According to a new report examining housing and homelessness in Canada’s poorest neighbourhood, it will take the city 53 years until 5,000 hotel rooms in the Downtown Eastside are replaced with social-housing units.

Despite perceptions that Vancouver’s housing situation is improving, safe and affordable accommodation is not available to many people in the Downtown Eastside, and, according to a study released on Wednesday (June 17) by the Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP), the housing crisis has actually worsened over the last year.

The CCAP’s 2009 Hotel Survey and Report, entitled “Still Losing Hotel Rooms,” found that residents of the Downtown Eastside often face eviction for numerous reasons, including rate increases, illegal guest fees, and deplorable living conditions.

For their study on renting in the Downtown Eastside, members of CCAP approached 88 privately-owned hotels (to which the city’s Single Room Accommodation bylaw applies) as prospective renters and inquired about vacancies and rental rates.

They found that “the number of rooms renting for over $425 increased 44 percent” since last year—while those who collect welfare are allocated only $375 for housing expenses.

Perhaps most telling of the situation was CCAP’s finding that only 0.2 percent of privately-owned hotel rooms in the Downtown Eastside are both vacant and less than $375 a month.

CCAP also found that many of the hotels they looked at advertised daily and weekly rates. While hotels are allowed to rent on a daily or weekly basis under the Single Room Accommodation bylaw, 90 percent of all units must be made available to monthly renters. CCAP noted in their report that, unless the city enforces the bylaw, come Olympics, “hotel owners may evict permanent residents” in favour of renting to tourists for an inflated daily rate.

The report concluded that while “344 rooms opened up” in the Downtown Eastside over the course of a year, “residents are still being squeezed, either by paying more of their food money for rent or by being forced onto the streets by high rents.”