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Advocates in support of Little Mountain Housing were outraged over demolition crews rolling into the social housing site early Friday.
“This didn’t need to happen,” said Lauren Gill, a member of Community Advocates for Little Mountain. “There were other ways that we could’ve made money without having to flip public property into private hands.
“The social housing that’s supposed to come here may not come for years and years. The 224 units or families that were moved pushed everyone else on the B.C. Housing waitlist 224 spaces.”
The province sold the land to a firm that plans to build a mixed-housing development with social and market housing.
COPE Coun. Ellen Woodsworth said the province’s decision to move forward demolition plans without a schedule for development comes at the wrong time.
“I think the demolition of 224 units of low-income family housing at a time when Vancouver’s in a housing crisis since the depression is outrageous,” she said. “The province has sold off a big piece of public land to a developer and we’re in a situation where there’s thousands of people sleeping on the streets and 1,200 people on the B.C. Housing waitlist. It just does not make economic or social sense.”
Four suites remain occupied at the south end of the site on Main Street between 33rd and 37th Avenue.
Residents are in negotiations with B.C. Housing to find adequate housing as demolition progresses, according to Gill.
Gill plans on holding a squat at the site, independent of CALM, Friday night and into the weekend.
“The more that we continue and continue to get the word out there and the province isn’t doing what they say they are doing the more pressure it puts on politicians to live up to their word and live up to their promises,” she said.