Dan Fumano: ABC campaigned — and won big — in the last election on promises to boost police funding and clean up the Downtown Eastside. But some of the party’s recent moves have drawn surprise and criticism.
As ABC Vancouver works to transform the Downtown Eastside, the ruling party’s vision is taking shape, including more policing, more market housing, a freeze on supportive housing, and more scrutiny of non-profit service providers.
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To many, including the hundreds of protesters who rallied Wednesday outside city hall, these changes seem harmful, misguided, and designed to help the wealthy at the expense of the marginalized.
For others, including many of those who voted to give ABC a resounding council majority in the 2022 civic election, this approach to the beleaguered neighbourhood seems badly needed and long overdue.
These efforts will not entirely come as a surprise. ABC’s hugely successful election campaign in 2022 promised to boost police funding, improve public safety, and clean up downtown neighbourhoods including the Downtown Eastside, Chinatown and Gastown.
But certain elements of ABC’s approach — including the mayor’s proposal to halt the construction of “net-new” housing for people at risk of homelessness — have caught people off-guard. The mayor’s proposal has prompted backlash from several corners — this week, council heard opposition from ABC’s political rivals, as well as representatives of business, labour, advocacy and non-profit organizations.
On Tuesday, city staff presented council with an update to council on work in the Downtown Eastside, including housing, health, economic development and poverty reduction. Following the presentation, ABC Coun. Brian Montague proposed directing city staff to compile a “comprehensive list” of non-profit and non-governmental organizations operating the Downtown Eastside and their funding from all sources.
This information, Montague said, would help the city ensure “dollars are being spent optimally.” Most of his ABC colleagues agreed.
But Montague’s proposal was opposed by ABC colleague Coun. Lisa Dominato, Green Coun. Pete Fry, and now-independent Coun. Rebecca Bligh, who was elected on the ABC slate in 2022 before being kicked out of the party earlier this month when party leadership said she was “not aligned” with its priorities.
Bligh called Montague’s proposal “a colossal waste of time,” and said that any politician suggesting that “the problem is housing folks who would otherwise be homeless, or services that are making sure that people get a meal, should really think twice about why they’re in this chamber.”
Speaking after Tuesday’s meeting, Steve Johnston, a facilitator with the Coordinated Community Response Centre, a coalition of dozens of organizations doing work in and around the Downtown Eastside, said that despite what he called council’s “denigration” of local non-profits, the sector still wants to work with the mayor and ABC councillors.
“I’d say to the mayor and ABC: ‘The community is here to help,’” Johnston said. “‘Despite the frayed state of our current relationship, we’re still here extending a helping hand because that’s what we do. We help where others see a lost cause.’”
Bligh introduced her own motion this week, seeking to invite a delegation from the provincial Ministry of Housing to speak with council to discuss the implications of halting supportive housing. Her motion was seconded by Dominato, who represents ABC but has also publicly raised concerns about Sim’s proposal, and supported by Fry. The motion was defeated when all other ABC councillors opposed it.
Speaking in opposition to Bligh’s motion, Sim said his office was already in “regular conversations with the provincial government, so I really don’t think we need a motion to keep that work going.”
Bligh replied: “The notion that the mayor’s office meets with Ministry of Housing and B.C. Housing staff and that should give us any comfort that we’re getting real information is laughable. … The idea that I’m now being asked to trust the information that’s coming through the mayor’s office on this particular issue, that’s tone-deaf. That’s not reading the room. I would like to hear from the Ministry of Housing and B.C. Housing.”
While the people who addressed council Wednesday afternoon overwhelmingly opposed the motion, the mayor’s proposal received support from some quarters. In a joint letter to council, a group of Chinatown business and cultural organizations wrote to support Sim’s motion.
The letter argues that an increase in supportive housing in the neighbourhood over the past decade has not led to the desired outcomes of alleviating homelessness, but instead has coincided with an increase in the number of people struggling with addictions and chronic homelessness.
As of Wednesday afternoon, members of the public continued to address council about the mayor’s motion.