An Urban Palimpsest
Woodwards and Canada’s Poorest Postal Code
Vancouver’s oldest neighbourhood has long been plagued by poverty, disease and addiction. As new development improves the area, the poor are pushed from their homes and community. At the centre of this transformation sits Woodwards: once a department store, now a housing and community hub. Excavating the urban layers puts the current conflict in context — and shows the possibility for inclusive development. This is the last in a four part series exploring the history of the Downtown Eastside through the lens of a single property. Get the rest of the story here: part one, part two, part three.
Political Horse Trading
By 2003, the vacant Woodwards property had passed through a collection of private hands, and ended up on the balance sheet of the provincial government. As part of COPE’s political surge, Jim Green had just been elected to the municipal council. Green’s eyes had been fixed on the Woodwards building for social housing since the department store began its slow decline in the early 80’s.
From his position of influence at city hall, Green wrangled a political deal with the provincial government whereby the city purchased Woodwards for a nominal fee, in exchange for COPE’s support of the 2010 Winter Olympic bid. A provincial commitment to fund up to 100 non-market units on the site sealed the deal for Green. A couple months after the purchase, the city relit the red neon “W” sign that rotated above the Downtown Eastside, and began an integrated design process to determine the future of Woodwards.
In July of 2003, the city extended a request for proposals to local developers and community housing groups. There was no shortage of creative ideas for the site; everything from a ‘superblock’ development that would eat up surrounding buildings to a West Coast style longhouse were put forward. Community consultants pushed for arts spaces, a farmers market, social services, and a native healing center. Developers proposed condominiums to cover the cost of building non-market housing.
The proposal recommended by city staff and quickly approved by council in 2004 came from a partnership between Westbank Projects/Peterson Investment Group and Henriquez Partners Architects. Henriquez Partners had previously worked with Jim Green on social housing in the DTES, and maintained many links to community organizations.
The integrated design and construction process of the Woodwards redevelopment was unprecedented in North America. To materialize, the project had to navigate the interests of different levels of government, private developers, social service providers, a university, commercial enterprises, housing activists, and the city planning department. While a tentative truce existed between all of these factions, perceptions of the project were contentious. The architect Gregory Henriquez has described Woodward’s as “a poetic expression of social justice.” Despite Henriquez’s optimism, Judy Graves has never been under any illusion that the project would live up to the dreams of the low-income community.
Marketing Magic
What is certain, is that once again the Woodwards property has kindled a shift in the surrounding neighbourhood. “Be Bold or Move to Suburbia,” declared thick red lettering on a plain white background. Billboards with this slogan began to pop up around Vancouver months before the Woodwards sales day in 2006. “An Intellectual Property,” and “This is Your Neighbourhood,” declared other advertisements. The billboards showed photos of a bearded man playing guitar on the street, above photos of alleyway graffiti and neon lights. Embracing a rough-around-the-edges vision of the DTES, Woodwards’ marketing dared middle-class Vancouverites to resettle the neighbourhood.
They accepted the challenge, and the market rate units sold out in a single day. On sales day morning, people lined up before the sun rose, wearing special red bracelets required for an appointment. The 536 units ranged in price from $239,000 to $1.1 million, and generated over $200 million in sales for Westbank.
On opening day in 2010, new owners and social housing tenants moved into their units together. A density bonus that the city awarded to Westbank funded the construction of 125 units for clients of the Portland Hotel Society (PHS), and 75 units intended for low-income families. Undoubtedly an achievement for housing advocates, the Woodwards compromise is not without its detractors. Social housing advocates maintain that the project perpetuates injustice and unequal treatment in the city.
A striking observation is the arrangement of building entrances. A resident of the prominent ‘W’ tower enters their condo from Cordova Street at the corner of chic Gastown into a high ceilinged lobby finished with wood paneling. Walking along West Hastings, a resident of a PHS unit finds their entrance at a steel door in a featureless brick facade. Through the door, the resident finds a concrete staircase painted an institutional yellow and lit with overhead fluorescents.
In 1903, Charles Woodward built his store at the corner of Hastings and Abbot, and a commercial strip grew around it. Ninety years later, Charles’ legacy closed its doors for the last time, and the retail scene fled. In 2010, thousands of people returned to the site, and again the cycle of investment followed. “The day after Woodward’s sold,” said Judy Graves, “every building along West Hastings had a for sale sign in the window.”
“Businesses here have the opportunity to build social capital with the people, and that is the most interesting thing about the layer cake of communities.”
The return of enterprise has inevitably brought with it increasing land values. In privately owned SRO hotels, higher land values translate to higher rents. In their 2012 annual housing report, the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) surveyed privately owned SRO hotels surrounding Woodwards. According to their report, between 2005 and 2012 rents in 11 privately owned SRO hotels within a one-block radius of Woodward’s rose above the welfare shelter rate of $375 per month. Although four other hotels in the same area were leased by non-profits, thus securing affordability, the net effect of Woodward’s on the surrounding city block was the loss of 404 welfare rate units.
Body Heat on the Street
Waiting at a locked metal grate in front of a skateboard shop, I watch people pass me on the sidewalk. Dusk has fallen over the streets, and a light drizzle is falling. Decorative red streetlights illuminate the figures hurrying past me, shoulders hunched against the damp. Stylized golden dragons perch on the light posts. This is Vancouver’s historic Chinatown district, no more than a ten-minute walk east of the Woodwards redevelopment. I am here to speak with the owner of the skate shop, a young university graduate named Mischa Chandler. Chandler opened up shop in this previously vacant building just over three years ago.
“They’re glad to see that someone is doing well in the neighbourhood, regardless of whether or not they are Chinese.”
The shop is located in a building that has been owned and operated by the Chinese Freemason Society for over 100 years. The Chinese Freemasons are a benevolent society that assists recent immigrants and seniors in finding employment and housing in Vancouver. The buildings defining feature, like many around it, are its recessed balconies typical of eighteenth century Chinese architecture.
Keys jingling, Chandler emerges from the store to unlock the metal grate blocking my entrance. With messy brown hair, a t-shirt and ripped jeans, he embodies the look and attitude of a skateboarder. Settling into a creaky old chair in his office at the back of the shop, he sips tea from a mason jar and tells me about his experiences in the neighbourhood.
Chinatown is included in the city’s definition of the Downtown Eastside, and it is undergoing the same rapid change as the block surrounding Woodward’s. The storefront across from Chandler’s recently reopened as a German street-food bistro, and two doors west an antique furniture boutique set up shop. Every Sunday in the summers, there is a street-wide vintage motorcycle show hosted by a new bike repair shop and clothing store around the corner from Chandler.
Chandler acknowledges that he hasn’t been in the neighbourhood long enough to really see it change. The Freemasons, however, are glad to have someone subletting the property. “Even the old freemasons will come down at New Years,” he says. “They come down in their big trench coats, always smoking. And they’re amped. They’re glad to see that someone is doing well in the neighbourhood, regardless of whether or not they are Chinese.”
Not everyone has been as receptive towards new businesses as the Freemasons. When Chandler first opened shop, he was described by a passing tour guide as “an example of gentrification in the Downtown Eastside,” and a CBC news crew once asked him how he felt about his role as a gentrifier of the neighbourhood.
Undeterred by these labels, Chandler is focused on seeing his business thrive. For Chandler, the diversity of the neighbourhood is its main strength. “This neighbourhood is sort of like a layer cake of communities,” he says, “and people kind of weave in between the layers.” Chandler emphasizes that, in general, the only thing new businesses are displacing are empty storefronts.
For Chandler, the influx of new business into the DTES has the capacity to build a stronger community. “Businesses here have the opportunity to build social capital with the people, and that is the most interesting thing about the layer cake of communities.”
Chandler’s vision of a bustling and diverse neighbourhood is shared in part by the architect of Woodwards. In 2006, as the redevelopment process picked up steam, Henriquez coined the term “Body Heat” to describe the goals of the project. The idea of Body Heat refers to 5,000 people a day moving through the neighbourhood shopping, going to work, attending classes or doing any number of unexceptional things. This vibrant street scene imagined by Henriquez refers back to the original role of Hastings Street as the city’s commercial center. It is a scene that Charles Woodward would likely have recognized and endorsed.
Dollars and Cents
Unconvinced that the invisible hand of free enterprise will solve the problems of the DTES, the city began a Local Area Planning Process (LAPP) in 2012. The goal of the plan is to strike a compromise between the conflicting objectives of developers, small business owners, housing advocates, and the low-income community. In some sense, it is Woodwards on a neighbourhood scale.
In the words of the draft LAPP, released in November of 2013, “The overarching goal of this plan is to make the DTES a more livable, safe and supportive place to live for all of its diverse residents, in other words, a healthy neighbourhood for all.” In March of 2014, council approved the draft plan, outlining the city’s version of a healthy neighbourhood.
Spanning two full years, the LAPP included 5065 participants who consulted with city staff over 335 separate events and meetings. The Local Area Planning Committee was mandated to include fifty percent representation from the low-income community, and included representatives from a number of aboriginal support organizations, women’s groups, drug user networks and neighbourhood business enhancement organizations. The draft plan proposes improvements for everything from park space to utility provision. The main point of contention, however, is housing supply in the neighbourhood.
“We don’t build ‘social housing’ anymore.”
The draft plan includes 4400 new units of social housing in the DTES over the next 30 years to replace 5000 private SRO units. Also mandated is an additional 3350 social housing units spread throughout the wider city. To achieve these goals, the plan designates a special Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District (DEOP) in the core of the DTES, in which all new development must consist of 60% social housing and 40% market rental units.
The total cost for the plan rings in at over $1 billion. The city pledges to contribute one-quarter of the funds, and developer contributions will make up another quarter. The plan is vague regarding the remaining $500 million balance, stating that it will come from “other governments and nonprofits.”
The provincial government appears less than eager to collaborate. When asked about the LAPP by Postmedia News, B.C.’s deputy premier and minister responsible for housing, Rich Coleman, answered bluntly: “We don’t build ‘social housing’ anymore.”
Predictably, discussions around the LAPP have not been an entirely smooth process. Controversy spilled into local headlines as council’s review of the plan approached. “Deplorable Downtown Eastside doesn’t need $1-billion more for warehousing poor,” ran the fiery headline of an opinion piece in the Province newspaper from early March 2014. A month previously, the community paper Downtown East ran an article claiming that, “A change in wording… [to the Local Area Plan] was a surrender to pro-gentrification pressures. It is a clear statement that the Local Area Plan would not rock the boat or change existing power relationships in favour of low-income and oppressed people.”
Even the numbers presented by the city and advocacy groups do not square up. The city’s 2011 neighbourhood profile reports that of 3,975 privately owned SRO units, 27 percent rent at the welfare shelter rate of $375. Conflicting with this report is the housing survey released by the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP) the same year, which claims that of the 3,603 privately owned rooms surveyed by the CCAP, only 7 percent rent for $375 or less
Central to the controversy is a simple definition of what ‘social housing’ actually means. The draft plan states, “The target for affordability for new social housing for the Downtown Eastside will be one-third at income assistance, one-third up to HILs [Household Income Limits] and one-third at affordable market rents.” As Jean Swanson has observed in an article for the Downtown East, a bachelor apartment at the HIL can go for $875 per month, well beyond the welfare shelter rate of $375. This means that of the planned 4400 social housing units, only 1470 will be available to people on welfare.
Nevertheless, John Atkin is hopeful for the neighbourhood’s future. “I think in ten years time it will feel like it’s 1975,” he tells me, glancing up from his coffee. “And that’s my ideal time period. It was rough around the edges, but it was a vibrant, edgy neighbourhood. It wasn’t Yaletown, it wasn’t Gastown… it was just its own space. We went through a hiccup in the 80s and early 90s, but to my eye it’s coming back now.”
To Judy Graves, the situation looks more dire. “Ten years from now, the area will be a glossy showpiece neighbourhood, with only selected and sanitized poor. Just as we end street homelessness in the DTES, we will see city and metro region wide homelessness increase.” Graves hates the term ‘displacement,’ explaining how it implies that the subject simply vanishes into thin air. A more appropriate term for what is occurring, she tells me, is ‘relocation’. If you price people out of their homes, they have to go somewhere.
The Slow Millstones of History
“It took some balls for the developer to commission that,” says Atkin, pointing up at a huge photo mural that hangs above one entrance to the Woodwards atrium. “I really like it because it just reminds people that this is not all warm and fuzzy.” The image is decidedly different from the commercial art found in most condos.
Armoured police officers on horseback corral a group of men and women in the bottom corner of the mural, while other officers violently shove a flailing, long-haired man into the back of a van in the opposite corner. The mural is dark and foreboding. The only light area shows the terrified face of a young man as he flees across an intersection.
The battle reenacted in the mural started when mounted riot police stormed a hippie “smoke-in” festival in Gastown in 1972. The artist, Stan Douglas, has said the piece represents a “rupture point” in Vancouver’s history, when the battle to define public space erupted violently. Woodward’s redevelopment, and the resettlement of the DTES by the middle-class, is another rupture.
The metaphor of a palimpsest does not provide answers to these rupture points. But it does reveal the complexity and interconnectedness between urban structure and social issues. The built environment does effect social dynamics, but always in a roundabout and unpredictable way — for instance the influence of early streetcars on protest movements in the 1970s, or the influence of Woodwards on hotel rents today.
Walking along Hastings Street, some people see the bustle and vibrancy of 1910, or the rough but stable neighbourhood of the 1970s. Others see the resistance to redevelopment during the 1960s, or the suffering of the 1990s. Those new to the neighbourhood see a burgeoning and trendy urban district, ripe for investment.
Between the layers of narrative, community, and development, people live out their lives. Where the layers intersect there is friction, but also dialogue. Sharing a smoke in the back alley with his neighbours, Mischa Chandler learns what it’s like to have to visit your methadone clinic every morning, or to live in social housing. On Sundays, John Atkin often walks through the street market held at the corner of Carrall and Hastings Street, a block east of Woodwards. Over the years he has seen acquaintances move from pushing shopping carts, to selling junk on the periphery of the market, to maintaining their own market booth. Judy Graves has spent her life bringing the stories of the city’s homeless to Vancouver.
The reality is that the DTES is a vibrant site of resistance for low-income communities, and an edgy, urban environment attractive to the young middle class. In an era of neoliberal economic policy, the young middle class’ interest inevitably leads to rising land values. Dialogue doesn’t guarantee that rising land values won’t undermine the local community. But it does make life richer for all — and so worth living.
The end.
Get the rest of the story here: part one, part two, part three.
