Tenants of a Vancouver apartment building located at Cambie and West 7th Avenue say they won’t leave their homes without a fight.
The low-income tenants were told they have to move out and they believe it’s because the owner wants to develop the site into corporate office space.
18 of the tenants who are primarily low-income were given eviction notices in December, ordering them to be out by February 1. Eight of those 18 tenants are still living in the building. Their rent ranged from $335 to $385 per month.
In the eviction notice, it said the owner plans to redevelop the property into office space.
Pivot Legal Society and the Social Housing Alliance say no permits have been granted to redevelop the building, so they believe the evictions are in bad faith.
“Section 49 of the residential tenancy act states that a landlord can issue eviction notices if they have all of the permits, and permissions required by law to demolish a building. This landlord did not do that. He’s a business person and business people make business decisions, but they have an obligation to follow the law because it’s those laws that protect low income residents, and all citizens,” says DJ Larkin, lawyer at Pivot Legal Society.
Residents say they have nowhere else to go.
“I’ve been here for six years,” says resident Mike Burke. “There are people in this building who have been there a lot longer. Now they are facing eviction and they have nowhere to go, and they live on a very limited income.”
The Social Housing Alliance is asking the city to enforce its moratorium on rental housing conversions. A dispute resolution hearing is set for April 1, so the tenants will be staying in the building until at least that date.
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