On May 15th, the Province put into effect amendments to Municipalities Enabling and Validating Act (MEVA) that will allow the city to regulate SRO (Single Residency Occupancy) through vacancy control and restrict rent increases vacancies protecting Vancouver’s low-income rental inventory.
This has been a tremendous victory for those fighting to protect DTES low-income housing including those at DTES SRO Collaborative. The victory has been hard won — in December 2021, Vancouver passed bylaws that enacted vacancy control for SRO units in the Downtown Eastside. In 2022, those bylaws were struck down and then appealed. In February of this year, the city lost that appeal whereupon the Ministry of Housing stepped in to ensure vacancy control.
Ezra Bloom, from the Collaborative, talks with CFRO News about their May 15 trip to Victoria to support the enacting of this new bylaw (MEVA) and the impact it will have in the DTES.
