alone will not be sufficient. The City needs to facilitate the development of a shared action plan that involves all levels of government and all interest groups with a stake in the area. The Downtown Eastside community, its neighbours, the City of Vancouver, and the senior governments must all agree on a course of action, and commit the substantial talent and resources that will be required.

Achieving agreement will not be easy. There is common ground — rooted in safety, security, and diversity — but little consensus in the area of policy. Many strongly held views will need to be reflected in the action plan. The City’s efforts will need to focus on reaching agreement on actions to address the area’s problems, initially short-term, expanding over time to firmer longer-term directions. While more firm, these directions will also have to be robust and adaptable to changes which we cannot now predict. And they cannot be dogmatic. Neither ghettoization or gentrification will be acceptable alternatives. Compromise will be required. The process will clearly be difficult. However, it is too important not to undertake, and the alternative is unacceptable.

To provide overall contextual direction to this community building, to maintain needed security around some fragile concepts, and to make sure that there is no ambiguity around Council’s inalterable desire to achieve some important outcomes, staff recommend that Council formally reaffirm the following basic principles to guide both the planning process and interim short-term actions:

…Housing for existing residents will be maintained and upgraded;.

…Diversity of housing will be encouraged;

…Adequate services for treatment of addiction must be provided;

…Criminal activity will not be tolerated;

…Legitimate commercial activity will be encouraged; and

…The entire community will be encouraged to be part of the revitalization of the area.

These principles are consistent with Council’s past policy and practice, and they represent no fundamental change in direction. Nevertheless, they are worth restating.

Vancouver has an enviable reputation throughout the world as a city that finds common ground among differences and builds upon these to create a city that works for everyone. We are confident that, with hard work, we can develop an action plan that will restore the Downtown Eastside to the vitality and health it has enjoyed in the past. * * * * *

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