New vision for century-old Ross House in Vancouver means homes for marginalized people
Credit to Author: Dan Fumano| Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2020 21:26:08 +0000
At more than 110 years old, Ross House is, by most accounts, still in pretty good shape and looks ready for the next chapter in a life that’s been a story of dispossession, injustice, grief, catharsis and soon, perhaps, hope.
A three-storey walk-up at 313 Alexander St. in the Downtown Eastside, Ross House has operated for decades as a single-room occupancy building, providing 24 low-rent homes for the poor. The City of Vancouver recently purchased the property, which was a rooming house for Japanese labourers before the Canadian government seized it during the Second World War, and is now preparing the historic site for its next phase.
The $3.8-million purchase was covered entirely by money raised by Vancouver’s empty homes tax. The building will be turned into social housing, with a focus that differentiates it from any of the other 800 units of non-market housing owned by the city. These will be homes primarily for those who identify as transgender or two-spirit, a group that is overrepresented in the homeless population and faces especially daunting barriers to housing.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or two-spirit — known as LGBTQ2S — people, and particularly youth, are greatly overrepresented among the homeless of North American cities. Canadian researchers estimate that while between five and 10 per cent of the general population identifies as LGBTQ2S, between 25 and 40 per cent of homeless youth identify as such.
Within that group, transgender people are particularly vulnerable. It’s estimated between 0.5 and one per cent of the population identifies as trans, but Vancouver’s homeless survey last year found five per cent of the city’s homeless people identified as trans.
Tamara Loyer, who runs a drop-in centre for trans women at the Atira Women’s Resource Society in the Downtown Eastside, said no one she knows had heard about the city’s plan for Ross House, and it’s a welcome surprise.
The stakes are high.
Loyer said most of the two dozen trans women she knew when she worked in the sex trade in the mid-1980s and during her years living on the street until 2010 have either died or disappeared.
“They died on the street or they overdosed in alleys or in jail,” she said. “All of them had been beaten up, all of them had been raped, all of them were denied housing. Not a single one of us hasn’t gone through that. And they’re gone.”
The kind of housing planned for Ross House could help save lives, she said.
But, she added a big caveat: “They have to make sure they get proper management… There’s got to be services around Ross House, otherwise it will just turn into another slum hotel.”
As with any time the city buys or sells real estate, the decision to purchase the building and adjacent parking lot was made by council at an in camera meeting. Council approved the purchase last year and it was completed in July, with no public fanfare at the time.
“I think there’s definitely a need. There needs to be places where people feel safe,” Celine Mauboules, acting managing director of homeless services and affordable housing, said of the City of Vancouver’s plan to provide social housing for transgender people at 313 Alexander.
Ross House was mentioned in a memo from the city’s chief financial officer to council late last year, saying the building would be operating soon “with a focus on TGD2S community.” The abbreviation refers to trans, gender-diverse and two-spirit people.
The city expects to issue a request for proposals in the next month or two to select a non-profit operator for Ross House, said Celine Mauboules, Vancouver’s acting director of homelessness services and affordable housing programs. After the city selects a non-profit to operate the building, she said, tenants could start moving in later this year. The operational funding source has not been finalized.
Vancouver has hundreds of homeless shelter beds, including many targeting specific groups: women, men, seniors, youth, people with substance abuse problems. While some non-profit housing providers operate a small number of housing units with an LGBT focus, Ross House will be something new for the city.
“I think there’s definitely a need,” said Mauboules. “There needs to be places where people feel safe.”
Not only are trans people overrepresented within the homeless population, they’re more likely to sleep outdoors. Last year’s survey found about 27 per cent of Vancouver’s homeless were recorded as unsheltered — meaning they sleep outside, instead of in a shelter, detox centre, safe house or hospital. But for trans people, the unsheltered rate was 45 per cent.
A person who has never been homeless might have trouble understanding why someone would choose to sleep in a rainy alleyway or park when an indoor shelter bed is available. But for many people — and particularly for many queer and trans people — the choice makes sense, said Mandy Hardwick, a senior manager at Raincity Housing, a local non-profit operator.
Some trans people “feel safer in the streets than they do in shelters” because they fear homophobic and transphobic violence in those shelters, said Hardwick.
“Fundamentally, there’s a bunch of reasons why a young person becomes homeless,” Hardwick said. “But then there’s a whole bunch more reasons why a LGBTQ2S-plus-identified person becomes homeless.”
Raincity Housing launched its “housing-first outreach program” in 2015 specifically for youth who have experienced homelessness and identify as LGBTQ2S. Described as the “first program of its kind in Canada,” Raincity’s outreach operates out of a community space in East Van, and works to connect queer youth with housing, health care, employment and community supports.
“We identified the need for this type of specialized service because … these youth were being underserved,” said Hardwick. “We receive referrals all the time. … We are unable to meet the need alone.”
But Raincity’s LGBTQ2S+ outreach program does not have housing units of its own to offer.
“We don’t have dedicated units. And so the fact that the city wants to support housing specifically for trans, gender diverse and two spirit youth is positive,” Hardwick said.
“There needs to be specific housing for these folks because they are often invisible-ized in supportive housing settings.”
“Most programs that support this population struggle to find sustainable funding,” so it’s good to see a big entity like the City of Vancouver stepping up in this area.
While the fight for human rights for gay and lesbian Canadians made advances over the decades, trans people were largely left behind, says Sandy Leo Laframboise, a longtime champion for trans rights.
The Canadian government formally added “sexual orientation” to the Canadian Human Rights Act in 1996, clarifying that it was against the law to discriminate or harass someone based on their sexual orientation, in the same way it was illegal to discriminate based on race, religion or other identities. But “gender identity” wasn’t added until 20 years later, in 2016.
“Why do we need trans-specific housing? Safety. Dignity,” says Sandy Leo Laframboise, a longtime champion for trans rights.
Recent victories for trans rights have been celebrated and overdue, Laframboise said, “but the homeless issue was still not addressed.”
“You know, you have senior housing — why do you have senior housing? Because seniors have specific needs and specific requirements,” Laframboise said. “Why do we need trans-specific housing? Safety. Dignity.”
Laframboise considers herself “lucky,” she said, that her own experience with homelessness was brief. Many trans people have stories of running away from or being kicked out of disapproving homes. Laframboise was 13 when she was thrown out. She turned to sex work to pay her rent.
“You’re put in a position of vulnerability that exposes you to the pimps,” she said. “Sex trafficking in Canada is big; people don’t think about that, but it is huge.”
Laframboise and Loyer both said they hope that, whichever non-profit is selected to operate Ross House, it will have trans people working there and, perhaps, managing it.
Before last year’s purchase, Ross House was a single-room occupancy hotel established by Vancouverite Charles Haynes after his 19-year-old son Ross died of a drug overdose in 2000. The Haynes family purchased the then-rundown boarding house at 313 Alexander St. and turned it into a place that had a reputation as one of the area’s better-maintained SROs.
“I needed to do something to deal with the loss of my son,” Haynes said. “I didn’t do it for profit.”
Haynes said he rented most of the rooms at Ross House to low-income people for around $600 a month, which is more than a welfare recipient’s shelter allowance, but significantly less than average market rents in the area. But after years of running it, Haynes was burnt out, he said, and he put it up for sale in 2018.
Had the city not stepped in to purchase Ross House last year, its future could have been dramatically different. A sales listing for 313 and 309 Alexander St. trumpets the building and neighbouring lot as an “income opportunity with development potential,” highlighting “strong demand for this area and rising rents attractive to investors and developers.”
Haynes said that “a particularly well-known property owner and developer in the area” had made an offer on the property. “He was probably going to destroy Ross House, but I’d like to see it used for housing for hard-to-house people.”
Currently, “a small number of tenants” are still living in Ross House, a city representative said. While Mauboules did not want to discuss details of the building’s future at this stage, she said last week she wants to ensure existing residents would not be displaced.
Displacement plays a role in the building’s history.
Ross House sits in the neighbourhood that was once the heart of Vancouver’s Japanese Canadian community. The property at 313 Alexander was, like many in the area, owned by a Japanese family until 1942, when the Canadian government seized it. With Canada at war with Japan, the Canadian government interned all 22,000 Japanese Canadians living in coastal B.C., and then seized their properties and sold them off.
An archival photo showing 313 Alexander St. in Vancouver, when the property was a rooming house for Japanese Canadian labourers during the early decades of the 20th century, before the Canadian government seized the property during the Second World War. [PNG Merlin Archive]
Archival B.C. directories show that for several years leading up to 1942, 313 Alexander was a rooming house owned by a “Mrs. Aoki.” Starting with the 1943 directory, Aoki and other Japanese surnames disappeared from property ownership lists. It’s believed that 313 Alexander was, before the wartime seizure, a rooming house for Japanese labourers working in the nearby mill and canneries.
An archival photo showing 313 Alexander St. in Vancouver, when the property was a rooming house for Japanese Canadian labourers during the early decades of the 20th century, before the Canadian government seized the property during the Second World War. [PNG Merlin Archive]
The city said their plans for Ross House include enabling “creative partnerships” with the Japanese Canadian and Aboriginal communities.
Some Japanese Canadian community leaders have had informal conversations with the city about the future of 313 Alexander, and expressed optimism.
The Powell Street Festival Society, a Japanese Canadian cultural organization, will submit a proposal in partnership with a non-profit housing operator when the city issues the request for proposals, said society executive director Emiko Morita.
“The intentions seem great, and hopefully we can be involved in seeing it come to fruition in a way that contributes to safe housing that gives dignity to people who are marginalized,” Morita said. “If we can be involved in that, as Japanese Canadians with the legacy of our own dispossession, … it becomes an opportunity to provide a positive contribution.
“There’s cause for hope.”
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