‘It certainly isn’t fair’: Vancouver councillor says city shouldn’t be paying to clean for-profit SROs

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — As Vancouver continues to deal with financial losses due to COVID-19, one city councillor says the city shouldn’t have to pay for privately owned, for-profit SROs to be professionally cleaned.

Melissa De Genova agrees that stepped up cleaning and sanitation are crucial for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents, but she doesn’t understand why property-owners aren’t footing the bill.

“Everyone deserves a dignified place to live and I think it’s important that we hold landlords, proprietors to certain standards in the best of times. And right now, during COVID-19 it’s even more important that we do that,” she said.

“Those owners are profiting off of the rents. They are not non-profits. I can’t understand why — when we’re in a dire financial situation, and the mayor has declared that we may be facing bankruptcy — why we would be advocating to pay for privately owned SRO-hotels that have been keeping their hotels in disrepair for years.”

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She estimated the cost to the city at $200,000 per week, money she says could be better spent elsewhere.

Taxpayers can't afford to pay their own bills right now, never less the cleaning bills for privately owned SRO buildings. #vanpoli https://t.co/nbfbPVhxQe

— Melissa De Genova 鄭慧蘭 (@MelissaDeGenova) April 27, 2020

De Genova says the city has other ways of making sure buildings follow standards that offer residents a clean, dignified place to live.

“The bylaws are already there, it comes down to enforcing them,” she says. The motion she is bringing to council Tuesday says the city’s “Standards of Maintenance” bylaw allows for fines ranging from $250 – $10,000 a day.

Further, under the current state of emergency, businesses and individuals risk fines if they don’t comply with provincial health orders.

“The city of Vancouver implemented bylaws and said that we’d be fining people that weren’t social distancing appropriately or restaurants that were providing table service,” she explains, adding owners of businesses that have had to shutter are doing so at great personal cost.

“I think it’s important that we use those same tools and measures to say that it’s not okay to provide undignified living conditions for people in our city.”

The city has laid-off 1,500 workers, and projected hundreds of millions of dollars in losses due to the pandemic and De Genova says the cleaning SROs is an expense that can and should be cut.

“In the coming months it’s going to be really difficult, we’re going to have to look at cutting our budget, slashing our budget in the city of Vancouver,” she says.

“I don’t think this sends a good message to the public or to small business. It certainly isn’t fair, and this is being paid for on the back of taxpayers.”

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She is hopeful her motion will get the support of council.

“It’s really important to me that there are clean and dignified living opportunities for people in the Downtown Eastside. It’s important to do what we can to advocate for them” she says.

“At the end of the day there’s a responsibility that these private SROs have and they know it. I think that we need to hold their feet to the fire just as we do others with our bylaw enforcement”