Protesters gathered outside Vancouver’s City Hall on Wednesday as councillors debated and ultimately approved Mayor Ken Sim’s proposed freeze on supportive housing.
The mayor’s motion aims to halt the construction of net new supportive housing units in the city until other municipalities build more supportive housing units.
It also aims to pivot the city’s focus toward renewing its existing affordable housing stock.
The proposal is controversial, with the province’s housing minister, some city councillors and groups operating in the Downtown Eastside expressing concerns about it.
About 100 people signed up to speak at the council meeting on Wednesday.
“It’s not a well-thought-out approach to dealing with street disorder,” Vancouver councillor Pete Fry told Global News.
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“I think most folks would recognize intuitively that if you have street inhabitants, people who don’t have housing, and then you move to freeze any of that potential housing that could actually get them off the street and get them into a more stable environment, it would be somewhat counterintuitive to the objective of getting the streets more orderly and safer.”
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