Violations of International Obligations
Canada, as party to the ICESCR, is aware of the living conditions currently in the Downtown Eastside. In particular, the government funded and supported Vancouver Agreement has funded studies that have examined conditions in the SROs and found them to be inadequate housing. However, this identified problem has not been met with similar efforts to ameliorate conditions for people who live in the buildings.

Canada has violated its international obligations by:
1. Failing to ensure minimum standards of health and safety in the SRO stock;
2. Failing to enforce what few protections exist to prevent conversion of SRO stock to other uses;
3. Failing to provide police protection to tenants who are illegally evicted;
4. Failing to require market housing developments in the inner city to include some portion of non-market housing;
5. Failing to provide an adequate system for tenants to seek remedies where landlords illegally evict them;
6. Failing to ensure that social assistance shelter allowances are sufficient to permit rental of adequate accommodation;
7. Failing to provide information about the state of the housing stock;  
8. Failing to involve the inner city in the redevelopment of the neighbourhood.

Vancouver is built on a peninsula, and has experienced rapid growth in its market housing sector. This phenomenon has resulted in the downtown core becoming “built out” and development pressure moving East. This process has been accelerated considerably by speculation and development related to the 2010 Olympics being awarded to Vancouver. Multiple public projects, in particular in the Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, along with rumours of rezoning and “crackdowns” on the visible drug-related activity in the neighbourhood have led to significant speculation.

Particular initiatives that have led to speculation on low-income housing properties include:
> a $49.3m grant from the Province for an art school in the inner city for wealthy students;
> creation of a “greenway” along Carrall Street, the road that divides the inner city in half;
> $10m from the Provincial government to “clean up” the neighbourhood in time for 2010;
> the application of the “Eco-Density” initiative to the inner city that would increase densities by permitting towers, which has caused unchecked speculation on SROs;
> a business plan by the Vancouver Police that proposes increasing by 20% the number of tickets handed out for engaging in activities related to poverty, in particular for participating in the “scavenger economy” or sleeping in public spaces;
> the public funding of a private security force called the “Downtown Ambassadors” to harass the homeless and panhandlers out of commercial areas by using “charismatic persuasion”, including in the inner city.

This raging speculation has led to the mass eviction and displacement of DTES residents, at a rate that is increasing rapidly. Speculators prefer empty buildings to occupied buildings because it is easier to get permission from City Council to convert to another use if a building is empty, the cost of running an SRO properly at current welfare rates tends to exceed the value of rents taken in, and a building is easier to resell in the future if it is empty instead of full of tenants.