Vancouver mayor rejects new supportive housing projects, promises ‘crackdown’ on gangs

The mayor of Vancouver dropped a bombshell announcement Friday while speaking at a public safety forum.

Vancouver’s mayor intends to reject any new supportive housing projects proposed in his city, as he promises an undefined police response against “criminal networks.”

Ken Sim made the major policy announcements Thursday at a public safety forum organized by the Save Our Streets coalition of community and business groups.

“I’ll be bringing a motion to council to pause any net new supportive housing units in the city of Vancouver until we see increased housing availability across the region,” he said. “It’s also time for other communities to step up and develop supportive housing in their communities as well.”

He said while Vancouver has 25 per cent of the region’s population, 77 per cent of the supportive housing, 67 per cent of shelter spaces and more than half the social housing is in the city.

“Despite the fact that hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in (the Downtown Eastside), this approach has failed,” he told attendees. “We need to rethink the hyper-concentration of services in the Downtown Eastside.”

Reaction and criticism

Sim’s argument that there shouldn’t be a concentration of supports and services in that area was supported by some of the other speakers at the SOS forum, and B.C.’s housing minister also agreed with part of his speech.

“If the mayor’s goal is to try to get others in the region to do their part, I’m sympathetic to that, because we haven’t seen enough action from others,” said Ravi Kahlon in an interview with CTV News. “We’ve been trying to build supportive housing in Tri-Cities because we know the need is there – in the region, as a whole – but it’s difficult to get community leaders to agree on where they want to have it.”

Kahlon believes supportive housing is a more effective use of taxpayer dollars, as well, citing 50 per cent reductions in hospital stays and 33 per cent reductions in incarcerations as a result.

He also suggested that if Sim’s priority is crime reduction, he should want more supportive housing because without it “you have people living in parks, living in encampments, sleeping on bus stops that is actually more unsafe for communities than having people indoors with the support they need.”

The new policy has also shocked housing advocates who are trying to convince policymakers to expand housing options of all kinds.

“This is a regressive move because we know that Vancouver has a severe housing shortage, and we need housing of all types,” said Peter Waldkirch, with Abundant Housing Vancouver. “The very last thing we need is for cities to start pointing the finger at each other and using their powers to actually block housing, because we know that the solution to homelessness is more housing, and building less supportive housing just means more homelessness.”

Mayor calls city a ‘hub’ for organized crime

Sim also suggested there is a “poverty-industrial complex” in the Downtown Eastside, describing the area as a hub for gangs and drug activity, and promised a Vancouver police “crackdown” on organized crime.

“We’ll support the Vancouver Police Department (in) launching a city-wide crackdown on gangs, equipping law enforcement with the tools to target these criminal networks that prey on our most vulnerable residents” he said. “To be clear, this will not be an easy fight, but is one that’s necessary.”

Earlier at the SOS forum, VPD Chief Const. Adam Palmer was clear that total crime in Vancouver was down seven per cent in the city, according to their statistics, but said many crimes are unreported and the perception of public safety is “of the utmost concern to us as police leaders.”