Hands Off Our Housing Rights

 

🏡 Hands Off Our Housing Rights: Tenants Fight Back Against BC’s Latest Policy Threat

🗓 October 9th, 2025 — FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
🏡🏡🦀🦀🚌🚌

On unceded and stolen Coast Salish lands, a coalition of tenant groups, Indigenous advocates, and legal organizations are raising their voices to demand a halt to the BC Government’s plan to strip supportive housing tenants of their rights.

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⚖️ What’s Happening?

In 2024, the province quietly removed key protections from supportive housing tenants under the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) — rights that once gave people a chance to challenge evictions and live with dignity.

Now, in 2025, the BC Government is proposing even more cuts — even talking about removing supportive housing from the RTA entirely, claiming it’s about “safety.”

But advocates know better.

“The RTA does not prevent landlords from providing housing that is safe for tenants and workers,” says Robert Patterson, lawyer at the Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre (TRAC). “These changes would let some non-profit landlords evict people without notice or recourse. For tenants across BC, this would be a disaster.”

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💭 Let’s Reflect:

• Who truly benefits when tenants lose their rights?
• Why is “safety” being used as a justification to remove legal protections, instead of addressing underfunded programs or unsafe conditions?
• Why are government and non-profit agencies treating people in supportive housing as “clients” instead of tenants with rights?
• What does “support” mean if it can be taken away overnight?

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🧭 The Bigger Picture

Supportive housing was designed to give people a foundation — a chance to heal, stabilize, and rebuild their lives.
But removing legal protections creates instability, fear, and dependency — the opposite of support.

As Delilah Gregg from WAHRS, POWER, and VANDU asks:

“How does truth and reconciliation fit into a plan that reduces protections for the very people most harmed by colonization?”

We need to ask ourselves:

• Are these policy changes part of a broader shift toward privatizing social housing?
• Is BC prioritizing corporate-style control over compassion and community care?

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⚠️ The Real Root Causes

Violence and instability in supportive housing don’t come from tenants — they come from poverty, trauma, and the unregulated toxic drug market.

“Unions have addressed dangerous workplaces for decades through safety protocols,” says Pete Woodrow of Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU). “Why isn’t that approach good enough for supportive housing?”

So instead of removing tenant rights, why not:
✅ Fund adequate staff training and safety supports
✅ Ensure secure, affordable housing across BC — not just “temporary” beds
✅ Regulate the drug supply to reduce harm and chaos
✅ Support Indigenous-led housing models rooted in land, healing, and autonomy

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💬 Coalition Voices

This call to action is supported by:
Community Legal Assistance Society (CLAS)
CRAB Park/AYX Community Group
Kilala Lelum
Our Streets
Our Homes Can’t Wait
Pivot Legal Society
Police Oversight with Evidence and Research (POWER)
Surrey Union of Drug Users (SUDU)
Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre (TRAC)
Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU)
Vancouver Tenants Union (VTU)

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🌱 Reflective Questions for Readers:

• What does “home” mean to you — safety, stability, or control?
• Would you feel safe if your landlord could evict you at any time, without cause?
• What would reconciliation look like if Indigenous tenants led housing decisions?
• Can we imagine a BC where supportive housing truly supports — with security, dignity, and care?
• What can we, as community members, do to protect those most at risk?

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🕊 Call to Action

Let’s stand together.
📣 Demand that BC:

• Stop plans to remove RTA protections.
• Restore rights stripped in 2024.
• Work with tenants, not against them.
• Recognize that housing is safety — not surveillance.

🏠 Because every person deserves the right to a stable, secure home.
That’s what justice looks like. That’s what reconciliation should mean.

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🔥 Share & Speak Up:

👉 Share this post
👉 Tag your MLA
👉 Ask them: Why are you stripping rights instead of expanding them?
👉 Demand #HousingJustice

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📌 Hashtags for Reach:

#TenantRights #SupportiveHousing #BCHousing #HousingJustice #TruthAndReconciliation #RTA #PivotLegal #TRAC #VANDU #VTU #EndHomelessness #HumanRights #BCPoli #CommunityCare #StopEvictions

Turning Blood Money Into Lifelines

Turning Blood Money Into Lifelines: What BC Could Achieve With $3.6 Billion

British Columbia has received its first installment of a historic $936 million from the $3.6 billion tobacco settlement. Global News. This is more than just a payment—it’s a chance to transform lives, prevent overdose, and build hope for communities across the province.

Imagine the Possibilities

• Wellness and Healing: Thousands of people struggling with addiction could access wellness programs that combine safe detox, nutritious food, art therapy, and grief or pain management.
• Safe Housing: Tiny houses, supportive housing, and community spaces could provide stability, privacy, and dignity for those recovering from trauma or substance use.
• Youth Protection: Schools and neighborhoods could be shielded from predatory dealers, while mentorship and peer-support programs give young people real alternatives to addiction.
• Employment and Purpose: Job training, community projects, and creative programs could give people the tools to rebuild their lives, contribute to society, and feel hope again.
• Community-Led Oversight: Transparent boards could ensure the funds are used efficiently, ethically, and with measurable impact, giving the public confidence that every dollar is saving lives.

Ripple Effects Across the Province

When money is put to good use:

• Overdose deaths could decrease dramatically.
• Families would feel supported instead of abandoned.
• Communities would grow stronger through shared projects, gardens, and creative initiatives.
• The focus would shift from profit and bureaucracy to human life, dignity, and hope.

Accountability Ensures Success

This is not just a dream—it can become reality if we insist on accountability. Community-led oversight, transparent reporting, and clear goals will make sure the funds directly reach the people who need them the most.

A Call to Action

To those in power: Use this money to heal, inspire, and save lives. Make wellness, housing, youth protection, and purpose a priority. If you do, BC could become a model for compassionate, effective public health interventions that transform communities.

To the people: Stay engaged. Demand transparency. Support programs that put human life first. Together, we can turn blood money into a lifeline—and create a future where hope, dignity, and opportunity are accessible to all.

Supportive Housing” Isn’t Working — Stop Ramming It Through

 💔“Supportive Housing” Isn’t Working — Stop Ramming It Through

By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

They say it’s about compassion. They say it’s about helping the vulnerable. But let’s not confuse band-aid politics with real care. In Abbotsford, a 42-unit “supportive housing” complex is being forced into Martens Park—right next to a school, homes, and small businesses—despite serious community concerns. City council says they’re pushing ahead. But they’re not listening. Again.

And it’s not just Abbotsford. The same thing is happening in Kitsilano and throughout Vancouver. All over BC, this same flawed model is being fast-tracked, while the rest of us—residents, unhoused people, and frontline workers—deal with the fallout.

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🧠 This isn’t real support. It’s reactive chaos.

Let’s remember: this whole push came from COVID—not compassion. Back in 2020, officials didn’t want sick, unhoused people on the street where they might spread the virus. So they rushed to move folks into hotels, trailers, and modular buildings.

They called it “supportive housing.” But what we got was containment, not care.

There’s no long-term strategy. No exit plan. No dignity.

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🚫 What we’re seeing isn’t support — it’s warehousing trauma

Residents in these units report:

• Drug use, fires, theft, violence
• Overdose deaths right inside their rooms
• No mental health staff, barely any security
• No privacy, no rights, no plan to move on

Meanwhile, neighbours see:

• Open drug scenes
• Needles in parks
• Businesses vandalized or closed
• Fear and frustration, not because they hate the unhoused—but because they can see the system is failing.

And in places like Granville Street, the situation has spiraled. Crime, disorder, and despair are on full display. Vancouverites are told to “be patient,” while the root causes are ignored.

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💰 Who benefits? Follow the money.

Many supportive housing sites are run by non-profit agencies receiving huge government contracts. But where does the money go?

Some of these groups pay executive salaries over $200K while residents live in unsafe, undignified conditions. Others are run by private developers making profit off of poverty. And still, there's no accountability, no transparency, and no results that match the price tag.

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💡 We need healing, not hiding.

This entire model needs to be reimagined. Here’s what we really need:

🛖 1. Healing Lodges & Wellness Centres

We need Indigenous-led, trauma-informed spaces that focus on recovery, ceremony, and spiritual health. These are desperately lacking. Healing should not cost thousands of dollars. Rehab and wellness support should be free and accessible to all, just like a hospital.

🏡 2. Tiny Houses by the People, for the People

I’ve been dreaming—and sharing—this idea for years:

• Elementary kids design tiny homes as a creative school project.
• High schoolers learn trades and build the homes.
• Unhoused people help finish them and live in them—with dignity and support.
  This teaches empathy, unity, and real-world skills. It brings community together rather than tearing it apart.

🏘️ 3. Local, small-scale housing with dignity

We need co-ops, community gardens, and low-rise housing where people feel safe—not packed into mega-shelters or forgotten in warehouse-style units. And they should be close to family, nature, jobs, and support, not shoved behind warehouses or beside schools with no input.

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❗ Don't ram through more failures.

It’s not heartless to say this model isn’t working. What’s heartless is pretending it is.
We all want people housed — but this system is harming the very people it claims to protect.

Stop fast-tracking projects that ignore:

• Residents’ voices
• Neighbours’ concerns
• The lived experience of people who’ve been through it

BC needs true care, not crisis management. Real community, not isolation.
Let’s build something better — together.

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