January 2010

Slow conversions, gentrification, and that $@#% sporting event

As previously reported here and elsewhere, the residents of the Golden Crown Hotel (116 West Hastings) have been displaced en masse. It can now be confirmed that the landlord’s efforts to induce tenants to leave the hotel were undertaken so that the landlord could deliver vacant possession of the property to its new owners.

In the beginning of November, the hotel was sold to 116 West Hastings Holdings Ltd. The hotel was boarded up, and renovations began. In December, makeshift signs advertising rooms for rent went up outside the boarded up front entryway of the hotel. Calls to the listed number revealed that rooms were expected to be ready for February 1, with rents to be between $675 and $850. The street-face of the hotel underwent a face-lift.

Compare this to the story a few months earlier. Back in September, when we first spoke out about the pressures on tenants to vacate the hotel, the City assured us that the repairs to be undertaken at the Golden Crown did not necessitate the eviction of tenants. They did not think the tenants were seriously at risk. When we contacted the City two months later, the City assured us that the repairs were “just cosmetic”, and did not amount to a conversion under the SRA bylaw.

The Golden Crown Hotel is just the latest in a long line of the neighbourhood’s single room occupancy hotels to be emptied of tenants in order to facilitate a property transfer. We have been speaking out about this for years. Check out this story from 2007.

The Golden Crown will soon find itself across the street from BC Housing’s new Orwellian hub for disseminating information to ‘combat potential negative press’ about homelessness. Not to mention the shiny new Woodwards development itself. The creation of streetscapes with the appropriate visual cues appears to have taken priority over protecting the low-income rental stock in the neighbourhood, or the tenancies of its current residents.

(At least) one Golden Crown tenant gets to stay

One tenant of the Golden Crown refused to sign the end of tenancy agreements circulated by the landlord, and continued to assert his right to his rental unit, even after he was locked out. This week, the Residential Tenancy Branch confirmed that this resident’s tenancy at the hotel continues, and ordered that the landlord allow this tenant back into his old room at the hotel. The landlord has until the middle of February to deliver the rental unit back to the tenant.

Winters Hotel Settlement

As a result of a settlement negotiated in a hearing before the Residential Tenancy Branch, residents of the Winters Hotel (203 Abbott Street) have received compensation for living without heat for over a month, and a promise from the hotel’s owner that he will increase his involvement in the day to day management of the hotel, and work to address other ongoing standards of maintenance deficiencies.

In December, we began working with tenants of the Winters, who had been without heat since mid-November. Twenty-four tenants banded together in a claim for dispute resolution before the Residential Tenancy Branch. These tenants, along with the other residents of the hotel, were without heat during the coldest part of this winter. Environment Canada forecast an extended period of subzero temperatures around the time the landlord was ordered by the City to repair or replace the heating system. Due to the quality of the electrical system in the hotel, residents were unable to operate portable heaters in their rooms during this period. They had no relief from the cold. Heat was not returned to the hotel until December 24.

Update on 2131 Pandora Street

A number of former tenants of 2131 Pandora Street who were unable to file their claims with the Residential Tenancy Branch in 2008 have now had their applications heard. Seven hearings took place in the first week of January. People were able to speak of the trauma and hardship they experienced during and subsequent to the roof collapse, flood and evacuation of the apartment building. More than two years after the event, it was clear that the events at 2131 Pandora Street have had a lasting impact on the lives of those who were living there during this crisis. We hope that the forthcoming decisions honour these tenants’ experiences.