VANCOUVER (Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Territories) - On Friday, the Globe and Mail published an explosive story about a leaked ABC Vancouver memo detailing a secret scheme to totally transform the Downtown Eastside.

The memo, verified by ABC Vancouver, included plans to quickly approve private development, launch a ‘comprehensive review’ of social services agencies, and - most controversially - “facilitate the return of people to their home communities.” 

An early draft of this section specifically singled out Indigenous people.

The document is couched in soft language. 

But we can call it for what it is: a radical plan to remove current residents, bulldoze their homes, replace them with unaffordable housing, and see select landholders in the Downtown Eastside profit handsomely.

This secret memo upends years of work by the City to build a collaborative approach to uplifting the Downtown Eastside. An approach that received unanimous support around the Council table, and which will see a report-back to Council this week. 

But that’s Ken Sim’s style: why do the hard work of building bridges and forging consensus when you can cook up a backroom deal? Why build housing in places like Shaughnessy when you can build in the Downtown Eastside?

Uplifting the Downtown Eastside for all its residents will require hard work, building genuine relationships, and compromise. This means including non-profits, community groups, and current residents (instead of ‘others’) in any city-led projects that uplift the community.

We won’t get that from Ken Sim. Instead, we see: a plan to move the residents out of the Downtown Eastside, scatter the community, and build something new in its place that is not for them.

We stand opposed to it. It is an attack on our most vulnerable neighbourhood. It is wrong. At a time when trust in government is needed the most, Ken Sim’s secret closed-door plans absolutely undermine it.

Vancouver must be a city for all of its people. A place where every neighbourhood is for everybody. Where we don’t drive out people who need help, but work to lift them up. 

On Wednesday, Ken Sim will try to put the first part of his plan in place: banning  desperately-needed supportive housing anywhere in Vancouver. We already knew that this was cold, callous and cruel. 

Now we know that it’s even worse. If Ken Sim gets his way, it might only be the beginning of a long period of pain for our neighbours in the DTES. 

QUOTES:

Steve Johnston – Member, Coordinated Community Response Network 

“ABC’s current actions are a systematic dismantling of the community, removing any barrier to unfettered gentrification. There doesn’t seem to be any plan to build it back up. In fact, ABC removed Councillor Bligh from the party, the only person to table a plan that invested in the neighbourhood.

Change is inevitable. However, it must be thoughtful, strategic, and informed by those impacted the most. Uplifting the DTES is a plan that builds the community up. It’s an approach that recognizes the inherent challenges of the DTES and actually goes beyond policing to consider a comprehensive investment in local economic development, job creation and wrap-around services and supports. Nothing makes a community safer than a job and I believe this plan does that.”

Lucy Maloney – OneCity Vancouver City Council Candidate 

“On Friday, we discovered that while talking in public about caring for our most vulnerable neighbours, he's been planning in secret to drive them out, destroy their communities, and enrich landowners.

He might tell you that it's all in the service of more housing, faster. I disagree. He's been offered the chance to build elsewhere. In rich neighbourhoods, like Shaughnessy. In six-floor apartments throughout the city. He declined. 

It seems the only places Ken Sim wants to build homes are the few places where working class and marginalized people already live. 

On April 5, Vancouver will elect two new City Councillors. This is the choice before us: will we elect yes-men who will help Ken Sim make his secret plans reality? Or will we elect progressive fighters who will fight like hell to stop him - and who, in 2026, will work together to drive him out from City Hall?

I’m asking for your vote. Because today we know this for sure: He's not working for you.”