On Dec. 18, Vancouver City Council approved the demolition of the Dunsmuir Hotel, a single-room occupancy building with 167 units at the corner of Dunsmuir and Richards Street. The decision marks yet another feather in the cap of property developer Holborn Properties, with plans for a large-scale residential redevelopment of the site.
Housing Crisis
For more than two decades, the number of people living without a home in Vancouver has continued to climb. No level of government has addressed the issue with meaningful policy reforms, the necessary funding, or other housing safeguards, nor with the overall urgency it deserves.
With Larwill Place set to close and 700 modular housing units at risk the crisis is set to worsen, argues Jean Swanson. “We are [also] losing a lot of low-income units to fires, to rent increases, to demolitions for redevelopment, to scuzzy landlords who take advantage of vulnerable tenants to just lock them out (like at the Melville Rooms just recently), and because leases on the temporary modulars aren’t being renewed.”