“Uplifting” or Gentrifying? Panel w/ Heart of the City
by Devin O’Leary
On November 6th, the Carnegie Housing Project partnered up with other neighbourhood organizers to host a panel on the “Uplifting the DTES” city council motion that passed last year. We’ve talked about the motion a few times, and we’re going to keep talking about it so folks in the neighbourhood can think about what’s at stake.
It was written by councilor Rebecca Bligh, asking city staff to report back to council sometime this spring about potential changes to the DTES Local Area Plan (LAP). Note that we are just 10 years into its 30-year span. The panel talked about reasons why the plan shouldn’t be changed, with research showing that 41 social housing projects have been built in the neighbourhood or are in the process as a result of restrictions on expensive rental and condo projects within the neighbourhood.
Norm Leech opened the event with a beautiful land acknowledgement. If you’ve never heard his land acknowledgements, I recommend you search him up on YouTube. He clearly lays out where we came from and what we have to return to. Namely, our relationship with the land, our first Grandmother, who has given us everything unconditionally, teaching us what love is. And our duty is to return that love to her.
It’s an odd thing to hear before a discussion about land values and development potential. But I think it shows the two ways of being that are in tension in this city, with their concentration in our neighbourhood, this space around Oppenheimer and down Hastings to Columbia St. called the “Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District,” or DEOD.
The DTES with the DEOD at the core, which, excludes condos, requires all new projects to be at least 60% social housing, and requires 1/3 of social housing units to rent at shelter rate ($500)
What do we want our relationship to be with land and each other? One that maximizes profit and restricts who can live in a place based on what they can afford to pay for housing? Or do we want to love the land and each other unconditionally? That sounds like a stretch in the dominant society, but Norm shared examples of how we are working to repair those relationships in this neighbourhood. Norm works with many others on building the DTES Community Land Trust, a group that is trying to buy privately owned SROs to be owned and managed by and for the residents. The city should understand and respect that.
Others who spoke on the panel included Wendy Pedersen, Phoenix Winter, Kathy Shimizu, Jean Swanson, Steve Johnston, Michelle Lackie, and councilor Bligh.
Wendy quizzed the audience on some technical pieces of the LAP, like zoning, which describes what can be built in any area of the city.
Phoenix talked about the LAP committee, with low-income residents meeting at the planning table to create plan from 2010-2014. They had to learn the technical language of the planners and figure out how to make sure that their stories made it past that language into the actual plan. Not an easy thing to do.
Kathy spoke about research by UBC professor Kuni Kamizaki, who found that the plan has actually been a success for achieving its main purpose, to keep land values low so non-profits and the government can build social housing.
Jean talked about how social housing outside the DTES actually excludes low-income people because it is funded mostly with loans that the housing provider needs to pay back. To do this, they’ll rent 1/3 of the units to households earning $40k-$107k a year, and the rest at market rate.
That’s about $2200 for a 1-bedroom. The only way to create housing for people making under $40k a year is with billions of dollars in government spending, something that the government refuses to own up to.
Steve and Michelle talked about how this motion could result in more space and contracts for social enterprises, which would improve the local economy. That shouldn’t come as a compromise for allowing a flood of expensive housing to enter the neighbourhood, though.
Norm bookended the panel by talking about how the DTES is like the end of the road. There’s nowhere else to go. And it’s getting tougher as this neighbourhood gets pushed in from all sides. Just like Indigenous people over hundreds of years have been pushed to smaller pieces of land by colonizers. And with no say in those policies. No say in designing this system.
His full speech, and all the others are totally worth listening to, so check out our Instagram @carnegie.housingproject where we’ll post the video.
Keep an eye out for updates about this and related projects like the Westbank towers proposal in future newsletters.
