← Council Meeting April 14, 2026
Good morning everyone and welcome to the Vancouver City Council meeting of Tuesday, April the 14th, 2026. This meeting is being held in person by electronic means. Council members and the public may participate by either method. Any members joining electronically are reminded to enable video to confirm quorum. The meeting is being live streamed on the City's website and YouTube and meeting progress will be updated regularly on X at Van City Clerk. Now, in case of an emergency where we need to evacuate this chamber, please direct your attention to the glass doors, walk past the post, turn left, and go down the stairs. If you require mobility assistance, please stay in place, and one of our super-friendly team members will come and help you out of the chamber. Last door is obstructed for any reason whatsoever. Please take note of the four exits on the side of the chamber and we'll give you more direction as time goes on. There also is a defibrillator at the end of the hallway if anyone so needs it. I do want to acknowledge that we are hosting today's council meeting on the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and TTsleil-Waututh First Nations and I do want to thank them for their generosity and hospitality and love and care of the show this great land that we get to live, work, and play on. I also want to recognize the incredible contributions of all our team members throughout the city of Vancouver. Hugh, you know, show up every single day with passion and purpose and make the city a better place to be. So with that, can we please have a roll call?
Mayor Sim in the chair. Councillor Kirby Young has an LOA for personal reasons all day. Councillor Dominato? Councillor Bligh?
Present. Councillor Bligh has a LOA from 11 a.m. for medical reasons. Councillor Fry? Councillor Montague. Present. Councillor Klassen. Councillor Meiszner. Present. Councillor Zhou. Councillor Orr. And Councillor Maloney. Chief Cormier.
noon for lunch, followed by the in-camera meeting. Return at 3 p.m. to continue to do with the remainder of the agenda. Adjourn or recess by 5 p.m. as we do have a public hearing at 6 p.m. If we do recess, the reconvene date is Thursday, April the 16th at 3 p.m. In-camera. Council is required to meet in-camera later this week. The reasons and authority under the Vancouver Charter are listed in the agenda. Would someone like to move motion? Councillor Dominato, seconded by Councillor Claston. All those in favour say aye. All those opposed say nay. Great, the motion carries unanimously. Minutes one are from the council meeting on March the 31st, 2026. Are there any corrections? Someone like to move? Councillor Claston, seconded by Councillor Meiszner. All those in favour, say aye. All those opposed say nay. The motion carries unanimously. Matters adopted on consent. Council will now consider matters adopted on consent. We have reports 1 and 3 through 7 and 9 through 16 and referral reports 1 through 3 on the consent agenda for council's consideration. We will hold reports 2 and 8 to hear from speakers. Note report 4B is subject to approval for a budget resolution. Council may adopt the recommendations for reports 1 and 3 through 7 and 9 through 16 and referral reports 1 through 3 on consent. Does any member wish to hold any of the items for debate or questions to team members? Councillor Maloney.
Report 6, please.
Report 1. Report 10, 11, 13, and referral report two.
Okay, so if I have that correctly, reports one, 10, 11, and 13, and referral report number two. Yes. Thank you very much. Seeing no one else in the queue, last chance. Okay, before we consider the consent agenda, if anyone believes they have a conflict of interest, now is the time to declare it. Does anyone have a conflict they wish to declare? Okay, just give me one moment here because I've got to make sure we have everything correct here.
And clerk, please correct me if I do not have this correct. We have reports number 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 12, 14, 16, and 17, and referral report number 1 and 3 for the consent approval.
Is that correct? Thank you very much.
Okay, so would someone like to move adoption of the recommendations before council? Thank you. I think that was Councillor Dominato, seconded by Councillor Meiszner. All those in favour say yay. Yay. All those opposed say nay. Great. The motion carries unanimously.
So the following have been approved on consent. Report number three, the Vancouver Community Sports Events Grant, spring 2026 intake. Report number 4A, budget resolution, and 4B, 2026 property taxation, distribution of property tax levy. Report number 5, property tax exemptions. Report number 7, Vancouver Heritage Foundation Board annual report 2025. Report number 9, funding application to local government development approvals program. Report number 12, CD-1 rezoning 4088 Granville Street. Report number 14, CD-1 rezoning 310 East 14th Avenue. Report number 15, rezoning 1305 through 1325 West 13th Avenue. And report number 16, 2026 financing growth update. Required consultation for amenity cost charge bylaw and bill 16 density bonus and inclusionary zoning updates. We also have referral report number one, fast-tracking rental housing and small hotels, new mixed-use commercial district, and referral report number three, CD-1 rezoning, 888 through 896 Canby Street, and 111 through 191 Smythe Street. Okay. So number one. Okay. So the first item on the docket is report number one, 2025 homeless count Vancouver. Before we begin this agenda item, if anyone believes that they have a conflict of interest, now's the time to declare it. Any conflicts? No? Okay. This item has a presentation.
Thank you, Mayor and Council. Good morning. My name is Margaret Witkins, General Manager, Arts, Culture, Community Services. Today, we're pleased to be here to present the Vancouver-specific data from the 2025 Metro Vancouver Homeless Count, which was undertaken on March 10th and 11th of 2025 and administered by the Homelessness Services Association of BC. As you'll see, the data shows that homelessness continues to be a growing and persistent challenge in Vancouver and communities across the region. The city continues to partner with governments and nonprofit organizations to identify and activate additional spaces, enhance services for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in Vancouver. Staff also continue to emphasize the need for expanded regional delivery of housing, mental health, and social services to support the response across the region. I will now turn it over to Dustin Lupec, social planner, who will walk through a short presentation. Celine Mobiles, managing director of housing and homelessness services, is also here, and we're happy to answer questions as we go forward. Thank you.
THANK YOU, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. THANK YOU, MARGARET. SO YEAH, HI, MY NAME IS DUSTIN LUPIC. I'M A SOCIAL PLANNER IN HOMELESSNESS SERVICES HERE AT THE CITY OF VANCOUVER AND I'M HERE TO PRESENT ON THE DATA FROM THE 2025 HOMELESS COUNT AS WELL AS SOME OF THE WORK BEING DONE WITHIN HOMELESSNESS SERVICES HERE AT THE CITY.
Just before we begin, I'd just like to acknowledge that we are doing this work on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and TTsleil-Waututh Nations. So just a quick agenda for what it will look like today. First of all, we'll go through some background of what the count is. We'll look into some of the findings and the drivers of homelessness, as well as looking at what the city's response is and some of the things that we are doing here at the city.
So this presentation today focuses on the results from the 2025 Metro Vancouver Homeless Count that took place on the evening of March 10th and on the day of March 11th throughout the Metro Vancouver region. Today's presentation will focus specifically on the results from the City of Vancouver, but also situate Vancouver within the larger Metro Vancouver context. A point-in-time count provides a 24-hour snapshot on the number of people experiencing homelessness in a community. This includes people that are staying in sheltered locations, as well as those that are unsheltered and do not have a place to stay where they pay rent. The count is possible through collaboration with nonprofit service providers, including emergency shelters, drop-in centers, outreach teams, the health authority, as well as parks who assist with data collection. 2025 was the third time that all the counts aligned, meaning that the federal, provincial, and regional level, there were counts all occurring during the same year.
Again, the count provides a 24-hour snapshot of homelessness, and we know this is an undercount.
Research estimates that it's an undercount by about 20%. However, the point-in-time counts are a recognized methodology and allow us to track trends over time. Information is important and allows governments and service providers to plan programs to address homelessness and to measure our progress in supporting those who are experiencing homelessness in our community.
So now we'll take a look at some of the findings.
Within the city of Vancouver, there were 2,715 people who were identified as experiencing homelessness on the streets and in sheltered locations. The unsheltered number of 763 represents the number of people who a survey administrator approached and agreed to complete a survey during the day and who had stayed in an unsheltered location the previous evening. This is an increase from 605 individuals who were counted in 2023. Unsheltered locations include those who are staying outside, in an encampment, vehicle, abandoned structure, or at someone else's house that is not their own and they do not have a place of their own where they can pay rent. The shelter number of 1,952 represents the number of people staying in emergency shelters, detox centers, safe houses, and transition houses, as well as those in hospitals and holding cells who are no fixed address.
So how does this number compare over time? Again, just to reiterate, the point-in-time count provides a quick 24-hour snapshot and is recognized to be an undercount. Not everyone who has experienced homelessness is found, and not everyone who agrees to participate. With that in mind, the 2,715 people who were counted as homeless is a 12% increase compared to 2023. As you can see on the chart above, it represents an increase in both the sheltered and unsheltered number, meaning that although there are more indoor spaces and supports available, they are still not meeting the needs of individuals, as the number of unsheltered individuals also continues to increase.
And this, again, is a 12% increase compared to 2023.
Taking a step back and sort of we can situate Vancouver within the Metro Vancouver region, we can see that across the region, there are roughly 17 individuals per 10,000 people counted as experiencing homelessness. In Vancouver, that number is double at almost 36 and is the highest within the region, followed by New Westminster and then Surrey.
Looking at it another way, while one quarter of people in Metro Vancouver live within the city of Vancouver, over half of people counted as experiencing homelessness were in the city. This is a relatively consistent compared to 2023 when 50% of people counted were in Vancouver. The total number of people counted throughout the region was 5,232 compared to 4,800 in 2023. And so overall, there is a 9% increase throughout the region in the homeless count number.
Now what we're going to do is look at some of the Vancouver-specific data, starting with how long people have been experiencing homelessness.
As we can see, during the last few counts, the length of time individuals have experienced homelessness is increasing. 79% of respondents indicated they'd been homeless for at least one year.
This is an 8% increase since 2023, but it's a 25% increase since 2020. At the same time, only 11% of individuals have been homeless for less than six months. Additionally, unsheltered individuals are much more likely to be experiencing long-term homelessness than sheltered individuals.
Next, we'll look at the respondents and their connections to Vancouver. 22% of respondents were not living in Vancouver when they became homeless. However, the vast majority of all respondents have long-term ties to the city. 69% of respondents had lived in Vancouver for five years or longer, and 20% have lived in Vancouver their entire lives. This is consistent across the Metro Vancouver region and with previous counts and highlights the need for services for people in all Metro Vancouver communities. Of survey respondents that were unsheltered on the night of the count, over two-thirds had access to an emergency shelter in the previous year. In practice, this means that they had access to shelter and do interact with the shelter system, but were not in a shelter for some reason on the night of the count. Individuals do want to access shelter spaces. Additionally, over half of unsheltered respondents had stayed at someone else's place over the previous year.
Again, consistent with previous counts, the majority of individuals counted were adults between the ages of 25 and 54. This is with an acknowledgement that youth and seniors may face additional barriers to take part in the count. Seniors and youth are generally more likely to be sheltered than unsheltered as well. If we do look at seniors specifically, 40% of seniors experienced homelessness for the first time when they were already a senior. This means that until the age of 55, they had never experienced homelessness, and something happened that resulted in them experiencing homelessness for the very first time, and so the services and needs that they will have is very different than someone who maybe has a longer-term experience of homelessness. If, again, we look at all respondents, 38% are or were previously in the care of the ministry, and almost half of respondents experienced homelessness for the first time as a youth. This shows the gaps and supports for youth aging out of care and also highlights prevention from a young age as a key tool to reduce overall long-term homelessness.
Now turning to gender and sexual identity. During the count, 28% of survey respondents identified as a woman. This is compared to 23% in 2023. It is generally accepted that women are undercounted in point-of-time counts and more likely to exhaust all other resources before becoming homeless, including living in unsafe situations and maybe with partner violence. This may result in them not being counted on the day of the count. 4% of survey respondents identified with another gender identity other than man or woman.
And 5% of survey respondents identified as having transgender experience. If we look at youth specifically, 16% of youth identified as having a transgender experience. And then 12% of respondents identified with the 2SLGBTQIA plus community.
Looking now at Indigenous individuals experiencing homelessness, Indigenous peoples continue to be vastly overrepresented in homelessness in Vancouver. Indigenous people are 18 times more likely to be homeless than non-Indigenous people. In the data, what this shows is that there was 42% of individuals that were counted identified as Indigenous compared to just over 2% of the census population. This is a disturbing and concerning trend, and we've seen this consistently in counts since the beginning in 2005. Additionally, over half of unsheltered respondents identify as Indigenous. And 58% of Indigenous respondents experienced homelessness for the first time as a youth.
Participants were also asked about their experience with residential schools. Of Indigenous respondents, 70% had some form of experience with residential school, and 9% had experienced themselves with residential schools.
If we look at racial identity more broadly, we can see the disproportionate impact of homelessness on specific communities. It is really important to note that the realities experienced by individuals who are part of racialized and newcomer communities are different from that of other communities. Factors such as discrimination, language barriers, historical trauma, and colonization have a cumulative effect. They are also linked to homelessness and being able to break the cycle of homelessness within Canadian society. This can all lead to additional barriers for people to access housing as well as needed support services in a culturally appropriate way. If we look at the count, we can see that people that identify as black continue to be overrepresented in the homeless count population. 9% of people counted identified as black compared to 1% of population in the city.
Now we're going to turn our attention to some of the drivers of homelessness.
There are many reasons why someone may experience homelessness. In most situations, homelessness is caused by the impacts of several different intersecting factors over time, rather than one single incident or cause. Generally, a combination of systemic, structural, and individual factors, examples of which are listed on the slide, will lead to an experience of homelessness. The stories are complex behind every experience of homelessness, and one purpose of the count is to help distill this information.
When we look at the reasons why someone became homeless, what we see here is that there's really a broad range. This reinforces the intersection we described in the previous slide.
Respondents were given a list of options for the causes of their most recent housing loss and were allowed to select more than one response. The overall takeaway is that income supports are not meeting the needs for people experiencing homelessness. 38% of respondents identified not enough income as one of the reasons for housing loss. This is consistently the most common response during counts and has seen a pretty notable increase since 2023. Substance use, unfit housing, and conflict with landlord or your spouse or partner are also some of the top reasons. Once the respondents provided their reason for housing loss, we asked a new question this year regarding whether their housing loss was a direct result of an eviction, either legal or illegal. 42% of respondents indicated yes. Their most recent experience of homelessness was due to an eviction.
Additionally, new for the 2025 count, respondents were asked specifically if they were on income assistance or PWD, or person with disability. This was asked separately from other income questions to understand what percentage of respondents received some form of government income assistance. The vast majority, 83%, indicated they were on at least one form of government assistance. This shows that people are receiving some form of government income, but that income is not enough to find safe, appropriate housing.
And then we're going to turn our attention to health. The health challenges that people experiencing homelessness continue to increase and are becoming more complex. I'd be remiss not to acknowledge the 10th anniversary of the toxic dog crisis right now. This slide shows the types of health conditions that were self-reported by respondents. People can report more than one health challenge, and people generally report a range of health responses or health challenges. There has been a noted increase in mental health challenges and substance use challenges, a 5% increase in substance use, and a 13% increase in mental health challenges that were self-identified. Related to health impacts, individuals were asked about the services they accessed in the previous year. Looking at health responses in particular, we can see there's a high level of medical services accessed by people experiencing homelessness.
So that shows some of the data from the count, and it's the contributions that lead to homelessness. And now what we're going to do is look at some of the steps in the face of this challenge that the city is taking as we remain committed to working with our partners to respond to homelessness.
First of all, there's the City of Vancouver's Homelessness Services team, which includes our outreach team. It's a dedicated team of people who work every day with people experiencing homelessness to work with them on a variety of issues. The team works outside directly with individuals throughout the city. As well, we have a storefront at 392 Powell Street where people can come to see an outreach worker directly. The team is co-funded by BC Housing and the City of Vancouver, and people can come in to get supports in a variety of ways.
A focus of the team is housing and housing loss prevention through rent supplements, support in accessing housing.
Access to income is an important aspect of the work, and people can get support in accessing identification, income assistance with the CRA, with the Government of Canada. As well, there may be other connections to support services through shelter and support referrals. The team works with many partners and non-profits, including BC Housing, through the Coordinated Access and Assessment Table. As well, just an example of an initiative that the city leads, the City Leads the Step program. It's the first program in the province to assist self-identified individuals who are ready to move from supportive housing into more independent living. In 2025, outreach staff supported 21 unique individuals to transition from supportive housing into their own independent housing, allowing those vacancies to be backfilled by those more in need.
As mentioned, we have a storefront at 392 Powell Street that is open Monday to Friday, and people access services on a first-come, first-served basis. Generally, the outreach team sees about 90 to 100 people a day, and in 2025, worked with over 6,500 unique individuals. Of that 6,500, about 1,600 were accessing services through the city's outreach team for the very first time. And just over 500 people were able to secure or maintain their housing through their work with the outreach team. The three pillars that ground the work the outreach team does includes connecting people to housing and preventing evictions, helping people access income, and connecting them with other supports.
Another aspect of the outreach team is a relatively new initiative, the Juan Alexander Camoas Civic Office, located in Chinatown at 112 Kiefer Street. The office aims to bolster local coordination, responsiveness, and promote a community-engaged approach in the area. City staff are available to engage with community and collaborate with city departments, leveraging on-the-ground knowledge. As community engagement at the office increased, it became apparent that Homelessness Services' outreach team has a specific skill set which would be able to provide their expertise to the people accessing services. Outreach staff provide in-person and culturally specific services to Chinatown residents at the office. In 2025, the Chinatown office saw 1,388 visitors, of which 99% were supported by the Homelessness Services Outreach Team. The main services being sought include access to housing, other community resources, and Service Canada matters.
Almost everyone who accessed services at this office was a senior. And so just take a moment to looking at seniors specifically.
In 2025, almost 35% of clients who access services through homelessness outreach were 55 plus, and this is an increase from 31% in 2024. We work with seniors on housing, health, advocacy, and income situations, including OAS and GIS. On this slide are some examples of recurring long-running issues that are seen at the Outreach Office to support seniors specifically, seniors unable to pay rent, limited availability of money management programs, and difficulty connecting to appropriate housing resources.
A quick example of a success is that at the new site announced at 177 West Pender, Homelessness Outreach Team has been supporting tenants of the Indigenous Elder Community as well as Chinese seniors to access housing at this site.
And next, we'll provide a quick overview of the current shelter landscape in Vancouver. There are over 1,500 shelter beds open 365 days a year in Vancouver. Shelters play an important role in the homelessness serving system and serve as a gateway to housing and supports that help break the cycle of homelessness. The city has a long-standing partnership with the province through BC Housing to activate shelter spaces. The city has often provided land and studio buildings, and the province has supported through capital and operating funding. Additional shelter spaces are deployed between November to March or April to expand the shelter capacity to ensure all residents have a safe, warm place to come inside during the cold and wet winter months. The city also funds and activates warming centers when temperatures reach minus 4 degrees Celsius to ensure people can access indoor spaces for their life safety. This winter, there was an additional 445 spaces to ensure people can access a safe, warm place to come inside. And then in yellow on the slide, it highlights some shelters that support specific demographics within the city.
As shown in the last slide, Vancouver plays a very large role in supporting people to access shelter. About two-thirds of the shelter beds in the region are within the city of Vancouver. Additionally, about 79% of supportive housing and half of the social housing beds, according to the Metro Vancouver data book, are within the city of Vancouver. This shows that while Vancouver has the most people experiencing homelessness, it also has taken the lead in interventions to support people experiencing homelessness throughout the region. Communities throughout the region have a role to play in supporting individuals through the delivery of non-market housing and shelter supports.
And then lastly, I just want to talk a tiny bit about some partnerships and other initiatives we're here doing at the City of Vancouver. The issue of encampments is not unique to Vancouver, and to better support people who may be residing in encampments, the province, Theresee Housing, has launched the HEART and HEARTH program. HEART being Homeless Encampment Response Team, and HEARTH being Homeless Encampment Action Response Temporary Housing. In addition to Vancouver, the province has established these HEART and or HEARTH partnerships with 15 local governments. Outreach staff are members of the Vancouver Heart Network, a citywide collaborative initiative facilitated by BC Housing aimed at strengthening coordination and building sector relationships to improve outcomes and experiences for individuals experiencing homelessness. Through HEARTH, the city and BC Housing have partnered to provide almost 90 spaces with 24-hour support care for people. The city also provides grants to support delivery of services and supports. Within homelessness services specifically, there are two annual grant programs. Homelessness services grants provide funding for short-term and one-time events and projects that support people experiencing homelessness.
And the renter services grants provide funding for renter-serving non-profit organizations to provide critical programs and services to Vancouver renters. The city has partnerships to deliver supportive housing. Since 2017, the city committed over 48 sites to support the delivery of social and supportive housing and continue to look for new opportunities through Build Canada Homes and other partnerships. We've amended the definition of temporary modular housing to extend the use of sites for up to 20 years pending redevelopment to ensure that they have the best use until development occurs. There's the SRO, or Single Room Occupancy Revitalization Framework, that was recently approved by Council to replace SROs with self-contained social housing units, ensuring safety and livability. And then we provide direct service revision through Evelyn's Cellar Center, Carnegie Community Center, and Gathering Place. These spaces provide daily hot meals, showers, laundry, drop-in spaces, and other programming. They serve as a vital hub for connections and support in the community. This is not an exhaustive list, but some things we do here at the City of Vancouver in order to work and support people experiencing homelessness throughout the community. We at the City will continue to work with senior government, community, and non-profit partners to advance the creation of housing and support services to meet the needs of individuals experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
I just want to say thank you to Luma Native Housing Society. They are the reaching home community entity who are able to fund the homeless count here in the city. So thank you.
Thank you very much, counsel. You have up to five minutes to ask questions of our team members. Counselor Orr, you're up.
Yeah, thank you very much for the report. Obviously, some sobering statistics in there. Don't think any of us want to see a 12% increase in homelessness. But also, you know, some positives at the end. So appreciate that. We are doing everything we can. And I know that all levels of government, you know, have to step up. And that's sort of... or some of my questions, Lee, but just first off, I mean, this count was done in March, correct? And now we're getting it 13 months later. Can I just get a sense of why this has taken that long to come up with the report?
Hi, Salimah Blessman, Director of Housing and Homelessness Services. The report was done in March, and then it takes quite a bit of time. It's a regional approach, so for all of the communities for the data analysis to be completed, we then have a data sharing agreement with LUMA to obtain the data and then do our own analysis for the Vancouver results. So it takes a bit of time to process the data.
Fair enough. I mean, there's no disrespect intended. I just was curious. So just kind of focusing on that 83% number in terms of people who are on income assistance, you know, has council sort of requested or, you know, asked the province to increase social assistance rates? I know they're... at around $500 to $600, and I know that probably has a lot of, you know, I can't think of many places, you know, that rent for that. And anecdotally, you hear of people, you know, having to make up for that loss of income through, you know, street crime. Has this council or have other councils sort of called on the province to increase social assistance rates recently? Is that something we could do today?
I defer to Mayor and Council to make that decision. But a lack of income has been consistently identified as a reason for people unable to access housing. Our accounts have shown that, as well as our other research. So that has been kind of a consistent theme. And yes, there has been advocacy to the problems. They recently did increase income assistance rates, but the shelter component is still shy of what's needed in order to find affordable housing.
Okay, that's good. Good to know. For the shelter spaces, I mean, it looked like a discrepancy in terms of the number of, you know, the shelter spaces. I couldn't quite remember the deficit, but do you have a ballpark of the deficit in terms of the shelter spaces and how many people are at risk of homelessness or unsheltered?
Shelters, if you're in a shelter, you are considered homeless. So we see it as a kind of a gateway to housing. And as you can see, some of the issues around health, some of the biggest challenges are more pronounced in the unsheltered population. So shelter is really critical as a gateway to housing. I think there's always a demand for shelter, and specifically for certain populations. We hear that shelter for couples is a real gap. So there's a need for that. So there is always a need. I don't know if I could put an estimate on how many.
Fair enough, but there's definitely a need. What about people with pets? I've also heard that that's very difficult.
Yeah, I think through BC Housing, who provides the operating funding for all the shelters and works with the non-profits, there are more shelters that are now accepting pets, but that is an ongoing issue.
Okay, that's good to know. In terms of SRO replacement, you know, in the five sites, I mean, I think there's a sort of sense that we're... There's people that need homes now, and there's people that are sort of in SROs, and that we're sort of prioritizing people inside at the expense of people outside.
What's...
What are we doing in terms of asking the federal government? I mean, I know we have around, I think it was 2,700 homeless, and we're going to replace about 6,500 SROs. So obviously we need help from the federal government. I know there's been announcements recently, but in my rough calculations, we need 10,000 units roughly, and the whole of Canada... the funding would be 10,000 units across the country. So, I mean, what more can we do to sort of urge the federal government to kind of step up?
Well, the responses to homeless, there's definitely a multi-pronged approach is needed. People need access to income housing as well as... Sorry, we're at time. Councillor Dominato?
Maybe we could just hear the answer to the question.
Oh, thank you. So definitely, I think we are doing work with the Housing Development Office as well as PDS. There's a lot of work going on to identify new opportunities for funding. Council also recently approved grants to support private SROs to help upgrades and safety and livability and affordability in the interim. So in addition to replacing SROs, we're looking at new sites providing city land for new housing. as well as other grants and supports in other parts of the need around mental health, addiction. So it's really, I think, action is needed across all fronts. Thank you.
It's a perfect segue. I appreciate the question by Councillor Orr about income assistance levels, and I am going to bring an advocacy direction as part of the report to have us advocate for increases in that area, so just as a flag to Council. But I do want to focus, and I've got four minutes, so I'm going to go quick. The report identified the high risk to youth, particularly youth aging out of care. What have we heard from the provincial government around supports for youth transitioning out of care? When I worked for the province, there was some inter-ministerial work and efforts to try to prevent youth aging out of care and ending up in homelessness. But have you heard anything in terms of any new measures or steps to prevent that?
I have not.
Okay. There was also the note about particularly women, and again, maybe underrepresented in our count, but when we do connect with women on the street, are we able to drill down to about whether they've left an abusive relationship, intimate partner, or violence? We know it can be a contributing factor, but are we able to get that level of granularity around their experiences, and if that was a major factor in ending up on the streets?
Yeah. thank you in this report we don't have that granular but we have the data where we would be able to for example take a sub population of women and then look at their reasons for housing loss and see if there's different things that are highlighted so that is something that we would definitely be able to look at within the within the context of what the data shows for sure we could do that
Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. And then my third question, at the end of the presentation, you highlighted the city outreach services that we do have in place to assist individuals who are homeless or struggling. I'm curious if you can comment on... how we're doing in terms of coordination with other levels of government around, particularly around service delivery of connecting people to the right services, whether it be income assistance, disability, primary care. And the second part of my question is, have we heard anything further from the province about the Promise Navigation Center, which was really intended to be a one-stop shop of not only shelters, but co-locating provincial services so that people could be connected readily to necessary supports, and I'm just so that sir to prong how is it going in terms of our current coordination through our outreach and What is the status of any of the promised Navigation Center?
Maybe I'll start with the Navigation Center. There are no updates on that front. I understand that finding a site has been the most significant challenge, so that's ongoing. As for coordination with other, be it with MSDPR, the Ministry of Social Assistance Poverty Reduction, great. We have their staff in our offices to help fast-track income assistance or problem-solve if there are issues. Vancouver Coastal Health, the new teams that they've stood up through support from the city have been a great resource to both outreach as well as the integrated response team and our ACCS liaison staff. So making sure that we have those connections and can make those referrals into those supports. So I have to say, I think in the Vancouver context, it's been really positive as well as with the HEART team that BC Housing is leading. So that's coordination with all of the other city-funded outreach teams. to make sure that we're coordinating if, you know, someone's struggling and they're in South Vancouver, what is the outreach team that is best positioned to work with that individual or those individuals? So there is a good level of coordination.
Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. That's all my questions.
Thank you, Councillor Fry.
Thank you again for the report and sobering to be sure. On the don't know, no answer kind of responses, are we... I mean, that's roughly half of the people surveyed in most of these stats. Are we confident that these stats are sort of representative? And what are the kind of reasons for, are they the majority just people aren't answering or they actually literally don't know the answer?
So there's two sides to it, one for the sheltered and one for the unsheltered. So individuals that are within the shelter system, even if they don't fill out a survey, they are counted through administrative data. So if you have a shelter of 100 individuals and 50 fill out a survey, by default, 50 become don't know, no answer for every single question. your survey responses for sheltered for the demographics are always there's gonna be a higher amount of don't know no answer and then for the unsheltered for someone to be included in the count there's four screening questions they have to answer to make sure that they're not double counted to make sure they meet the definition of homelessness and to make sure that they fit those confines of what the methodology is everything else is demographic is an optional question So if someone has been surveyed many times, maybe they only want to answer a few questions. Some people want to skip questions. Every question is voluntary. So it's not a perfect methodology, but that would be where the don't knows, no answers.
Yeah, I find it weird to conflate the two. I totally appreciate that we can't force people to answer, but don't know versus no answer are two very different kind of questions.
And just on that, in the past, don't know, no answer, unsure had been three different options. And when people are doing surveys at 6 in the morning, I think it becomes... a bit of a, it became a bit of a wash in the data in that sense, but yeah.
Sure, yeah. Still, okay, but anyway, moving on. The one that really jumped out at me here was that 19% of the unhoused surveyed cited addiction or substance use and 14% cited mental health as the reasons for their housing loss. But then later, as we look at the sort of health comorbidities or whatever, we see nearly 69% of unhoused folks are citing substance use and 61% are citing mental health as real health concerns. It's the correlation, and I don't want to suggest causation correlation, but it seems that there's a correlation between being unhoused and... SERIOUS INCREASE IN MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE USE ISSUES?
SO THOSE ARE ASKED AS TWO SEPARATE QUESTIONS. SO SOMEONE COULD ANSWER REASON FOR HOUSING LOSS, ANY VARIETY OF RESPONSES, HEALTH, ANY VARIETY OF RESPONSES. WE COULD LOOK AT THE DATA AND SAY OF PEOPLE THAT ARE INDICATED SUBSTANCE USE, HOW MANY ALSO INDICATED THAT AS A REASON FOR HOUSING LOSS. WE COULD SORT OF LOOK AT THE DATA AND SEE WHAT THE DATA SHOWS, WHAT THAT RELATIONSHIP DOES LOOK LIKE.
I feel like there's a creeping correlation there, especially given that a lot of the otherwise housing loss is a direct result of economic conditions and unaffordability. So basically, I mean, half of metros unhoused are here in Vancouver. And many of these people, as we see in every homeless count, are identifying as Vancouver residents. being their home when they became unhoused, it does speak to the need for us to leverage. And I appreciate that we do a lot of the work, the heavy lifting already. Where is the funding for Heart and Hearth? Is the province still at the table with some of this funding? I know there's been serious cuts to the Community Housing Fund and other kind of budgetary constraints.
It is through the province to BC Housing. So it's a program administered and coordinated through BC Housing.
Yeah, no, I get that. But are they still at the table? Because we've seen big cuts to the community housing fund.
Yes, they are. And I think they just announced some additional communities. I think there are 15 now in total hearth communities. So there is a big focus on coordination of their funded outreach programs. We have not seen any cuts to those.
Have we seen any context to suggest the success of Heart and Hearth, and in particular, getting folks stabilized with shelter, daytime shelter, or 24-7 shelter, and into less precarious positions?
I think, speaking for our outreach team and we participate on the table, it has been really valuable to work together with other outreach teams and to coordinate and look at acuity and potential referrals into housing. So in that way, it has been beneficial to all be kind of working together and in conversation. There has been a benefit.
But do we see folks stabilizing through these programs and an ability to then... Sorry, Councillor, we're out of time.
Councillor Klassen?
Thank you, Mayor.
Am I calling?
Thanks very much. And thanks, staff. Selene, I know you and your team do incredible work on this area. And I want to also thank our outreach teams because I realize that this is challenging work and it takes a lot of patience. I want to focus a bit around the conversation that has been happening the last certainly couple of years around secure care. And so I have a number of questions, so I'll go through them as quickly as I can here. So we know that the report shows that 69% report substance use challenges and 61% experience mental health conditions. Do we have a rough idea of what proportion of this population would clinically meet the criteria for secure and voluntary care?
We do not, not based on the data that we have.
I see, okay.
When it comes to the data that we are collecting, is it overlapped or connected to anything that maybe Coastal Health is doing or the province is doing?
No, this is very different. This is a point in time, 24 hour snapshot. So that's really where it ends. I would say more likely the work that our outreach team does, which is working with various case management systems to have a better understanding of a person's housing history and some of their issues would be a better source of kind of understanding kind of the complex needs of individuals.
So if I asked about what we know our current inventory of detox treatment or secure care beds is, do we have a number?
I'm sure we could get that number for you from ACCS.
For somebody seeking stabilization and support, what are the average wait times that we're aware of for that?
We'll need to get back to you on that, Councillor Clausen.
Thanks very much. And...
I know that the Point of Town Count does survey, but are we collecting any, or do we have any access to data on clinical acuity levels? So somebody's level of substance use disorder, brain injury, or potential psychosis?
We would not. That would be Vancouver Coastal Health that would hold that data.
Okay. Does the city have a specific ask to the province regarding secure or complex care beds at the present time?
Not that I'm aware of.
Interesting. Okay. And have we as a city identified any potential sites or partnerships if the province wants to move forward?
Not that I'm currently aware of. Okay. But I could follow up and get back to you on that.
Sure. It begs the question that we do often say that the province hasn't stepped up yet in terms of secure care beds.
But it would be interesting to see if that dialogue has... been infused with conversations happening on the city side here saying, here's what we can do in terms of any kind of resources or property or if that was the case. Okay. Thanks very much. I'll leave it at that. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Meiszner.
Yeah, thanks for the data. Obviously sobering, as Councillor Orr mentioned, but important for us to have. Question around a few things. First question was around the survey data, around 23% of respondents having an acquired brain injury. Is that a new data point? I hadn't recalled seeing that before.
This is the second time it's been asked about acquired brain injury. So the health challenges question has evolved over time. In 2023, it was actually asked as a standalone question, and this year has been sort of rolled up into as one of the possible health challenges. So it's the second time we've asked about acquired brain injury specifically.
Okay, and how is that tracking? It was 23% in this survey, do you recall?
It is a bit of a, it is a bit of a reduction compared to last time. Within the context, though, that is now part of a larger question, I think we would probably want to see one more survey happen to see if there's any correlation between the survey design and how that does, or if it's the data shows, but based on the raw data, there is a slight reduction.
Okay, okay, thanks for that. My other question was around the office. I wasn't aware of that office on Powell Street. Is that, a storefront? Like, can people just walk in there, get services?
Yeah, so it's across the street from Oppenheimer Park on Powell Street. It's been at that location for a number of years now, and it's open Monday to Friday from 9 to 4. First come, first serve basis. People are generally lined up by 8 a.m. to access services. And anyone can come in to get the services that they need from the outreach team that's there to work with them.
Okay. I have seen people lined up there. I just didn't realize it was a city office. Is there signage or anything? Because I feel like I had no idea that that was a city office storefront and I drive by it all the time.
There is signage. Maybe it's small to medium size, but there is signage. It does say on the windows that City of Vancouver Homelessness Outreach Team. Okay. We don't have a sandwich board or something, but there is signage that publicly identifies it as a city office.
Okay. I'm just wondering if there might be an opportunity to increase awareness of it in the community in terms of people who may not be aware it exists by installing signage. Just not really a question, but I, as a councillor, No, I did not know that was there. So great to hear about it. But on the office, it said in 2025, the office helped secure 503 housing units last year for people. Great. Wondering about the availability of housing this year, knowing that, you know, several new projects are completing in the neighborhood, in the adjacent blocks. Do we have any sense of what the availability of new units might be for 2026?
We aren't tracking that number. The housing unit secured, it's either in housing or through rent subs in the private market and SRO, other stock, as well as housing loss prevention. So we do a lot of work with clients. Let's say they haven't paid rent or there's an issue to ensure that they don't lose their housing, but we don't know the number of units that will be available this year, but we will report out on the metrics as they become available.
Okay. Is it safe to say that this year there's quite a significant number of units completing in the downtown east side?
Yes. Yeah, there are. As the recent report, even market rental units coming on board is fantastic. The challenge is the level of affordability that most of our clients need. So finding that very affordable housing can be difficult.
Yeah. Okay. For sure. Thanks for that. And then my other question was around... One of the data points was 31% of survey respondents reported living in Vancouver for less than five years. And then, sorry, that wasn't the question I had, actually. The question was, for those coming to Vancouver already experiencing homelessness, and I believe, I can't remember the data point. It was like 20, 30?
23%.
Thank you. Do we collect data or have insight on as to why they decided to come to Vancouver, given that they were already experiencing homelessness? I can imagine why, but I'm just curious if we collect any data.
So we don't ask why someone came to Vancouver as part of the survey. The one piece of context about that 22% as well is, say I became homeless 25 years ago and moved to Vancouver 22 years ago. I've been in the city for 22 years. I've been homeless the whole time, but I would be part of that 22%. So it's really... When did you become homeless? When did you move to the city? And not a track of how many were in the last six months or the last year. So just a little bit of context on that. But we don't ask why someone did come to Vancouver as a survey question.
Okay. Okay. Thanks for clarifying.
Appreciate it.
Thank you. Given the shortage of supportive housing available to all those who need it, do you have a sense of the cost implications for healthcare systems such as psychiatric units and similar facilities?
We have done the analysis to show kind of the cost of a shelter bed versus hospital versus housing. And shelter beds are very expensive as are health care beds. Housing is, from an operating kind of perspective, it is the best investment and outcomes for clients. I don't have the data specifically, but we could follow up on that.
Thanks. I'd be interested. In terms of the 392 Powell Street Homelessness Support Centre, How would this relate to the idea of a provincial homelessness navigation centre? Like, would it be something that we, a separate thing, or would it be useful for us to ask the province for additional financial or other support towards expanding and improving the service levels of that centre?
I think the navigation was initially envisioned to be kind of a specific location with wraparound supports for people that aren't typically accessing shelters. So our outreach staff could potentially refer folks into that shelter. There would be health and other supports provided in that shelter to support people to get into housing. So it was always envisioned as a standalone location.
So quite a different thing from that. That's very helpful. Thank you. In terms of the 22% of people that became homeless somewhere other than I think there's... I keep happening upon a very persistent idea that the majority of homeless folks in the city of Vancouver have moved here from somewhere else. Do you have any idea what's causing that... and how we can address that unhelpful view?
I think what the data shows over time across the region is that people feel most comfortable accessing services in their home communities. And I think really the point, pardon me, that we're trying to make with the data is the importance of ensuring that communities across the region and province have the supports so that people can access those supports in their communities. Vancouver is the urban centre. A lot of people come here for all kinds of reasons, jobs, education, all of those pieces, but... just the importance of having, ensuring that resources are available in home communities for people to access. So in some cases, they don't need to come to Vancouver to access those. And I think homelessness a few years ago was considered a big city problem. We know that that's not the case anymore. It's an issue in communities, rural communities, larger communities right across the province.
Yeah. Thanks, Mayor. Seeing no one else on the queue for questions, I'd like to move receipt of the report and then move an additional resolution, which I've circulated to council.
Do we have to go to an amendment queue or is this main queue? Thank you. Councillor Dominato, go ahead.
Yes, thanks. And just acknowledging, thank you for the update. I think, as some have said, this is a sobering report, and it certainly is. And I actually think we receive these reports every two years as part of the count across the region. Certainly, we're not seeing a decline. We're seeing an increase every time this count is done. And this being despite, I think, a range of efforts undertaken by the city, you showcased a number of the, even though we're not directly responsible for housing, that we have a number of services in place to try to assist people in navigating the city and getting connected to the right services, getting connected to... shelters and ideally into long-term permanent housing. I know the provincial federal governments also have a number of measures in place but I do think it is incumbent upon us to reinforce the areas that we want to see the provincial and federal government step up further and And Councillor Orr identified one of these points in his questions and comments. And so I have moved largely it's an advocacy resolution, which might need to be supported by a letter from the mayor and or the city manager. But it is to address increasing investments in income assistance, disability and rent supports, as well as resources to address intimate partner violence that may be contributing to homelessness. recommitting to and establishing a navigation center because the intent there is really to co-locate services and to connect people more quickly to provincial supports. Expanding access to mental health and substance use treatment and recovery services, not only here in Vancouver, but across the region so that people can get services where they live. Strengthening discharge requirements from health care corrections and child welfare systems, as we saw again in the report. Youth aging out of care are disproportionately represented, and yet they are wards of the province. They are in the care of the province. And this has been a gap that's been known for some time, that that transition can be rough, and we don't want to see that. We want to see these young people stabilized and in homes. And finally, to support local governments in daytime sheltering. This is a conversation that has come up at this council numerous times. There are not sufficient daytime sheltering spaces. They are not funded by the province, even though they're a much-needed resource. Many of our shelters close in the morning, and so there's that displacement. The Kettle Society's drop-in center has seen a huge surge in individuals seeking daytime sheltering. just adjacent to the downtown east side. And so I'm hoping that council will see the merit in supporting this resolution to, again, drive our vision for greater support in these areas.
So I think that was seconded by Councillor Clausen first. Great, thank you. Councillor Orr.
Yeah, I was going to second that, but, yeah, happy to support. Very thoughtful advocacy piece, something I was also interested in doing, but this is a little more comprehensive. So happy to support a lot of this, and thank you for bringing it forward.
Councillor Frye. Yeah, happy to support this as well. I submitted an amendment to the amendment.
Yeah, just adding to E, in addition to providing support to local governments for daytime sheltering and housing with supports, we know, especially from this kind of material, that a lot of folks are falling into serious issues for lack of housing, and the lack of housing exacerbates. issues that require support. So I think getting them back into housing requires some kind of supports. And it is to the senior levels of government to help us with that. And do we have a seconder?
Seeing no one else in the queue to the amendment, we will bring that to a vote.
and that passes unanimously.
So I'll go back to the main queue. Councillor Fry, anything else? No, that's good for right now. Thanks. Councillor Meiszner?
Yeah, I was just going to thank Councillor Domnato and Councillor Fry for the amendment, I think, on the Navigation Centre. Absolutely, we need the province to come back to the table on this. It's been discussed for many, many years, and the need just continues to grow. And I'm really confident that a site can be found. And I think I can speak for the city that we're here to help on that. On the increase of mental health and addictions treatment beds, obviously a very clear need for that as well. And I know we have a facility underway under construction at Clark and First, I believe. I know that was a little bit behind schedule, but I'm looking forward to that opening. But obviously the need is great and continues to grow. and just support around the increase of assistance rates for income assistance, disability, rent supports, et cetera. So in strong support of this amendment to the report. Thanks. Thank you very much. Councillor Maloney.
Thank you. I am also supportive of this amendment, and I think that it's so important because what I got out of this report was the... disconnect between the cost of housing and particularly the availability of shelter rate housing and the disconnect between that and income levels. And that's something that we need to exert as much pressure as possible on senior levels of government to address. So this is a very useful...
advocacy piece and um i'm 100 behind it thank you thank you very much okay i'm seeing no one else in the queue i'm going to call the vote great and that passes unanimously Great. And by the way, thank you very much for the incredibly hard work that you do on this file. It does make a big difference in a lot of lives. Thank you. Okay. So moving along, we're going to go to report number two, the 2026 cultural grants, balance of operating cultural spaces. Now, before we begin this agenda item, are there any conflicts of interest to disclose? Seeing none, this item does not have a team member presentation. Council members, you may ask. Sir, you have up to five minutes to ask questions of team members. Are there any questions?
Councillor Montague.
Yeah, thanks. I think all of council received what I guess is kind of a concerning letter from the H.R. McMillan Space Center highlighting... what sounds like they feel is some unfair treatment when compared with other grantees. So my question is, how are major institutions like the Space Center assessed for their grant funding?
Great, thank you so much for the question. The Space Center is assessed according to the program priorities along with the other arts and culture institutions. And this program is built to support arts culture activity and activities that involve artists. So it does mean that it's harder for organizations with science as a mandate to score as high compared to other arts organizations. I want to also note that the Science World and Space Center receive really high and significant grants compared to the majority of other arts organizations, which typically get an average operating grant of $35,000. So in the evaluation process, the peer assessment did make adjustments in the comparative process of the applications.
Okay, so they are mandated as an arts and culture institution, though.
They are not. Science World and Space Center do not have arts and culture mandates. They include arts and culture programming and are assessed within an arts and culture program. We know that is an issue, and staff will be looking at alternatives for improvements in the coming years.
Okay. So are STEM organizations included in our grant funding framework somehow?
They are included in the program and they have been receiving funding for many decades. Science goals and STEM goals are not currently priorities included within the program.
Are we encouraging STEM organizations to apply for funding?
No, we're not.
Okay.
Is city staff informing organizations that reductions in their grant funding are... due to the zero means zero budgeting despite the fact that the budget specifically protected grant funding?
No, we're not telling people that. We have communicated that we are looking at the comparative percentage of the grant levels to organizations' operating budget, and for Space Center, the grant level is very high compared to their operating budget compared to the level of investment provided to other organizations through the program.
Okay, and has the Space Center seen a reduction in their grants over the years?
Yes, that has been a trend.
Okay, why is that?
Because their grant is high compared to other organizations, and because they're not meeting program priorities as higher as other organizations.
I'm sorry, they're not meeting?
They're not aligning as high with the program priorities within the arts and culture program compared to other groups.
Okay, so we're... We're saying that the arts and culture is more important at this point than the STEM organizations?
The program was built for arts and culture organizations. These science organizations are legacy organizations, and they are receiving a much higher level of funding currently than other arts organizations in the same program.
Okay. And what are we doing to encourage revenue generation from these major institutions?
I think, you know, financial health is a part of every assessment. So we are looking at the balance of funding and the proportion of city and public funding as part of their revenue model.
We are looking at, okay. Can you just say that last bit again?
Yeah, we're considering the financial health and their overall revenue model as part of the assessment of their application.
Okay. Thanks, Mayor. That's my questions.
Thank you so much.
Councillor Zhou. Yeah, thanks, Mayor. So I have some questions regarding the cultural operating funding. So my understanding is that in the past, we always have the same recipients receiving this funding, and this year we opened a new recipient for this program. Can you confirm that? Can you elaborate more?
Yes, this program has typically been invite only where we funded previous recipients to this program. To improve accessibility and transparency, this year we launched an expression of interest where we opened the door for organizations to indicate interest in being considered for the program. So for cultural operating funding, 18 applications. applied and were considered based on culture shift priorities previous track record of grant applications and strong operations only four of those 18 were encouraged to apply this year for cultural operating funding we did put a program on pause in order to add new programs to this add new organizations to this program so we'd have the budget to do it
Okay, thank you. So another question is, I think we're going to hear from the Chinese Canadian Museum and also the Dr. Sands in Garden. So they have, I think they are all new applicants because of the program, right? Can you confirm that? Okay. And I saw for the museum, they request $350,000, but they will only be able to receive $80,000. And can you elaborate what are the explanations? And can we make sure that in the future, it doesn't impact their funding request in the future?
$88,000 in this program is actually considered a very high grant. The only organizations receiving much higher grants are the cultural institutions, which include the ones managing civic collections. So we were pleased to be able to invite the Chinese Canadian Museum at such a high level compared to other organizations. And it really is a matter of limited resources. And we did have to put a program on pause in order to create budget to invite these new groups and seeing them as a very high priority.
Thank you. So does this affect their future grant application?
They will be able to ask for an increase next year. So that's one of the reasons why they weren't recommended for multi-year. Since they are an organization ranked highly and showing growth, we wanted there to be an opportunity to request a higher grant in future years.
Okay, thank you. And also for the garden, they request $80,000, but they didn't receive anything. Can you provide some explanation as well?
Funding through this program is not guaranteed, so we did let people know the four organizations selected as priority to apply to this program were informed that this funding was not guaranteed and that they should continue to apply for project funding. Applications were evaluated through the peer assessment process, where members of the cultural community and staff participated in assessment and made recommendations based on the program priorities and available budget. Based on the applications submitted, the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden was not recommended for a grant at this time. because other organizations ranked higher according to program priorities. But we acknowledge the unique role the organization serves. Staff will be providing feedback on their application, and they will be invited to apply again next year.
Okay, so after the report today, both organizations will be reached out and staff will provide some guidance and support moving forward, right?
Yes, we've actually met with both of them already, and we will schedule an additional follow-up to provide more detail on their applications.
Thank you. Thank you for doing that. That's all my question. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Councillor Meiszner.
Yeah, thanks. I just want to follow up on one of Councillor Zhou's questions. The change in the process around the competitive expression of interest process, was that as a result of council direction or was that a staff decision?
It was a staff decision to provide more openness and transparency.
Okay. And there's no requirement for a decision like that to come to council? No. Okay. Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. Okay. We're now going to hear from registered speakers. Public speakers should state whether they are in support or opposition of the recommendations and may only speak once. I'm going to ask speakers if they are residents of Vancouver, if it's not so noted. On the list, our first public speaker is Henry Liu, Executive Director of the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden. And is Henry on the line? Yes. Hi. Please go ahead.
Can everyone hear me?
Okay, wonderful. Thank you so much. Dear Mayor and Councillors, my name is Henry Hong Liu. I'm the Executive Director of the Dr. Sun Yat-sen Classical Chinese Garden. In 2025, the Garden was invited to apply as one of the four new applicants to the Cultural Operating Funding Program. We're grateful for the opportunity and committed to the EOI and full application processes. Last week, we received disappointing news that our application was unsuccessful, and we have discovered that the Garden is the only one organization in the entire applicant pool that is not recommended for funding. Our request was $80,000, which is lower than many major successful organizations ask. while we do not actually expect to receive the full amount and we're aiming for a lower figure zero is extremely insulting to the doctors and classical chinese garden as a long-standing community-driven cultural organization that has served the city for four decades as one of vancouver's most significant significant cultural institutions and a key anchor in Chinatown. The garden plays a unique and irreplaceable role in preserving and sharing Chinese arts, culture and heritage, fostering cross-cultural understanding and reaching the city's artistic and cultural landscape. It is not only a place of historical and architectural importance, but also a living cultural institution that offers educational programming, exhibitions, performances and community engagement opportunities for residents and visitors alike and of all generations. At the time when Hoover continues to emphasize diversity, inclusion, and reconciliation, the garden stands as a powerful symbol of the city's commitment to these values. Its contributions align closely with the city's cultural priorities, including supporting the representative community. communities advancing into cultural dialogue and sustaining viable spaces. However, like many nonprofit cultural organizations, the garden faces ongoing financial pressures that threaten its ability to maintain stable operations and deliver high quality programming, including it in a cultural operating grant program would provide stability and ensure it can continue serving the public in meaningful ways. This year, in 2026, the garden celebrates its 40th anniversary. Being singled out in the grant recommendation for zero funding is a slap in the face. The grant recommendation sends the dangerous message that the garden is not worthy of being funded by the operating grant program and ultimately the city. And I respectfully ask mayor and city council to consider an amendment that locates funding to the doctors and classical Chinese garden within the current grant grant framework. Supporting this important institution is an investment in Vancouver's cultural vitality, heritage preservation and community well-being. Last week, I had a meeting with the two program officers for the operating grant, and we received the feedback that basically what the guidance delivers, it's not consistent. It's not on the priority.
We're out of time, Henry. Thank you so much for your time and thoughtful consideration. Thank you very much for recalling everything you do, Dr. Sun Yat-sen. Our next speaker is speaker number two, Grace Wong.
Good morning, Your Worship and Councillors. I'm Grace Wong, Board Chair of the Chinese Canadian Museum. I'm here today with our CEO, Dr. Melissa Carmen Lee. We're truly grateful that the museum has been selected to receive an operating grant, and we wish to sincerely thank Council and the Arts and Culture team for their support. The city of Vancouver had a key role in establishing this museum. In 2018, an MOU was signed between the province of BC and the city of Vancouver to support the establishment of the Chinese Canadian Museum, the first of its kind in the province and the country. At the museum's official opening in 2023, the entire City Council was in attendance, and we received a dedicated grant of $100,000 annually for operations, with the understanding that once the museum was established and running, it would be eligible to apply for ongoing operating support. Since opening, the museum has won 15 awards, including Governor General's Award, City of Vancouver Living Heritage Award, and launched seven exhibitions. In that time, we've welcomed over 85,000 visitors and more than 4,000 students through our doors. Importantly, the museum is part of the broader process of cultural restitution, underscored by the opening of the museum on the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act. and our inaugural exhibition, The Paper Trail. The museum ensures that the long history, culture, and the contributions of Chinese Canadians are recognized, preserved, and shared widely. This fulfills a vital public education role and fosters deeper understanding across all communities. The museum is establishing itself as a major cultural institution for the province and the country, and importantly for the city of Vancouver, where it is rooted in Chinatown. The museum contributes to the vitality of the neighborhood, attracting visitors locally, across Canada, and internationally. It is a cultural anchor and a growing tourism asset for the city. But the museum is still relatively new and securing sustainable operating funding is essential for us to achieve our mandate and achieve our potential. We are very grateful for this grant, but we do note it's below what we received on opening and less than what was requested. As well, we would then not be eligible to apply for other cultural grants of the city. and that presents then a further challenge. We recognize the realities of municipal budgets, the many priorities the council must balance, but we respectfully ask that at the earliest opportunity, the museum be considered for a meaningful increase to its annual operating grant. ideally at the level originally requested of $350,000. Such an investment would acknowledge the museum as a major cultural institution and affirms the city's commitment to the Chinese-Canadian museum and its work.
Great. I'm sorry we're out of time. Great. Thank you very much for coming in and all the incredible work you do down there. Okay. That's the end of our speakers list. I do want to thank everyone for coming out and speaking to council. Would someone like to move motion? Great. Counselor Fry, is there a seconder? Counselor Zhou, thank you. Counsel, is there any discussion? Counselor Zhou.
Yeah, thanks, Mayor. Can I ask a five-minute recess so I can prepare some amendment language? Sure. Thanks.
Councillor Bligh, are you online?
Oh, she left.
If we can get one of the councillors online to turn on their camera. We have quorum.
Oh, she is? Perfect.
And Councillor Fry and Maloney, or they... All right, we'll just keep going. Councillor Zhou?
Yeah, thanks, Mayor. I'm moving an amendment, which I sent to everyone already.
Go ahead.
There you go. Perfect. Thank you. All right. So, yeah, so understand the concern from the Chinese Canadian Museum and Dr. Sanderson Garden. I think both are very significant culturally. significant organization to the whole community, not only the Chinese community, but to the whole Vancouver as a whole. So I think it's not appropriate for a significant organization to not receive any money for this grant recommendation. So I'm moving this amendment to allocate $25,000 for our reserve to the Dr. Sanderson Garden. And especially I want to highlight it's coming from the reserve, so it does not affect the operating funding for the department. And I also want to mention that our reserve has increased by from 3% to 10% in the past three years. So that's exactly the place we should use this money for to support this organization. And especially the garden is celebrating 40 years anniversary this year. So it's just not appropriate to me if they did not receive any money from the city to acknowledge their significant contribution to the city. So very straightforward amendment. So hope to receive support from the council. And can we please get a seconder?
Okay. Well, let's bring that to a vote then.
Mayor, can I have a vote of system favor, please? Councillor Kirby. Thank you very much. Yes, you can.
Okay. And that passes unanimously with Councillor Bligh absent. Okay. Let's go back to the main queue.
Okay. Councillor Zhou.
Yeah, so I have no other things to say, but I really encourage our department to reach out to organizations to explain to them and work through them for the future application, which they have agreed to do that. So, yeah, so hope to support, hope to see the future grant recommendation from our staff. Thanks.
Thank you very much. Okay, seeing no one else in the queue, I'm going to call the vote.
please go to the voting panel and vote on.
Okay.
Counselor Maloney.
Great. And that passes unanimously. And that is, that completes report number two. Okay. So the next report we have is report number six, coastal flood management policy. Now, before we begin this agenda item, if anyone believes that they have a conflict of interest, now is the time to declare it. Does anybody have a conflict of interest to declare?
Seeing none. Okay, this item does not have a team member presentation. Councillor Maloney, you did hold this item, so you have up to five minutes to ask questions of team members.
I'm interested in asking a couple of questions about the role of the city in terms of liability from flood risk and particularly whether we need to move beyond just focusing on False Creek.
Thank you. Councillor Maloney, Brad Bedell, Director of Strategic Programs. We have Susan Horn from Legal Services Online, I believe. She might be best positioned to respond. Susan, are you able to respond?
Yes, thank you. Susan Horne, Legal Services Department.
Generally speaking, if Councillor Maloney, if your question is seeking some legal advice about the city's liability around flood management, those questions are best responded to in camera or by written privilege memo, which we are happy to provide at your or any other councillor's request.
Okay, thanks. I'm looking for some more general comments rather than specific legal advice. So I might move on to my next question. In terms of the West End waterfront plan that was voted against by Council, can I have some more information about the climate mitigation and flooding mitigation aspects that were included in that plan and whether there's any... moves to revisit that in light of this report. It's probably something that Park Board would be... in a position to advise on.
Yeah, thank you, Councillor Maloney. So Park Board would be best to advise on that. They are doing a coastal flood risk assessment of all of Park's assets around the city. That work is underway right now, so I'm sure they'd be happy to provide more information via memo to that question.
Yeah, I think that would be helpful too. I'd like to, I'm just about to send round an amendment to the report recommendations, if you could bear with me. And perhaps if Councillor Fry goes ahead and then I'll come back on.
Thank you very much, Councillor Fry.
Yeah, thank you. And thank you for the report and the work on this. I recall from previous reports the rather alarming language around managed retreat. And I don't see anything in here about retreat. I see mitigations as far as structural enhancements and that kind of thing. And where is the role in this policy? Is that still a consideration that we have for managed retreat in some of the flood-prone areas?
Thank you, Councillor Frey. So the policy doesn't preclude managed retreat. It more enables the city to take... a consistent process for decision-making in this space. So a lot of the city, Falls Creek, Fraser River, clearly a space of protection given what's there, but the policy does not preclude managed retreat. I think that's a follow-up conversation with council in terms of where that might be pursued. But at the moment, it's neither on the table nor off the table. It's not precluded by the policy.
Okay, so the function of this policy is really just to look at our tools for mitigation?
Yeah, I would say the purpose of the policy is that to date we haven't had any council approved policy as to where and when we require coastal flood protection. It also sets a bit of a hierarchy in terms of relying on redevelopment as the opportunity to adapt our coastline, to be opportunistic in that approach, and also sets a basic set of criteria as to when the city may choose to invest in...
protection in particular and how council would be involved in that and so it and and by virtue of the fact that it doesn't include very specific i mean one of the conversations we have often is is around seawalls versus more natural systems that might might form more uh appropriate breakwaters and that kind of thing
Yeah, this has been a lot of conversation internally. So the seawall is where people will gravitate to as far as coastal flood protection. I think what we're looking at is more of an adaptive approach over time as land use changes to build in flood protection, like we've seen with Northeast Falls Creek and the development application there, that the protection be built into the coastline and not so much relying on a hard line of defense like the seawall. The downside of a raising of the seawall only is that it can create sort of a bathtub effect like you might see with a Richmond-style dike, and that's not what we want here.
Yeah, okay. And so in this also, this is where we talk about things like, say, the Olympic Village School being built to a higher grade in anticipation of…
Yeah, the first thing the city really did in this space after we went through the future flood mapping was to raise the construction level for all new buildings. So buildings now are built to accommodate a meter of sea level rise, looking out to 2100. We've also seen applications like St. Paul's Hospital that have been built even higher in that case. So that's a minimum starting point for any building, including that school. Okay.
Thanks. Councillor Maloney. Thanks. If you could take me to an amendment, please.
There's nothing on the floor yet, so we don't okay councillor. Can you hold on one sec? I would someone like to move a motion Great thing Great. Thank You councillor Maloney. Is there a seconder? Great. Thank you councillor. What? It's not the memories just the motion so we can get to the amendment. Thank you So that was seconded by Councillor Meiszner And then Councillor Maloney hopped on the main queue, now is on the amendment queue. Correct? Great. Please go ahead.
Thanks. This is to replace the current recommendation and it's simply to direct the city to take a leadership on how key governments, agencies, utilities and land owners plan. coordinated, cost-effective flood protection for Falls Creek and other areas at risk before crisis disruption and avoidable expense force our hands. And it doesn't ask Vancouver taxpayers to unilaterally shoulder everyone else's costs. It asks the city to do only what it can do, bring the players together and protect some of Vancouver's most important public places, economic assets, and symbols. Thanks.
Thank you. Councillor Dominato.
Thanks, Mayor, through you to either staff or to the city manager. I just want to get some clarity on... Councillor, can I pause your time? Yeah, no problem.
Yeah, on the amendment. Do we have a seconder on the amendment? Second. Councillor Orr was first. Thank you. Councillor Domenato, please go ahead.
Yeah, I'm just wondering if staff could speak to the proposed resolution here. Obviously, we're looking at adopting the policy framework, fully supportive of that. But I'm curious if some of this work is already in place in terms of some of these relationships and partnerships, if staff could speak to it, and whether contextually some of these things are necessary as well. I'm just looking at some of the stakeholders engaged and identified here. So could staff, I don't know who wants to take that one. I see our deputy city manager standing up.
Thank you, Sandra Singh, deputy city manager. Councillor, we just received this memo, and I wouldn't mind just having a couple of minutes for staff to be able to review it in order to respond to your question. It is a report back, but we could use it. Why don't we take a three-minute recess? Five? Three is good. Three-minute recess.
Thank you.
Okay. Councillor Domenato, you have the floor again.
Follow-up from the City Manager or staff with respect to my questions?
Great. Thank you, Councillor Domonato, for the opportunity to review the draft amendment. So a few comments from staff. We do parts of the motion, or proposed amendment, sorry, already. B1, B2, and B4 of the draft amendment staff already are actively working in these spaces. It's not shared within this report, but it's areas that we have been actively working in and plan to continue working. B3 and B5 are new areas of work. Convening a stakeholder group of that complexity would require significant resources. It would be additional new resources, and we don't feel at this time that this is necessarily a priority for this work. We have a number of other streams of work happening in this area, but this would be a chunk of unresourced work that we don't... That we wouldn't prioritize. C is similar. C focuses on Burrard Inlet and Fraser River. Similar sort of body of recommendations. Again, it would be a new convening and a new resource requirement for us to take this work on. Again, we wouldn't prioritize C in this space. I'll pause there. Thank you. Thank you.
Okay.
Does council reply online?
Okay. And that fails with myself, Councillor Dominato, Councillor Montague, Councillor Claston, Councillor Meiszner and Councillor Zhou in opposition. Okay. So we will go back to the main queue. Councillor Dominato.
I have, well, are we speaking just now to the report? Well, just suffice to say, I just want to acknowledge the work of staff in bringing forward a policy framework. I think that it's necessary in terms of ongoing planning. And as was noted, there is a need to have some consistency as well as we're undertaking planning, particularly in floodplain areas. And so I'm supportive of us having this framework. I know there is a lot of ongoing work behind the scenes. It's not just with the city of Vancouver, but other municipalities as well in this space. And so I think that the policy framework is a good first step, and so I'm happy to support it. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Seeing no one else in queue, I'm going to call the vote.
And that passes unanimously. Thank you very much. And that completes the report.
So the next item. Thank you very much.
The next item is item number eight, states for the 2026 through 2029 Alcohol Consumption in Public Places Program. So before we begin, are there any conflicts of interest to disclose? Seeing none, this item does not have a team member presentation. Council members, you may have up to five minutes to ask questions of team members. Are there any questions? Seeing no one else, no one in the queue, we're now going to hear from registered speakers for this report. Public speakers should state whether they are in support or opposition to the recommendations and may only speak once. I will ask speakers if they're residents of Vancouver, if it's not so noted on the speakers list. Our first public speaker is Phaedra Alicia Ruck-Garden.
Well done. Yeah, so my name is Phaedra Alicia Ruck. I'm a fourth generation Vancouver resident speaking on the shared territory of all people who call this place home. I'm here in opposition to the sites for the 2026 to 2029 alcohol consumption public plazas program. This bylaw would take effect on May 10th, 2026 in less than one month. Council still has time today for sober second thoughts. Photos taken about an hour ago at 111 Princess, one of the plazas that was piloted by Portland Housing Society, show a police car, seven people appear to be homeless, open hard drug use nearby, and a shopping cart out on the street. This is not the picture of success that council is being sold in the report. Council should be cautious about relying on the Portland Housing Society and the 111 Princess Plaza as reassurance. In 2014, the province... Sorry, going to skip that. Vancouver already has 209 licensed liquor establishments and 1,222 restaurants with liquor service. That's more than 1,400 licensed places to drink already operating in regulated settings. Alcohol is a lucrative business through licensed venues with taxes, permit fees, rent, and jobs, but public plazas offer the city no added value. The financial section of this report is completely unacceptable. The report doesn't give the public one clear total cost for washroom signage and site operations, even though the washroom access is treated as critical. In 2023, city staff asked the province for $3.8 million for one year of washrooms related to programs. If washrooms are critical for alcohol sites, then council should show the public the full cost clearly before approving expansion. I speak as a recovered alcoholic with five years sober. And as a recovered alcoholic, I'm uniquely aware of how many places in this city there are to drink and how few places there are to get clean. Rarely does addiction start with hard drugs. More often, it starts with alcohol. And addiction doesn't stop at a sign, a boundary, or 5 p.m. Today is 10 years since British Columbia declared a substance use public health emergency in the overdose opioid crisis, April 14, 2016. On this exact day, council is being asked to expand, normalize public substance use into 13 plaza sites. The report says the program has operated without incident, but with respect, this is naive. Alcohol harm does not show up neatly in complaints. It shows up in emergency rooms, violence, broken families, relapse, and lives that unravel behind closed doors. and end up where I live part-time with my partner on the downtown east side. In the first report before council today, people indicated substance use as a reason for housing loss. Even this morning's report was woefully inadequate in showing the true scope of the crisis. Substance use is already helping push people out of housing. Why is council expanding public addiction spaces instead of public recovery spaces? What is the real difference between a safe injection site and what's being proposed here? Is that at least one is supervised. These would be unsupervised public alcohol consumption sites. Last year, Vancouver hosted the AA International World Convention through the work of recovered alcoholics and local members. Vancouver should be proud of that. Today, council is being asked to make sober life harder than it needs to be. So I ask you guys now because my time has rang out. This is a step in the wrong direction, and it's within your power to prevent today. Fun detox, fun treatment, but we do not need more places to drink. We need more places to recover. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Phaedra, for coming in. So that's the end of our speakers list. Would someone like to move a motion? Councillor Claston, seconded by Councillor Fry. Thank you very much. Council, is there any discussion? Councillor Meiszner.
Yeah, thanks. If I may, I'd like to ask a question through you, Chair, Mayor, to staff. Thank you. Staff, I'm wondering if you can explain, the speaker spoke about 111 Princess. I understand that's outside of a, I don't know if it's social or supportive housing building. What is the difference between that site? I understand it's a drinker's lounge and the other sites in the report.
Yeah, thank you for the question. Associate Director of Street Activities, Rachel Magnuson. That site is a unique site. So it's a part of our parklet program, our social service parklet program, where we work closely with social services. Many of these are in the downtown east side to provide public space. And in particular, this is a managed alcohol program. So it is... run by the Portland Hotel Society. It's been a really well-functioning program for a long time. And what we do is we permit that parklet in front of them as a sort of extension of their social service space. So it is managed by a safe consumption program, and then they offer the programming in that, and then they also provide washrooms and other kind of access to services within their building.
Okay. And when you say consumption, you're referring to consumption of alcohol.
That's correct.
Not hard, illicit substances. Okay. Thanks for that. And then are staff aware of any, you know, significant volume of complaints around that particular patio?
No, we haven't had any.
Okay. Okay. Thanks for the information.
Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Dominato.
Yeah, thanks there. Um, I just wanted to speak just in in brief Just to acknowledge the speaker appreciating that That you came in and spoke to this and and while I have been previously supported the recommendations around these patio spaces and allowing people to drink. We also did it during COVID when people were unable to congregate in homes. But I just want to acknowledge the reality of what you're speaking to in terms of alcoholism in our society. And I would doubt, I suspect I'm not alone in that probably most of us in our families have someone who has struggled with alcoholism, including my own and my family. And so I think there is a persistent issue as a society there. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. Even though I will be supporting the recommendations we have presented today, I did want to also acknowledge that it is complex. It does have real impacts. And I think there's opportunities. And we were just talking earlier about more advocacy to the provincial government for supports for a range of issues around... treatment and recovery spaces. It's something we've talked about and tried to advocate for, for a number of reasons, not just around alcohol, but around other substances. But I just want to say thank you for coming and speak to council, because I think it is an issue that we see universally throughout our society. And I appreciate you speaking up. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Councillor. Councillor Maloney.
I just have some questions. So The plaza locations that are included, they're all clustered around the metro core. What was the reasoning behind not including any south of King Edward and mostly around the downtown?
Yeah, good question. So the way our plaza program is run is that we co-manage spaces with community groups, BIAs, or social service organizations. And so rather than us identifying the plazas that are suited for public drinking, we work closely with our partners who co-manage those spaces with us to identify them. And so the list that you see has been brought forth by us, by our community partners who want to have this, to belong to this program. We do have some new plazas like Main and 50th or newer plaza, Fraser and 48th. And the Fraser and 48th, they just haven't chosen to be a part of the program. And Main and 50th is still early in its pilot stages and so isn't eligible at this time.
Okay. And the one at the plaza at 14th and Main, I know that the bathrooms, the public toilets are pretty far away from that one.
Yeah.
Was that a consideration?
Absolutely. And so we... Many people who might be using that plaza may be patrons of businesses in the area, so they can use those bathrooms if they're at the JGB and getting a coffee. And we want to be able to provide a secure public use of a washroom. Another consideration is just the management of that. So we work closely with the BIA where someone has to come and lock that bathroom, et cetera. And with the balance of both the washrooms that may be available in businesses, that location that's a little bit far, we thought it kind of met the criteria.
You thought just on balance?
On balance, there would be enough access.
Okay. That's all for me. Thanks. Thank you very much, Councillor Orr.
Yeah, thanks. I, too, also want to acknowledge the speaker. And, you know, somebody spent seven years in AA, and, you know, I do – I do recognize the difficulties of seeing the permissibility of alcohol versus sort of other substances, and I do want to recognize that. And I do want to note that oftentimes we do have VCH sometimes giving comments. When we come up to this, we had it when we extended liquor license hours, I believe, to the 4 a.m. one. But, you know, just wanted to acknowledge that as well, but also that the managed alcohol program is harm reduction. It is significantly different. These are people that, you know, are problem alcoholics in terms of, you know, drinking hand sanitizer, you know, and other sort of problematic alcohol, and that this is an incredibly successful program because, you know, sometimes cold turkey works for some people. I've seen it. I've seen it also fail. I've seen people who have made their health significantly worse by doing cold turkey. And this program weans people off of alcohol into sort of different forms of alcohol. And I recognize, you know, the speaker is not satisfied with that. I understand, you know, that, you know, alcohol is alcohol maybe is the sort of situation. But I do think that this program saves lives. So I will be supporting the reported recommendations. Thanks.
Alistair Claussen. Yeah, just really quickly, I want to speak to an example of the success of this program. Last summer, Mount Pleasant BIA hosted a wine tasting at their Main and 14th Plaza. It was a beautiful, sunny, late afternoon, very limited ability that was actually a first-come, first-served basis, but I think they limited the number of seats to 14 all in. They had a sommelier there who actually had chosen a few wine selections from a local liquor reseller on Main Street. And I could tell from the people that were there that they were truly enjoying being able to come together in this environment, which was not rowdy by any stretch of the imagination. It was very pleasant. and a great way to enjoy our city and a great street like Main Street. So while there are examples where we have to be very cautious, this is an example of one that really adds true value to our community. So I'd be happy to support this report. Thanks.
Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Frye.
Yeah. Just speaking as somebody who was on council when we first passed this and appreciate the work that's gone into it and the steady hand that has kept this functioning very well and the partnerships with the BIAs to make them function well. As a long-term... a longtime resident of the Downtown Eastside. And I do want to speak just a bit to the Princess Drinking Station because it is a form of harm reduction, as Councillor Orr alludes, but it's also not just for the participants, but also for the general neighborhood. At the time that we approved it, we were dealing with a lot more problem drinkers in... neighborhoods and areas that we didn't want them in the school grounds and that kind of thing so this was also a means of focusing and when one of the things that we talked about when we initially passed these these plazas and and and sanctions areas for drinking is recognizing that folks are going to drink and they're going to drink in public settings if that's their choice, but it impacts different communities differently and different drinkers will be treated differently based on their sort of racial profile or what have you. And those are all serious considerations that informed a lot of this, recognizing that some people will be policed differently for different activities. Some people will have the privilege of being able to have a drink in a public setting and not be harassed by the police or or or what have you and other people will not and so part of this was recognizing this is a form of harm reduction and this is also an opportunity to you know in different settings celebrate local business improvement activities and and the key with the exception of the the the more medicalized approach at princess avenue is is responsible And it is managed responsibly. And I think that it does behoove us to recognize the work of staff and the work of the BIA partners in managing these plazas in a responsible way to prevent harm. And it is about harm reduction. So supporting of this and just thanks for allowing me to just give a local perspective from the downtown side.
Thank you very much, Councillor. Seeing no one else in the queue, I'm going to call the vote.
Please go to the voting panel.
And that passes unanimously.
And that completes report number eight. Moving along. Report number 10, miscellaneous amendments concerning various housing rezoning conditions. Before we begin this item, does anybody have a conflict they need to declare? All right. This item does not have a team member presentation. Councillor Orr, you held this item. You have up to five minutes to ask questions of team members.
Okay, yeah, hi, sorry.
Excellent, yeah. So, I mean, just want to acknowledge that we're kind of in a brave new territory here in terms of things that would usually be at a public hearing and now are at council. Just wanted to recognize that. We're kind of all learning kind of as we go along here with this process. But I do want to ask a few questions to staff. Generally, just why are these amendments being brought forward as a sort of bundled package rather than evaluated site by site for council to determine each one individually?
director for housing policy and regulation. We're bringing them forward as a batch because these projects couldn't be caught as part of the in-stream process so council will have seen some of these already either as yellow memos or embedded in rezoning applications as they come forward individually. These projects have already passed through that stage and so for efficiency we brought them together in a way like a miscellaneous text amendment report template to be since they're all mostly following the the same program, the Rental Development Relief Program.
For sure, yeah, okay. I understand that. So do you think then that this might set some sort of precedent in terms of, you know, we've got, we've presented the public one thing, and then I know we've passed this, you know, Rental Development Relief Program, which I did not support at the time. So, you know, does this send a message to applicants, you know, that are, you know... sitting on a property, say, you know, can now just, you know, kind of come back later and amend it and, you know, get rid of the affordability kind of component. I mean, not completely, but... Yeah.
I mean, this batch, nine of the 11 housing agreements that are being amended are in response to the Rental Development Relief Program. So that program was developed as a temporary measure to address viability. And so it has a start date and an end date, December 2027. And so we wouldn't expect projects necessarily to come through in a different way. And they, in this case, would have to meet the criteria outlined in the Rental Development Relief Program. And so those, you know, the program was approved by council. This report obviously is a chance for council to weigh in. And then each individual housing agreement does come back to council for endorsement before it's registered with the Land Titles Office. So there are quite a few opportunities for council to make decisions related to each report if they need to.
Yeah, that's right. So for a typical rezoning application, we approve those conditions. The housing agreement then is created working with law, and then law brings those housing agreement bylaws forward to council as part of their daytime routine work. And once council approves those, then they're registered with the Land Titles Office. So this step today is to... make a decision on whether or not council wishes to do that, and then law will take those housing agreements away and bring them back for approval.
Okay. I'm not sure about previous councils, but that doesn't happen very often in terms of when, you know, like a bylaw is pulled and council sort of votes on it.
I mean, maybe you can't... Yeah, usually they're approved at that point.
Yeah.
You can maybe, would it behoove council just sort of maybe be more sort of attuned to that process? Does it give added value to that section of where we're approving bylaws that we should sort of kind of pay more attention to? I mean...
You know, I mean, for the ones in the rental development relief program, they are meeting the eligibility requirements that were set out by council, so I don't know that extra attention is necessary. They are compliant.
Okay. I guess this is probably a difficult question, but in terms of, I know each project is probably different, but I mean, what would the difference in rent be between the sort of CMHC averages and BMR? Is it going to be quite significant? I mean...
Yeah, Martin can maybe, he's got the data at his fingertips. Thanks, Martin. Yeah, so the original affordability for these projects would have been 20% discount to citywide averages. So for a studio, that's $1,364 for 2026, all the way up to $2,900 for a three-bedroom or larger. And the changes, if approved today, would bring the affordability for a studio to $1,700 all the way to $3,600 for a three-bedroom or larger.
Yeah, it would be going from a 20% discount to citywide average to at citywide average.
Okay.
Yeah, just extrapolating a little bit on that. So we're seeing the market rents are dropping, and that's a reflection in this as well. Yes. And we calculate our BMR relative to market rents annually?
That's updated annually with the CMHC rental market report, yes.
Okay. Yeah, because I think it's – and how does this translate to our vacancy rate? Because a lot of this was predicated by having a very low vacancy rate, and now we've seen the vacancy rate – And I appreciate that we've approved this pilot, so this is all compliant with the pilot project that we approved. Where are our vacancy rates at for purpose-built rental?
Thanks, Councillor Dan Gerson, Director of Housing Policy and Regulation. Our vacancy rates have increased in the last year. They're now up at 2.7% for the city, which is partly a supply and demand issue. It's partly relative to new supply coming online and partly related to changes in federal immigration policy and other demand drivers.
It has been an upward trend the last two data points, last two years. So we'll be tracking it with CMHC over the next year. Certainly that'll be one of the key points we'll be monitoring over the next year. i do expect it to continue to go up because of the amount of rental housing that we have in the pipeline right now is a significant amount of supply under construction so we're looking at potentially a couple of good years coming forward i think our concern would be following that the viability profile for rental projects today is significantly worse and so The concern and really what this program responds to is the notion that once the projects that are under construction are completed, we don't have a pipeline of projects following those to continue rental supply, to continue to meet the demand. So that's why we have viability measures that we put in place.
And to put a finer point on that, in the context of BMR, it's expected to reduce the market rents.
I mean, yes, that's the challenge here is that we have market rents that are sort of, if you will, paying for, cross-subsidizing the below market rents, and those market rents are falling. So we're having, that's one of the key sources of the viability challenges for these projects. So certainly appreciate, and no one more than our housing department would be concerned about the level of affordability we're securing in projects. The challenge we have is that the projects otherwise are looking like they may not proceed at all. And so that's why we're putting in place these kinds of measures to support viability.
More broadly, and this might be a Templar kind of question, but seeing that these are the new reports that are coming in under the ODP and we are not doing public hearings on a lot of this kind of material, and some of the public commentary is really digested down to just sort of staff interpretation of the general tone. Is that what we can expect for public comments on rezonings in the future under the ODP?
Thanks for the question, Templar Director of Rezoning. So for this particular report, it's a little different. But in general, for rezoning applications, staff do summarize the comments and feedback generated through the review process, whether it's through Ship Your City or comments directly provided. But residents still have the opportunity to write directly to clerks and council through and up till, I think, the morning of those meetings. So you can still get your regular roll-up of direct comments from the public through those forums, too. So you would have got an email notification saying, here's the full list of comments that are posted for you to see.
Right, but we won't be receiving the sort of appendices that we have received in the past on a rezoning that lists them all.
So again, just to clarify, clerks does send an email that would have otherwise had all of those comments up until that morning, similar to what you would have had for a public hearing item. So you still receive the written correspondence from a member of the public if they submit it through that mayor and council portal for those items.
Right, I guess what I was getting at more is the public record kind of component of it, because typically on a rezoning, we would have, you know, it would be on the... agenda and it would have like for and against and blah, blah, blah, and anybody in the public could read it.
Fair question. I'd have to defer to clerks. So council certainly would see all of that still. So you'd still get those written correspondence. I did see that batch go out this morning, for example, for these projects, as well as a summary of the for and against for anyone who did write in on those. So council is still fully informed of that. I'd have to just double check as to how much of that is made public though as well. Okay. Well, that's...
Maybe a takeaway for later. I think just as we're entering this new process, and I think, you know, in the interest of transparency. Thanks. Okay.
Thank you very much, Councillor. Okay. Would someone like to move a motion? Councillor Zhou, seconded by Councillor Montague. Council, is there any discussion?
Seeing no one in the queue, I'm going to call the vote.
Okay, so just so we're clear, sorry, clerk, do we have to redo that vote or usually we're all fine? Okay, good. Okay, that passes with Councillor Orr abstaining.
Okay. Yep. Oh, yes, thank you.
Okay, please go ahead. Mayor, noting the time here and what looks like Not many items perhaps that can move to complete the rest of the Council of Business before.
Okay. So seconded by Councillor Zhou. Is there any discussion? Okay. All those in favour say yay. All those opposed say nay. Okay. And so, Sir Clerk, we just need a majority, right? Okay. Perfect. Okay. We will continue on to finish the business of this meeting. Okay. So the next item I have is item number 11. Is that correct?
Okay, CD-1839, Text Amendment 5590 Victoria Drive and 2005 East 40th Avenue. Before we begin, any conflicts to disclose? No? Okay. This item does have a presentation. We have team members here to present this item, unless someone wants to waive the presentation.
What's up? Okay, so we have...
Motion to waive. Seconded by Councillor Zhou. Is there any discussion here? Okay, so all those in favor of waiving the president say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Great, so we will waive the presentation. I know it would have been fabulous. Would the applicant like to make note? Okay, there we go. Council members, you have up to five minutes to ask questions of team members. And the applicant, are there any questions? Councillor Orr.
Yeah, thanks. I won't take up too much time. I think mostly my question is that this seems to be quite a significant shift in terms of, you know, this was a social housing project. By definition, 30% of the units were tied to household income and is now no longer social housing. I would just like to know, moving forward, I must have missed this, but I... It's consistent with the ODP just because it's residential. I'm just trying to wrap my head around that it's almost a complete shift in the actual housing type and why that doesn't trigger an ODP amendment or a public hearing.
Thanks for the question. So yes, the application is consistent with the Vancouver ODP for the land use and height. So therefore, it's consistent with the Vancouver ODP, and then it's not required to go to a public hearing.
Okay, I think this one is significant in terms of that people were presented with a social housing project, and a lot of times they will forgive height and building form and density because it's social housing, and this is something that was presented to the public and is now no longer presented to the public. Is there a chance in the future to amend the ODP for this to change in housing type from social housing to market housing to automatically trigger an ODP? I'm just curious of like moving forward and the ODP and how this works. Again, acknowledging that we're kind of in a brave new world here.
Thank you for the question. So just to further elaborate, so projects right now that are consistent with the ODP are weighed against the general land use plan, which is predominantly use and height. This is housing affordability is not a regulating factor in the ODP. If it were to become, that could be something that would add to that. But at the moment, it is not. And I'm not aware of a current plan to do so. But that's something that if council wanted to in future iterations, you could explore. What I will say is that's embedded in our policies and we still weigh applications based on those policies and we engage the public based on those policies. So the public was aware and was consulted on the proposal that was before us tonight. So it's not a last minute switch per se.
No, I'm not suggesting it's a last minute switch, but I just think that, you know. There is a difference between the way that a public hearing works in terms of mobilizing people and the way this kind of works. I do think there's a difference. Are you aware of other jurisdictions that have included what you said in terms of the general land use and the housing type, sort of separating that out?
Yeah, I don't want to speculate. I don't have that information available as to exactly what other municipalities have.
We'd love to know. We can certainly follow up. I appreciate that. Again, a similar question as before. Is there any sort of threat that this is a precedent setting in terms of... you know, we've been approved for a social housing project and then now, oh, I can't make it work. And instead of, you know, trying to find, you know, partners with senior levels of government or other sort of nonprofit housing providers, we just go and get rid of it.
Again, fair question as well. So we don't typically try to rely on precedents in this forum, so it could certainly set expectations. But again, in general, just to echo Dan Garrison's comments from before, a lot of what we're looking at now is to support viability in projects, and it is somewhat of a moment in time as we're experiencing these, and they are reviewed on an individual basis and still against our policies as to whether or not it's supportable as well. I think this did go through that evaluation, and the report kind of reflects on those tradeoffs that are presented for you today.
Okay, and then just, yeah, sort of going for tradeoffs in terms of, like, you know, we're reducing affordability, but, I mean, the original project would have had, you know, sort of, you know, community amenity contributions. I know that's probably changing. moving forward, too. So that is also something that is weighed in terms of, you know, CSEs were waived, and now, you know, it's now going to be 100% market. And is that something that is sort of contemplated, that trade-off?
Absolutely, yeah. So as part of our process, you know, social housing is technically exempt from a CAC, but otherwise the project, as it comes through our plan, would go through a review with our real estate team to determine whether or not there's viability in a project to support a CAC, and if there is or isn't. And some of those trade-offs might be to deepen the level of affordability instead of collecting a traditional CAC, whether it's cash or amenities, too. So those things are all evaluated against our plans and policies through our process.
Right, okay. And I'm sure we're out of time. okay um seeing no one else in the queue i i do want to circle back um and just see is the applicant online or uh in the chamber hey mayor i don't know if you can see me yes uh james todd um jta development consultants were the applicant for this proposal Great, thank you. And did you want to make a presentation at this time?
I did have a brief item, but I mean, maybe just to take a little bit through the process. The base zoning before it was changed was a C2 zoning, which now wouldn't require rezoning for a six-story market rental building. The previous owners... went through a three-year process and you know we can't comment on why or the viability of that of their proposal but the viability of our proposal to include below market units would not make or allow this proposal to be viable and then I just wanted to mention that you know our with our client here this is our fourth mixed-use rental project in Vancouver in the last decade. The other three are built and occupied by Vancouverites, and we're a strong proponent of creating viable rental options in Vancouver, and I think this is a fantastic neighborhood for that. So I think Studio One, our architect, is here as well, if there were any questions with architecture, but I just wanted to provide those notes, if that's okay. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
Okay, would someone like to move a motion? Councillor Claston, seconded by Councillor Zhou. Council, is there any discussion?
Seeing no one in the queue, I'm going to call the vote.
Okay. That passes.
Councillor Domino. Sorry.
And that passes with Councillor Orr in opposition. The next item is item number, report number 13, CD-1 rezoning 3803 through 3823 West 10th Avenue and 2553 Highbury Street. So before we begin, does anybody have conflict of interest they need to disclose?
Seeing none, this item does have a presentation. However, council can waive that presentation. Okay, Councillor Montague, seconded by Councillor Zhou. Any discussion? All in favor of waiving the presentation, say aye. All those opposed, say nay. Great, we will waive the presentation. Would the applicant, if here or online, like to make a presentation?
Hi, Mayor Sim, Jamie Vaughan with Sightline Properties. I think just for the sake of time, we'll forego any sort of presentation and look forward to answering any questions anyone may have.
Great, thank you very much. Okay, on that, Council, you have up to five minutes to ask questions of team members or the applicant. Are there any questions? Not seeing anyone in the queue. Great. Would someone like to move a motion? Councillor Domenato, seconded by Councillor Klassen. Council, is there any discussion? Seeing none, we are going to call the vote.
Please go to the voting panel.
And that passes with Councillor Orr abstaining. That completes report number 13. The next item we have is referral report number 2, CD-1 rezoning 888 West 8th Avenue. Thank you, by the way. Before we begin this agenda item, if anyone believes to have a conflict of interest, now is the time to disclose it. Seeing no one...
up their hands this item does not have a presentation by team members councillor or you held this item so you have up to five minutes to ask questions of team members
Yeah, similar to the sort of other line of questioning. I mean, just procedurally, again, because we're kind of figuring this out here in terms of... So this is recommended to go to council, but there is an option... for it to go to public hearing. And what does that process look like? I mean, this is all brand new, right? So what would council need to do to sort of initiate that? As far as the steps for... Procedurally, because I can't talk about the merits, obviously, of the proposal. I'm just thinking procedurally... If it was in the interest, say, of the public, if there had been any sort of public comments around this and if there had been concern that this is mostly commercial and not residential, right? So that there might be members of the public who want to see it go to a public hearing. What does that process look like?
Yeah, thanks for the question. So, again, consistent with the new Vancouver Charter requirements, projects that are consistent with the ODP, but other uses beyond residential. So, commercial use is Council's kind of decision path about refer to public hearing versus refer to Council. FOR DECISION. SO WE'VE DEVELOPED SOME INTERNAL CRITERIA TO HELP JUST GUIDE A STAFF LEVEL RECOMMENDATION AROUND CONSISTENT WITH BOTH THE ODP BUT ALSO OUR PLANS AND POLICIES, THE EXTENT OF KIND OF PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT AND COMMENT. WE RECEIVED ABOUT 30 SOME ODD COMMENTS ON THIS PROJECT LEADING UP THROUGH THE SHEEPY CITY PROCESS AND SO FOR THOSE REASONS WE'RE RECOMMENDING BECAUSE IT'S CONSISTENT WITH THOSE MATTERS REFERRING TO COUNCIL DECISION. If council wanted to refer this to public hearing for other reasons, whether it's because of the hotel or you want to hear more from the public, you certainly have the ability to do so. You'd have to move a motion that would replace the direction to refer to council with just a motion to refer to public hearing. Otherwise, the rest of the resolutions would generally be the same. So it'd be more of a nuanced change to the resolution, but we could direct it to public hearing if that's what council wanted to do.
Okay, thanks. Yeah, I just was more really like sort of curious about the process. I see here also that the clerk sort of answered my question too around what that would look like in terms of the language. But I'm happy just to sort of get on with the proceedings here. But it was more I'm just curious, you know, how this would work.
So, yeah, appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks.
Thank you very much. Seeing no one else in the queue, would someone like to move motion? Councillor Dominato, seconded by Councillor Claston. Council, is there any discussion? Seeing no one on the queue, I'm going to call the vote.
And that passes unanimously. And that completes referral report number two. Okay, so we will go to bylaws now. We have eight bylaws on the agenda for enactment. Before we begin this agenda item, any conflicts of interest to disclose? No? Great.
Bylaw 1 was from the public hearing on May 7, 2024. Councillor Claston, Montague and myself were absent for this item at the public hearing and Councillor Maloney and or were not on council at the time of this public hearing. Councillor Claston, have you reviewed the proceedings and will you be voting on the enactment? I have and I will. Councillor Maloney? Councillor Montague? Councillor Orr? I have not and I will not. Bylaw two was from the public hearing on November the 13th, 2025. Councillors Bly, Fry and myself were absent for this item at the public hearing. Councillor Bligh, have you reviewed the proceedings and will you be voting on the enactment?
She's not online. Okay. Councillor Fry?
And I have not and I will not. Bylaw number three was from the public hearing on December the 14th, 2023. I was absent for this item at the public hearing and Councillors Maloney and Orr were not on council at the time of this public hearing. Councillor Maloney, have you reviewed the proceedings and will you be voting on the enactment?
Great. Councillor Orr? Great. And I have not and I will not. Bylaw 4 was from the public hearing on July the 10th, 2025. Councillor Montague was absent for this item at the public hearing. Councillor Montague, have you reviewed the proceedings and will you be voting on the enactment? All right, thank you. Would someone like to move the motion to adopt bylaws one through eight? Great, Councillor Domenato, seconded by Councillor Claston. Council is during the discussion. All those in favour say yay. All those opposed say nay. Great, the motion carries unanimously. The list of approved bylaws can be found on the city's website. So notice the council member motions. So are there any notices of council member motions for upcoming standing community meetings? A reminder to please state the title of the motion and the date of the standing committee meeting on which you intend to move the motion. Be sure to send the title and date of the standing committee meeting via email to the city clerk. Councillor Maloney. Two motions. for the Standing Committee meeting on the 6th of May. The first is proactively protecting residents from dangerous heat, and the second is evaluating Vancouver's waste collection system's potential to adapt as our city grows. Thank you very much. Councillor Orr.
It could be any one. What was your, May 6th is the next one? May, sorry, May 6th. A motion titled Sound Investment, Reinstating the Vancouver Music Fund.
Thank you. Councillor Meiszner. Yeah, thanks, Mayor. It's for May 6th, 2026. Motion is entitled Supporting Vancouver's BIAs and Growing Van Stat and is submitted by myself. Thank you. Councillor Claassen. Thanks, Mayor. I'm giving notice of two motions. Keeping the session rolling, renewal of the Hastings Park skateboard facility submitted by myself for the May 6th Standing Committee and the...
second motion is implementing a robotic food delivery pilot in the City of Vancouver submitted by myself, Mike Classen and Councillor Lisa Dominato for the MESIC Standing Committee. Thank you very much.
Okay. Any other notice of Council Member motions before we move on? Okay. New business. We have one item in new business today and that's the requests for leaves of absence. So if we can please get that pulled up.
Seeing it looks like everyone has reviewed it. Okay. And so this motion has been circulated to council at the beginning of the meeting and is available on screen. As you can see, would someone like to move the motion? Councillor Claston, seconded by Councillor Domenato. Okay, is there any discussion?
No.
All those in favour say aye. All those opposed say nay. Great. The motion carries unanimously. Council, are there any other items of new business?
Okay, we'll move on. Inquiries or other matters? Council, are there any inquiries or other matters? And I will go first. Yeah. I do want to take a moment to recognize the passing last month of former city councillor, Dr. Sethi Pendikar. So born in India, Dr. Pendikar moved to Canada as a young man to study at UBC, becoming a professor in urban planning and development. In 1972, he was elected as the first South Asian councillor in Vancouver's history. And over the course of his term on council, was a champion for access to green space in our city waterfront. advocating for 99 by 99, which is 99 kilometers of waterfront walkway by 1999. Though he returned to his passion teaching after one term on council, he continued to have an impact on our city, acting as the chairman of the building committee for the Akali Singh Sikh Society Gurdwara, where he was instrumental in acquiring the land that the Gurdwara now stands on. Dr. Pendiker was a trailblazing member of our community and made history in our city and for South Asian Canadians across the province. We're grateful for everything that he contributed to Vancouver over the course of his life, and he will be missed. I personally had the opportunity to go to his celebration of life a few weeks ago and meeting with his family and his friends, and I can tell you, He had an amazing impact on so many people that's felt to this day. In fact, I know Councillor Klassen was there as well, and he had actually had a pretty good, deep personal and mentor relationship with Dr. Pendergast. So, like I said, huge impact on the city of Vancouver, and he definitely will be missed. Councillor Frye.
Yeah, I want to, thanks for that acknowledgement, Mayor. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge Today is the 10-year anniversary of the declaration of the toxic drug crisis in British Columbia, a declaration that predates any of our involvement in council, but certainly as this council and the previous council, we've all been acutely aware of the impacts. Over 18,000 British Columbians have died since that emergency declaration, and yet still dozens a month are dying in our city. And on a very personal note, I, this weekend, attended a celebration of life for a friend of mine. We had a 40-year friendship, and he wasn't living in supportive housing or on the street. He didn't have substance use disorder. He'd met a new partner and a younger partner and thought he could keep up with the club lifestyle, did a couple of bumps of dirty coke, and overdosed. And died of a heart attack two days later after being in a coma. So it's real. It's still happening. And I think it just behooves us to recognize that this... The toxic drug crisis affects all of us in every aspect of life. This is somebody who you would all know, some of his family members, and I won't divulge who he is or anything publicly, but it's just a sobering reminder that this crisis continues unabated, and this toxic drug crisis is... is insidious in all aspects of our life. And just remembering all the people who have died and the loss and the grief for their family members.
Thanks, Councillor, for your comments just now. And thank you, Mayor, for the acknowledgement to City Pinnacle. Two community acknowledgements. First of all, to the Cebuano Society, who hosted the community dinner in reverence for those impacted by Lapu-Lapu on Sunday night. It was a terrific event, and a shout-out to... Emily Mabel Elmore, who has been a huge part of these community acknowledgements, beginning with the original festival itself and, of course, all the work that she's done to try and support communities since then. On a... A brighter note, I just wanted to also give a shout-out to the organizers of the Vaisakhi Festival at Casa de Juana Society for inviting us into the Ross Street Temple on Saturday. And what an incredible event. This is when South Vancouver absolutely comes alive. The streets teeming with food and smiles and just tens of thousands of people. It really, truly is one of the finest moments in our city every year is that event. And I'm so glad that. Council was able to get behind, you know, a small amount of money to try and make sure that we were able to get that off the ground this year. But what a terrific event and a huge shout out to organizers and also Vancouver Police Department who were really present and very helpful in making sure that the day was a safe one for everyone as well. Thanks.
Yeah, thanks. I would like to acknowledge the passing of Dennis Rouse. He was known on commercial drive as the sweeper. He would work for the merchants and small businesses on the drive. They would pay him to put out tables and chairs in the summer, empty garbage, shovel snow, all sorts of things like that. He was a A regular fixture on the drive. He was very beloved. He passed on April 4th of cancer. He was 68 years old. Thank you.
Thank you very much for that acknowledgement. Okay. Seeing no one else in the queue, may we have a motion to adjourn? Councillor Claston, seconded by Councillor Domino. All those in favour say aye. All those opposed say nay. Great.
This meeting is adjourned.