Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Build social housing and transition homes

Recommendation 101: Fund more Indigenous housing outreach workers and advocates.

Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Build social housing and transition homes

Recommendation 102: All supportive housing and shelter providers should prioritize Indigenous women’s participation in service delivery, as well as prioritize Indigenous women as peer workers, staff, and managers.

Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Legislative protections

Recommendation 103: The provincial Residential Tenancy Act needs to be amended as follows:

1. The Act must cover all housing, including residents of social housing, nonprofit SROs, supportive housing, and temporary modular housing. People living in supportive housing should not be subjected to restrictive rules that violate their basic tenancy rights.
2. The Act must tie rent to the unit, not the tenant, so landlords cannot renovict tenants to increase rents. The Act must also tie landlord rights to increase rent with obligations to maintain property and to comply with orders made by the Residential Tenancy Branch.
3. Extend the ‘right of first refusal’ to tenants to return at their renovated unit at the previously payable rent in order to prevent renovictions. Also extend right of first refusal to all tenants, not just those living in residential complexes of more than five units.
4. When evicting a tenant on grounds that the landlord or a close family member intends to move in, require the landlord to file a statutory declaration indicating their relationship to the family member and that they intend to occupy the unit for at least six months.
5. Extend the grace period for non-payment of rent to 20 days; eliminate the Direct Request Process for non-payment of rent; and allow arbitrators discretion to consider contextual factors and refuse an order of possession for failure to pay rent.
6. Provide tenants the right to a warning before getting an eviction notice for cause and require automatic dispute resolution hearings for all evictions, where landlords initiate eviction proceedings by applying with the Residential Tenancy Branch in order to receive a registered eviction notice and schedule a mandatory hearing.
7. Develop a property maintenance policy that outlines a breadth of health, safety, and security standards.
8. Create more robust enforcement mechanisms at the Residential Tenancy Branch to stop fraudulent evictions and to ensure landlords are adhering to maintenance obligations; amend criteria and lower the threshold for accepting investigation requests; increase the deadlines and expand the grounds for Review Consideration; and introduce a wider breadth of penalties that are imposed more often.

Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Legislative protections

Recommendation 104: Landlords and property managers must be licensed and make licenses revocable in cases of significant misconduct.

Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Legislative protections

Recommendation 105: An annual audit of all landlords and property managers to track refusal of housing and housing discrimination.

Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Legislative protections

Recommendation 106: Amend the provincial Human Rights Code and Residential Tenancy Act to make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of social condition including health status and drug use.

Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Legislative protections

Recommendation 107: Legalize tent cities and mobile home parks.

Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Legislative protections

Recommendation 108: Amend the City of Vancouver Single Room Accommodation bylaw to define SRO conversion to mean raising rents above income assistance-shelter rates. Include zero–eviction conditions in all renovation and building permits.

Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Legislative protections

Recommendation 109: Stop market housing development in the DTES to preserve land for social housing. Once adequate social housing is built, abide by the City of Vancouver’s 1:1 rate of change principle.

Recommendations for safe and affordable housing for Indigenous women in the DTES

Legislative protections

Recommendation 110: All levels of government must buy or lease SRO hotels to prevent them from gentrifying and pushing out low-income residents.