By: Kelly Chia, Editor-in-Chief

Chinatown was one of the first places my family visited after we had immigrated to Canada. I remember taking in the scent of freshly baked pineapple buns, picking out dried plum candy with my mom at the herbal shops, and admiring the Pokémon cards in the game store at Centre A. My parents would buy some juicy barbeque pork while chattering with the supermarket clerk, who would be just as genial to me, like we were all old friends, not strangers who had just met that day. As we found our footing in this country, Chinatown provided a critical community that nourished me. It’s nourished many migrants like me since they were forced to self-segregate in this area since the 1800s. For so many of us, Chinatown represents and holds a rich history of protest. It uplifts a community that continues to be economically and racially oppressed. This last part is key: Beedie’s proposed apartment building on 105 Keefer Street blatantly threatens and bulldozes the wishes of an already vulnerable community. 

The city’s approval, after years of rejecting the proposal, is completely cowardly. Beedie’s proposed 9-storey condominium had previously been rejected because the Board felt the community hadn’t been consulted on how to make the site fit the cultural character of the area. These concerns have not been mitigated. While the seniors of Chinatown have continually asked for social housing, city planner Theresa O’Donnell said the Board has no power to require it. Further, she said they cannot require a “below-market rental” price, either. She added the Beedie development can make the space more “welcoming.” Adding more social housing, not luxury apartments, would help many low-income residents in this area. Non-profit societies and governments provide rent supplements to families. So I ask: welcoming? For who?

O’Donnell certainly can’t be talking about the senior residents of Chinatown, who wouldn’t be able to afford to live in this new building. Urban planner Louisa-May Khoo researched affordable housing in Chinatown — or rather, the lack thereof. Khoo writes that it’s especially important for housing development to consider and accommodate the rapidly aging population in Chinatown, because there are more people there who are lower-income and over 65, in comparison to the City of Vancouver. In the next 20 years, the number of seniors is set to double. According to a census report in 2021, there are about 7,200 seniors older than 55 living in the area, and about 40% of Chinese seniors in the area are over 65 years old. However, Khoo found only 23% of the affordable housing in the Chinatown, Strathcona, and Downtown Eastside areas are designed to accommodate them. Even worse, 4% provide culturally appropriate services for the Chinese seniors in the area. 

Beedie’s proposal solves none of these issues. It proposes instead to bring an unaffordable, 9-storey luxury condominium, claiming this will help revitalize the area, when it’s a blatant effort to push out the most vulnerable citizens of Chinatown. This building could not be more of a flagrant slap to the face to Chinatown residents, who have protested against the Beedie development for years. COVID-19 has deeply aggravated the financial insecurity of residents in the area, as businesses continue to recover from the impacts of aggressive anti-Asian vandalism. Of course, the development does not propose to provide low-income senior housing or cultural spaces, as the residents have been asking for since the proposal was first brought onto the table. Instead, residents are kicked out of foyers and plazas trying to find accessible places to exercise. 

Kung Ku Yang, who has been living in Chinatown for two decades, said his exercise group struggles to find space in an interview with The Tyee. Recently, they were kicked out of Chinatown Plaza due to “noise complaints.” However, the area proved ideal to seniors because it provided seating and air conditioning. “A manager came out to tell us that we couldn’t use the space. Our leader asked why not, because people come in here to hang out all the time. The manager called the police and told us to leave,” he told The Tyee. Other residents shared their concerns with the lack of social housing, especially since there are plenty of waitlists in Chinatown. “It’s an important location for Chinatown,” Yang said about the 105 Keefer development site. “Seniors and low-income people need more housing, and at least one or two floors of space to do activities,” he explained. Again, this situation boils down to the development being skin-deep in its claims to revitalize the area. 

Why wouldn’t the residents protest yet another effort to displace them, to sanitize and gentrify the streets with vapid fusion restaurants and postcard-pretty tourist sights?

Chinatown residents are rightfully still protesting, showing the power of their community. Why should this proposal go forward when there have still been little to no efforts on the government’s part to take care and provide affordable housing for the seniors that they’ve segregated? Why wouldn’t the residents protest yet another effort to displace them, to sanitize and gentrify the streets with vapid fusion restaurants and postcard-pretty tourist sights?

Did you know that so-called Vancouver’s Chinatown is the largest Chinatown in Canada? Some of our oldest buildings in this city were made into benevolent associations in the 1800s, to provide crucial communal support in a time where residents had to rally together for their rights. This is the true Chinatown that is “welcoming” — the one city planners should be fighting to protect. Chinatown isn’t a relic for wealthy folks to admire or take pit stops in the culture while luxury condominiums alienate our most vulnerable. This area contains the real residents who’ve taken care of each other, surviving every effort to push them out. They stand, yet again, against those who wish to erase the heart and soul of the beautiful, hard-earned communities that continue to be nurtured and guided by our elders. 

This project seems like yet another effort to displace seniors that have historically been economically segregated to this area. There are still people here that need to be prioritized, the ones who are responsible for creating the cultural heritage of Chinatown, that are being displaced. Vancouver needs to fight harder to protect this cultural heritage, to acknowledge the poverty and seniors, and prioritize them in new projects.

Any real potential that developments on this site has must start with community consultation. Groups like the Vancouver Tenants Union and Chinatown Today have already suggested the obvious: that this site be alternatively used to provide culturally appropriate and affordable senior housing. Our seniors deserve spaces to simply exercise, and to live their lives: this shouldn’t be a difficult consideration. Hours of speeches from Chinatown residents protesting 105 Keefer should tell us that the current proposal doesn’t accommodate them. Our elders deserve to have spaces for their activities that they can easily travel to, businesses that they’ve known for decades — not be outpriced by gaudy boutiques. We shape a new future with this community by actually consulting with and acknowledging their needs.

Why are we okay with projects targeting newcomers? Chinatown isn’t a museum, a relic of the past to admire from tourists. It contains the beating heart of a neighbourhood that has survived despite continual efforts to push them out.