Sun Tzu (The Art of War) & the DTES Local Area Plan

By Herb Varley

How can an ancient Chinese text and the Local Area Plan (LAP) be connected? Well for starters, I read the book several times while I was co-chair of the LAP process. As I read the book, its teachings slowly entered my mind, and mixed in with my own wisdom and experience. The students of Sun Tzu call this the art of taking whole.

An example of Sun Tzu’s “taking whole” concept was the makeup of the LAP committee itself. The committee was made up of 30 people and they came from all walks of life. The City took this to mean that the committee represented the community as a whole. When there was some outside chirping, the City would often organize roundtables and feedback sessions. This was done to make it appear that the City was taking input as a whole and working to make a plan. But appearances can hide the reality of city control over the process.

Which brings me to my next point. Another teaching of Sun Tzu is: The military (application of force in this sense) is a Tao (roughly means “way”) of deception. For example, when able, manifest inability. The word “manifest” means “to make clear to the eye or understanding.”

The city used the Tao of deception when a large portion of the committee voted for a firm clear definition of social housing. The City staff and the people who ‘’represent us’’ at City Hall said they couldn’t do that. After manifesting themselves as being unable to do anything about making a definition for social housing, they did just that. I guess they can only manifest this ability behind closed doors. With about half of the committee outraged, they suddenly found ability to manifest a definition of social housing, and their inability disappeared like a fart in the wind.

Another teaching: When near, manifest as far. When far, manifest as near.

If you’re a long time reader of the DT East (I hope you are), you’ll have at least some idea of the housing crisis here in Vancouver. Now Vision Vancouver and Co. are in a bit of a tough situation. You remember that when Mr. Happy Planet first got elected, he promised to end homelessness by 2015. They are obviously way off of this target (i.e., far), so how do they make it appear that they are closer (i.e., near)?

Well, what the city will do is make a big deal out of announcing a permit application (note: application means nothing has actually been done yet) for affordable housing, and then they’ll announce that the application went through. They’ll do the same when a housing provider is selected, then when demolition starts, when shovels hit the ground, and at the completion of the building. When the first tenant moves in, they’ll have a huge press conference and a lot of backslapping and hand shaking (not to mention bootlicking and ass kissing).

Now if you are at least pretending to pay attention to what’s going on with the housing crisis, it will seem like there is a lot happening. However, by my count that’s no less than 7 announcements for one project. This means that to a lot of people, Vision and Co. have manifested themselves as being 7 times (at least) more successful than they are.

This has been only the briefest look into what I have learned by taking part in the LAP while also learning about Sun Tzu. I shall continue to read this book and eventually its words will wholly mix with my wisdom and hopefully I can do some good with this ancient text.

 

DTES Local Area Plan: What did we get? What did we lose?

By Jean Swanson and Harold Lavender

Vancouver has approved the DTES Local Area Plan. What will be its positive and negative effects? Was it worth the three-year effort put in by low-income reps to work with the City?

What We Won

There are few useful things. The plan includes the 60% social housing and 40% rental housing zoning for the

Art by Diane Wood

Oppenheimer area. This will slow gentrification in this area. People on welfare will be able to afford to live in 1/3 of the new social housing in the DTES, except Chinatown.

A strong community backed campaign led the City to include an Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Centre in the plan. Staff have been told to work on it. There is a lot of work to do to make sure such a centre reflects a genuine aboriginal healing vision. But it is possible.

What We Lost

The DTES will continue to be gentrified and low-income residents will be displaced. There will be no slowing of rapid market development except in the Oppenheimer area. Ten units of condos and expensive rentals will be built for every one unit of social housing at welfare rates. The City’s social mix model will make the DTES a mostly middle income area over the 30 year life of the plan.

The city will subsidize SRO owners to upgrade rooms but without rent controls (there is only a non binding target of 1/3 available at welfare rates). Rents could skyrocket. 3350 low income residents are at high risk of being pushed out. The number of proposed new social housing units is far too low and there is far too little commitment of government money to meet the low income residents’ basic housing needs. Meanwhile the city has approved micro suites of as little as 250 square feet in the DTES, as opposed to 400 in the rest of the city. Those squished into tiny spaces will probably want to move out as soon as something better is available.

The terms of reference said the plan was to make the future better for low-income and vulnerable people. But the City ignored this and wrote a plan that didn’t reflect the urgent housing crisis low-income residents kept telling them about.

Some people say the result wasn’t worth the effort. But probably if low-income people hadn’t been on the committee, we would not have gotten the rezoning of the Oppenheimer area. After a huge fight we got a legal definition of social housing that requires 1/3 of social housing in the DTES (except Chinatown) at welfare rates. This is very far short of our goal of 100 percent of new social housing in the DTES accessible at welfare rates. But if we hadn’t pushed hard it would have been legal for social housing to exclude everyone on welfare and disability.

Fightback

The bad things in the plan mean the low income community will be destroyed unless we fight back really hard.

There is no law with teeth to stop business and housing gentrification. Meanwhile people with money are buying up SROs, evicting people, renovating them, and increasing rents. We need to organize with SRO residents to stop evictions and work towards city and provincial policies that grant SRO residents rights and protection against renovictions.

At the same time, governments at all levels are failing to use tax money to invest in basic social needs such as housing. We need to step up pressure to stop giving tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations, and spend more money on the public good.

 

How a definition can displace a community: defining ‘social housing’ in the DTES planning process

By Jean Swanson

In terms of affordability, the citywide target in new social housing is 50% at income assistance or Household Income Limits (HILs) and 50% at affordable market rents. To address housing need in the Downtown Eastside and achieve the policy objectives of this plan, the target for affordability for new social housing for the Downtown Eastside will be one-third at income assistance, one-third up to HILs and one-third at affordable market rents. In pursuing this target, greater flexibility may be required to provide opportunities to maximize the delivery of social housing.  – “Definition of social housing: target for affordability,” from the DTES Local Area Plan draft vision.

On March 12th we need to go to city council and fight for a definition of social housing. It sounds crazy, but a definition of social housing is one of the most important parts of the Local Area Plan that the city will probably approve on that day. City staff want a definition of social housing that means people on welfare and disability and basic pension won’t be able to afford it. Here’s the story.

We need 5000 units of new self contained social housing in the DTES to house homeless people and people who live in hotel rooms now. The city’s draft Local Area Plan proposes to build 4400 units of social housing over the next 30 years. In the past, when we heard the word social housing, we assumed that people on welfare and disability would be able to afford it. That’s true of most of the social housing units in the DTES that are run by BC Housing. You pay the welfare shelter rate or 30% of your income for rent. If you’re on welfare, you’re not excluded from BC Housing.

But the city’s definition of social housing is housing that is owned by a non profit or government and the rents have to be as follows: half of the units have to rent for the Housing Income Limits (HILS) or below. The HILS rate for a bachelor unit is $850 a month. The other half can be at affordable market rent. This means $1400 or more for a bachelor unit. Nothing HAS TO be at welfare shelter rate. But, because low-income reps on the LAP committee fought hard, the draft plan proposes a special definition for the DTES: one-third at welfare shelter rate; one-third up to HILS; and one-third at “affordable” market. This is a little better than the city-wide definition, but not nearly good enough. With this definition, the city proposes that over the next 30 years, the DTES should get 4400 more new social housing units to replace the SROs. BUT, only a third of them, or 1452, will be at welfare rate. And this is over 30 years! Many SRO residents who need good social housing will be dead in 30 years.

There’s another problem with the definition of social housing. The draft plan also says that the city will give incentives to SRO hotel rooms to upgrade to social housing and have a kitchen and bathroom. Sounds good. BUT this means two hotel rooms would have to be combined, reducing the number of rooms available by half. Where do the evicted people go? And, since its going to be “social housing,” how much of it will low income people on welfare, disability or basic pension, be able to afford? Using the example of the American Hotel, only six units out of 42 are renting for $400 (actually above welfare shelter rate) and that for only ten years. The other rooms are renting at $500-675.

So that’s how a definition can displace a community. But not if we fight back. Be sure to mark March 12 on your calendar and come to city hall to speak out for a definition of social housing that doesn’t exclude low-income people.

DTES Low-Income Caucues demands versus the City’s Local Area Plan (a quick view)

 

Consultation is not consent: reflecting on community participation in a city planning process

By Harold Lavender

(*See a point-by-point quick summary of the differences between the Low-Income Caucus’s plan and the City’s DTES Local Area Plan here)

The DTES Local Area Planning Process is rapidly winding down to an unsatisfactory conclusion. When low-income caucus members

petition on the street for our demands, we feel overwhelming support. Community members favour building much more social housing, so that they won’t be displaced and can afford to live here. They want to control the spread of high-end stores and create better services which meet our needs in a dignified way.

Cartoon by Diane Wood

But the spirit of the sprawling 183 page draft report is very alien to what we are hearing on the street. Not everything in the report is bad but overall it falls extremely short of what low-income residents want and deserve.

How did this happen?

As an original DNC board member, I helped negotiate the LAPP terms of reference. We reached enough agreement to proceed. The City signed off on a mandate which aimed to improve the lives of local residents, particularly the low-income and vulnerable. It agreed to work in partnership with the LAPP committee that consisted of a low-income majority and fully reflected its diverse nature (women, aboriginal, people of colour, etc.).

However, as soon as the committee was formed, the City begun to back pedal and revert to all its bad habits and ways of doing things. This was hardly a surprise. Although many objections were raised by the LAPP committee, it lacked the ability to block the City from doing what it wanted.

During the process we felt the City staff were avoiding the terms of reference. In the latest public City document, the “interests of all” has replaced any reference to low-income community. City staff have claimed it is just a change of wording to make the report more widely acceptable. But to low-income reps it was a violation of the signed commitment and a surrender to pro-gentrification pressures. It is a clear statement that the Local Area Plan would not rock the boat or change existing power relationships in favour of low-income and oppressed people.

Gallery Gachet LAPP representative Karen Ward at the City’s open house on housing

Low-income reps did get to speak their mind. But they felt their words were ignored, filtered and diluted. We tried to convey a sense of urgency and express the deep anger and extreme frustration community members felt about rapid gentrification. However the draft report is as bland and non-committal as possible and it lacks any sense of outrage or passion for social justice.

City staff often monopolized LAPP meetings with lengthy presentations. And committee members were buried in never ending mountains of paper filled with inaccessible mumbo jumbo. The vague language often skirted key issues and was lacking in clear commitments.

Questions were not always answered promptly. We had asked the City for a definition of social housing from the beginning and it was not given till late in the process.

Despite the efforts of some LAPP committee members, City-organized meetings and surveys did not reflect the social composition of the community. The sample was heavily weighted to those with higher income and home-owners who found it easier to deal with complicated reports and had full online access.

Meanwhile city staff on their own produced a lengthy 183 page report. This confirmed the feeling of low-income members that we had been taken for a long ride in which the major decisions were made elsewhere.

At the same time, pro-gentrification groups opposed to more low-income social housing and controls on condos and businesses began to organize. Much of this was done in closed-door meetings with the City. They also began to woo organizations seeking benefits and funding from development.

There are differences in every community. Handled well they can be healthy. But when groups that have a proven history of working for social justice and low-income community interests (like CCAP and the original DNC) are regularly trashed, it becomes a soap opera and huge distraction.

The current DNC board eventually succeeded in removing Herb Varley, a young aboriginal man and LAPP co-chair, from the committee. Appalled low-income caucus members strongly protested this disrespectful decision. We felt it would greatly disrupt the continuity and work of the committee.

The City washed its hands of the matter.

Despite these obstacles and antagonisms, the low-income caucus remains committed to holding regular town halls and seeking a mandate from the low-income majority of the DTES.

Plans and Profiteers: The scoop on the draft DTES Local Area Plan

By Tamara Herman

The City has finally released its draft Local Area Plan (LAP) for the DTES and the plan is under fire from all sides. Some people who

Town hall meeting about the DTES Local Area Plan, Nov 30, 2013 (Pic. CCAP)

want to see the DTES become a higher-income neighbourhood say that the plan gives too much housing and power to low-income residents. Others say that the plan is a blueprint for social mix that will destroy the low-income community. City Council can adopt the plan as it is, change it, or reject it.

A close read of the 183-page document shows that there are a few victories for the low-income community. The major victory is that any new housing in the Oppenheimer Area will have to be 60% social housing and 40% rental, which will keep the rents in the SROs from going up too fast and will make land cheaper for social housing. But the plan will displace more low-income residents in other areas of the DTES. The social housing that is left in the DTES might be mostly supportive housing. Importantly, the plan falls short of its promise to honour and respect Indigenous people.

Healing, power and Indigenous people

Members of the Low-Income Caucus told the City that healing and power in decision-making are key to working for justice for Indigenous people in the DTES. They have been pushing the City to fund an Aboriginal Healing Centre designed and run by Indigenous people as a first step. The City says it will support community efforts to build a “Coast Salish Village” concept, which isn’t the same thing and isn’t clearly explained in the Plan. Beyond the tourist-oriented development of a “Coast Salish Village” and a smattering of sentences recognizing the Indigenous history of the DTES, there is little in the way of action to end and bring justice to legacies and practices of colonialism in the DTES.

What housing crisis?

If you read through the DTES Local Area Plan but had never been in the neighbourhood, you wouldn’t know just how bad the housing crisis is. The plan never clearly says that the 5,000 people living in awful SROs and 730 people sleeping on the streets and in shelters are on the frontlines of a severe housing crisis. Instead of insisting that there is a housing emergency in the DTES, the City seems to be saying that the problem is under control.

The City is only planning to kick in $50 million of the total $820 million the LAP says will be spent on social housing. The rest is supposed to come from developers and other levels of government. We know that developers won’t build unless there’s a profit to be made. But how can the City hope to push senior government for upwards of $525 million if it doesn’t clearly say that there’s a housing crisis?

The City does not commit to acquiring any more land, and the number of units it promises to build simply isn’t enough. If you crunch the numbers, the City plan calls for 10 unaffordable, mostly market units, for each unit of welfare rate social housing. This means that low-income people will soon be outnumbered in the DTES. This will destroy our DTES community.

Social versus supportive housing

What will the social housing that is left in the DTES look like? The plan stresses the importance of building more supportive housing. It repeats the false claim that 2/3 of the homeless people and half of the SRO residents struggle with “Serious Addictions and Mental Illness” (SAMI).

The plan hints that much of the social housing in the future DTES will be heavily institutionalized and controlled supportive housing. Of course, some people want to live in supportive housing. Others look for support in other less controlling places.

Low-Income Caucus member Karen Ward says, “people need homes, income and friends for recovery.” Ward is worried that the City is basing its strategy on the Mayor’s Task Force on Mental Health and Addictions. The Task Force is made up mostly of psychiatrists and professionals instead of people who survive with mental health issues and addictions. Since the Task Force is only starting, nobody knows what it will recommend.

Low-Income residents in the DTES have their own vision of what the neighbourhood needs to support people living with addictions and mental health issues. Peer-run services, an Aboriginal Healing and Wellness Centre and treatment on demand are central to this vision.

The importance of a low-income community

More and more studies have shown that a community where people have friendships, places they can afford to shop and services they need are part of health and recovery. The draft Local Area Plan might have some goodies for the low-income community. The overall picture, however, means low-income people won’t get the housing they need in a reasonable period of time. If you think it’s important to fight for more decent housing that homeless people and SRO residents can afford, come to City Council on March 12th for a rally and to speak to Council. Call CCAP at 604 729 2380 for details or check out http://ccapvancouver.wordpress.com/.

 

Condos flood into Oppenheimer area while City stalls on planning process

By Jean Swanson

While the City stalls on the Local Area Planning Process (LAPP), the heart of the DTES community is being taken over by condo and market housing developments. The latest is a proposal for 24 condos and only 5 social housing units (probably only 2 or 3 at rents people on welfare can afford) at 626 Alexander.

The LAPP was supposed to be passed by Council on Nov. 20, but was then pushed to January. Now it seems like it might not get to Council until March. All of this is because the City keeps missing its own deadlines for developing the draft plan. And LAPP Committee members want time to see the plan and get input on it before it goes to council.

The delay is not good. It gives developers time to organize against new zoning in the Oppenheimer district. And it opens the door to a flood of new condo applications.

One of the good proposals for the LAPP is to rezone the Oppenheimer area so that new developments that take up more space than the lot they are on must have 60% social housing and 40% market housing. This would block condos, keep property values down, and relieve pressure on hotel room rents. With lower property values, it’s more likely that non profit groups and government could afford the property for social housing.

Current zoning in the Oppenheimer area requires only 20% social housing. So developers are rushing to get their condo projects put through city processes before the city agrees to the 60-40 proposal. So far developers in the Oppenheimer area have these projects in the works:

• 138 E. Hastings:  79 condos plus 18 social housing, only 9 of those at welfare rents;
• 557 E. Cordova:  24 condos plus 5 social housing units at welfare rents;
• 179 Main:  47 market rental units plus 9 social housing units (don’t know how many at welfare rents);
• 626 Alexander: 24 condos plus 5 social housing units (don’t know how many at welfare rents).

If all these projects go ahead, there could be 174 more market housing units in the precious Oppenheimer area, the heart of the DTES, with only about 21 units of social housing at welfare rates. The City’s 2005 DTES Housing Plan calls for market housing and social housing to proceed at the same rate. But, at this rate, market housing in the future of this area will be at the rate of 8 market units to 1 social housing unit that people on welfare and disability can afford. The plan also calls for the Oppenheimer area to take the lion’s share of new social housing.

Who knows how many more market housing units will sneak in before the LAPP is completed? Or, will developers put so much pressure on City Council that they don’t even pass the 60-40?

If you want to speak out, an open house for the Alexander St. project is being held at the Jim Green Residents, 415 Alexander St. on Nov. 19, from 5pm to 7:30 pm.

Storm Brewing: Local Area Plan and the Future of the DTES

By Jean Swanson and Harold Lavender

The fight over the future of the DTES is heating up. A DTES Local Area Plan that could last up to thirty years will be presented to City Council for a vote, probably in March.

The purpose of the Local Area Planning Process (LAPP) is supposed to be “to improve the future of all residents, especially low-income and vulnerable people….”

Low-income residents and advocates are concerned that the City’s plan will fall far short of what’s needed to improve the lives of people in the DTES.

Many are feeling there is nothing for Indigenous people in the plan and it will not create nearly enough social housing that people in the community can afford to live in. They don’t see the plan dealing with important social justice issues.  It won’t stop gentrification and displacement.

However, one city staff recommendation in the draft plan would help the low-income community. The Oppenheimer area of the DTES would be zoned for 60% social housing and 40% market rentals. This would block condo development in the area and prevent rising property values from pushing up SRO rents.

In the next four months low-income community representatives will be organizing and advocating for a better plan that would improve the lives of low-income residents. These include ending homelessness and replacing 5000 crappy hotel rooms with good self-contained social housing units.

Town Hall meetings are being organized to discuss these issues and talk about what to do. The first one will be held on November 30th. Also the low-income Caucus of the LAPP, a group of committee members representing low-income DTES residents, will be gathering petition signatures to show support for social housing and other social justice demands that need to be included in a DTES community plan.

Counter Attack

However, we face stiff opposition to many of our demands.

Pro-developer, pro-gentrification forces are now actively organizing and lobbying City Council to block measures that would benefit the low-income community.

An ex NPA candidate for City Council has trashed the idea of having 60% social housing and 40% rental housing in one small part of the DTES. Michael Geller, a real estate consultant and property developer, thinks it’s outrageous to have even one tiny area in the city where developers can’t build condos. Geller claims that there is so much low-income social housing in the DTES that “low-income households will never be forced out to make way for the gentry.”

Unfortunately, the people who are being forced out aren’t the ones who live in social housing. They live in SROs owned by Stephen Lippman and others. Lippman buys up SROs, gets rid of residents on welfare, does a few cheap renos, and then rents out to people who can afford $525 to $700 a month.

And a coalition of groups seeming to represent mainly property owners and businesses, but including ALIVE and Raycam, sent the city a 12 page document claiming that the City’s proposals pay too much attention to low-income and vulnerable residents.

The 12 page letter comes from the Inner City Neighbourhood Coaltion (ICNC) which includes groups like the False Creek Residents Association, 4 business improvement groups, Raycam and ALIVE. The group calls some of the LAPP committee members “self-designated representatives” of vulnerable residents, even though many on the LAPP committee have been chosen by their groups, such as Dave Hamm, the president of VANDU, with thousands of members, Phoenix Winter, vice president of the Carnegie Community Centre Association with 5000 members, and Tracey Morrison, president of Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction with hundreds of members.

The ICNC doesn’t even like the current requirement that 20% of new developments in the Oppenheimer area should be social housing. They say this requirement interferes with business expansion. And they don’t think the city should use the word gentrification because it has a negative meaning. Well, it is bad when richer people take over a neighbourhood and poor people are either pushed out or made to feel uncomfortable in their own space.

It’s clear that property owners and businesses are pushing the city to support more condos and not build more social housing in the DTES. Come to the town hall meeting on Nov. 30, 3:30pm at the Carnegie Theatre to help work on a way to stop displacement and get more social housing in the DTES.

Do we want a Social Justice Zone in the Downtown Eastside?

By Jean Swanson

All over the world, low income areas are being gentrified and low income and vulnerable people pushed out of their neighbourhoods. Could Vancouver be different? Could we get the city, other levels of government, business and agencies to adopt a special Social Justice Zone in the DTES? If we did, what exactly would that mean?

This is what about 35 people discussed at a town hall meeting in Oppenheimer Park on Jan. 11.  The meeting was sponsored by some low income members of the Local Area Planning Committee.

Emerging (Mis)Directions: Proposals for DTES Plan fails low-income residents

By Jean Swanson & Tamara Herman

850 homeless people.  Four thousand living in crummy SROs.  Over 400 rooms lost last year to rent increases at $425 or more.  That’s the housing crisis in the DTES that low- income folks on the Downtown Eastside Local Area Planning Committee have been trying to get the city to deal with.

“Emerging Directions” for a DTES plan was released by the city at the end of July after over a year of discussions. The document is 34 pages long, but the housing section is only 4 pages. Needless to say, the document falls short of setting out a plan that would end the housing crisis.