A new trend is emerging in Vancouver’s poverty-plagued Downtown Eastside.
Faced with either compliance or a date with a judge, many owners of buildings with single-room-occupancy housing are spending the money to repair their buildings sufficiently to meet city safety standards, the city says.
“This is a good news story,” Vancouver Coun. Tim Stevenson said Thursday of the changes taking place in some of the worst hotels in the city.
“There were basic standards which weren’t being maintained before, and now in the last couple of years, with the owners facing the possibility of a court injunction, they are coming into compliance.”
Stevenson said the concerns are for the safety of people living in the buildings.
Violations at the SRO accommodations included damaged roofs, pipes, plumbing, fixtures and walls. Unsafe electrical wiring and obstructed exits were other problems at some of the sites.
“In one place, the elevator had ceased to operate and the old people and disabled had to walk up the stairs,” he said.
New statistics released Thursday indicate that the city’s increased enforcement of maintenance and safety-related bylaws has led to improved compliance at many of the single-room occupancy buildings in the Downtown Eastside.
Since April of 2009, city staff have taken action on 28 SRO buildings in the Downtown Eastside that had significant and ongoing bylaw violations.
The increased enforcement, and the threat of legal injunctions, has resulted in 24 of 28 SRO buildings either fully complying or being in the process of complying.
“The city’s work to strengthen our enforcement on building maintenance and safety codes is paying off,” said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson.
“Council’s direction to seek out new tools, including legal injunctions, as a way to gain compliance on Downtown Eastside buildings, is achieving solid improvements.
“The people who live in these buildings are among the most marginalized citizens in our city. Making sure these buildings are maintained to a basic level of safety is crucial to ensuring a continued supply of low-income housing, and preventing people from ending up on the street.”
City staff will go before council in upcoming weeks to seek legal injunctions to ensure that four other buildings are brought into compliance if their owners fail to act on city orders.
“We take these violations very seriously,” said Robertson. “The overwhelming majority of building operators follow the rules and ensure the proper maintenance of their buildings.
“However, for those who repeatedly ignore city orders to fix their violations, we have, and will continue to, seek legal injunctions to ensure compliance.
“It’s a simple matter of safety for Vancouver’s citizens.”
Stevenson said the city will have to keep close tabs on hotel owners through regular inspections to ensure they continue to keep the place up to code.
Pivot Legal Society lawyer and affordable-housing advocate Doug King said that while some improvements have helped those living in the SROs, there are still big problems.
“With the private-run buildings, we haven’t been getting an indication things have improved,” said King.
Among the biggest concerns is the rampant bedbug and cockroach infestation in the hotels, King said.
“The health conditions haven’t changed much,” he said. “There are still widespread complaints about bedbugs.”
Longtime Downtown Eastside resident Alex Sinclair, 73, said the SROs are still dangerous places to live.
Standing outside the Balmoral Hotel Thursday, Sinclair pointed down East Hastings Street and said the rampant use of drugs in the block has turned all the hotels into war zones.
“This used to be a good skid row,” he said. “Now you have all the drugs.
“The drugs are the problem down here. You show me a good place to stay. These rooms are all infested with bedbugs.”
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