Vancouver councillor calls decision on modular housing 'infuriating and unacceptable'

Vancouver city council has voted down a motion that would allow for extended leases on temporary modular housing sites, a move greeted with cries of "shame" from people in the chamber who spoke in support of it.

Coun. Christine Boyle, who brought the motion, described it as an attempt to ensure that the "net number" of spaces in this type of housing – roughly 750 in total – does not decrease amid a homelessness crisis.

"Letting any of these leases expire would see more people out on the street or in encampments, and we can't afford to lose any units while we work with senior levels of government on big, long-term solutions that we need as well," Boyle said while introducing the motion at Wednesday's meeting.

"The asks in this motion are part of making sure the problem doesn't get worse."

The motion itself asked city staff to look at how to extend the leases that are expiring between 2024 and 2028, while also looking into the possibility of moving existing projects to places where they have the option of remaining longer term.

"Now is the time to plan, to find sites for all the temporary modular housing so that when their leases expire, the city and people who are homeless don’t lose that desperately needed housing," it reads.

The first temporary modular housing opened in the city in 2017. It is a type of building that has been explicitly touted by the city as a response to homelessness.

"Temporary modular housing can be constructed more quickly than permanent housing and provide immediate relief to hundreds of people living without a home," reads the City of Vancouver's website, which notes that the units are self-contained and that the buildings have on-site supports. The smallest of the current projects has 39 units, while the largest has 98.

The 2020 homeless count, done before the widespread social and economic disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic and before hundreds of units of SRO stock were lost to fires, found 2,095 people were homeless.

All city officials present at the meeting noted that the number of people who are homeless in Vancouver increases every time a formal count is done, and that formal counts likely do not capture the true scale of the crisis. Boyle, in her motion, said the best estimate she is aware of is 3,000.

"We need housing. We need more of it. We need to keep in place what is already there and make sure we don't diminish the amount that we have," Green Coun. Adriane Carr said, voting in support of the motion along with fellow Green Coun. Pete Fry.

MOTION DEFEATED BY MAJORITY 

The motion was defeated by Mayor Ken Sim and the slate of ABC councillors, who said during the meeting that their major concern was that prolonging the use of these sites for temporary modular housing would impede the city's ability to use the same sites for more units of permanent affordable housing.

ABC Coun. Brian Montague said he thinks the city should be moving away from this type of housing altogether.

"Temporary modular housing, I don't believe is the answer. I don't believe it's good policy," he said.

"It was a band-aid solution that was a decent solution at the time. But 10 years later, I believe we need to move away from a temporary model to a more permanent model, more permanent housing solutions and better policies."

ABC Coun. Sarah Kirby-Yung said that the number of units in these projects are dwarfed by the potential for development and that BC Housing has the responsibility to make sure tenants are relocated if a project is shut down.

"It's such a small percentage of what we can build on one of those sites and if you have a lease where they still have years remaining and you tie something up for another 10 years – that's 15 years before you could be building hundreds of more units to house and support people," she said.

"If I was concerned that people are going to be displaced in their home, I feel this would be a very different conversation."

As the name suggests, the buildings are not necessarily meant or built to be permanent. Some have been set up on sites that are "underused" and not zoned for housing at all.

"Not all of those sites will be used for social or could be used for social housing," City Manager Paul Mochrie said when he was asked to estimate how many units of permanent, affordable housing could be built on the sites currently occupied by temporary modular housing.

He also said that some of the sites are not owned by the city but instead by developers, using the example of a project built on the site planned for the future art gallery.

"It's not the case that all those sites can be repurposed," he added.

Boyle posted to social media after the vote calling it "infuriating and unacceptable." In a statement, she lambasted the move and the mayor.

"A person can’t live in a building that will be built in 10 years," she wrote.

"This weekend, while our mayor was shotgunning beers on stage, 3,000 homeless Vancouverites were looking for a place to lay their heads. This council will be judged by its actions, not its stunts. And today, Mayor Sim and ABC proved that they are not up to the challenges that are facing our city," she continued.

Sim, for his part, did not issue a statement about the decision. He did take to Twitter to comment on housing more generally.

"We need more permanent, quality housing for our most vulnerable residents. As we work to build more housing in Vancouver, we are working closely with government partners to ensure municipalities across the region are building their fair share of social and supportive housing," his post said.