Faces of Vancouver's Chinatown include low-income residents, Chinese seniors

The room that Peter Oeder occupies in the New Sun Ah Hotel on Pender Street doesn’t have much in it.

A glance around the room reveals a single mattress propped against the wall, two desk chairs, a small TV, a mini-fridge and a sink. Two small aquariums provide home for a pet snake, and there are only a few items in the makeshift closet, including a wetsuit and a couple of shirts.

These days, Oeder spends most of his time in this small room, as he recovers from Hepatitis C treatments that make him feel ill. The self-described bookworm says he hopes to pursue an education in bookkeeping after the treatments are finished in a few weeks.

“Coming up the stairs, I’m totally burnt out,” he says, explaining the medications he’s on lower his hemoglobin, and his body’s ability to carry oxygen.

“I’m turning into an old man overnight. I used to take the stairs two at a time, and now it’s like climbing Mount Everest, panting when you reach the top of the stairs.”

But the 57-year-old speaks well of the small room that has been his home for about a year. He was evicted from his last building on Cambie Street around the time the “big W” was being built, he says.

Oeder is worried the kind of changes he observed take place after the construction of Woodward’s could occur in Chinatown as new development is considered in the area.

“That was an affordable neighbourhood at the time, but after the big W went up, the restaurants that used to be there shut down, and now to get a hamburger and fries you’ve got to spend $15, instead of $5,” he says.

In front of city council is a proposal to allow condo towers up to nine storeys throughout the area of Chinatown south of Pender Street, and to allow for the consideration of 12- and 15-storey towers in certain parts of the neighbourhood.

Councillors have heard from about 100 speakers over four days, and are expected to conclude the hearing tonight (April 14). While Chinatown business leaders have strongly endorsed the plan, and say the height changes in front of council are the result of many years of planning, dozens of low-income residents and advocates have spoken out against the plan.

Of primary concern to housing advocates is affordability for the estimated 1,000 low-income residents that call the area home.

“With towers like that, everything goes up in price and people that are on fixed income and lower income are going to have a really hard time finding a place to live, unless they put megabucks into affordable housing or assisted housing, and I don’t see the federal government doing anything about that,” says Oeder.

The Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council is one of the groups that has been organizing in the low-income hotels since the public hearing process was announced on January 20. The group’s concerns include the protection of affordable rent prices in the neighbourhood as property values go up, particularly in privately owned buildings that are not officially designated by the city as low-income.

Ivan Drury, a board member of the council, acknowledges the deep historical connections of many of the Chinese businesses and family associations that have ties to the neighbourhood.

“It’s important to recognize the legitimacy of that claim to their right to form this space here and to be part of determining the future of it,” says Drury.

But, he adds, the city’s planning boundaries indicate Chinatown is a sub-district within the Downtown Eastside, meaning the community is also home to a diverse low-income population, including Chinese seniors and people like Oeder, who was able to find an affordable home here.

“We want to see a plan that includes both of those communities, and one that doesn’t exclude either of them,” he said. “One that protects and enhances this heritage Chinatown, and also protects and enhances the lives of people who live in the legal planning Chinatown.”

Another critical issue for opponents of the plan is access to affordable prices for groceries and other goods in the neighbourhood.

At Solheim Place on Union Street, five women sit beside each other at a long table on the top floor of the building where mahjong games are typically played.

Their faces crinkle with smiles as the clear comedian of the bunch arrives, 81-year-old Xin Jiao. Every few words are sprinkled with bursts of laughter as they converse in Cantonese. The eyes of the eldest of the group, 91-year-old Oi Luen Wan, light up as she speaks animatedly about the neighbourhood.

She illustrates with her hands the “jumping” fish and fresh food that they access at the nearby markets, and talks about the proximity of the doctor, pharmacy and other services in the neighbourhood.

The group have lived in the building since it opened 18 years ago. Before she lived here, Oi Luen Wan says she was in a remote area of Coquitlam with her son and daughter-in-law.

The women talk about the sense of community among their Chinese neighbours, one in which they help each other with groceries when their legs are failing and they can’t walk properly.

For Lenore Clemens, the sense of community at the Lore Krill Housing Co-Op on East Georgia Street has also been a key part of her experience in the neighbourhood.

The single mother, who moved into the co-op nine years ago, is on disability and spends most of her time caring for her 14-year-old son Noah, a special-needs student.

As she looks out her sunlit living room to the Chinatown skyline, Clemens points out how many buildings have filled the horizon since she moved here.

Like Oeder, she fears the changing dynamics in the neighbourhood that high-end development could bring. One of the things she values most about the area is the sense of community among her low-income neighbours, who make up a very diverse group.

“The couple across the hallway who just moved in – he’s from Africa and she’s Chinese and they have a baby. The woman next door is from India. The woman next to me is from the Philippines. The woman down the hall is also from Mexico and the other people are Chinese - and that’s one floor,” she says with a laugh.

“I can walk to the doctor’s, I can walk to the library, there’s the community library right there. There’s the swimming pool. I can take the buses. There’s food, there’s all sorts of things,” she adds, describing the area.

"And people who know what it’s like to be poor. A community is people who know what you’re going through.”

Clemens dismisses the word revitalization that many proponents have used to talk about the potential benefits of new development in the neighbourhood.

The community, she argues, as she looks out the window towards the bustling store fronts on Georgia Street, filled with colourful fruit stands and bins of traditional Chinese ingredients, is not dying.

As city council heads towards a final vote on the proposal, it appears many of the councillors are in favour of the plan, given frequent references to support for the plan among Chinatown business leaders.

City staff say a social impact study of the low-income community, while on pause, is still in the works for Chinatown and the Downtown Eastside, as details of a community-led local area plan are worked out.

But opponents say they'll continue to voice their concerns throughout the development process.

"We're not going to stop at city hall," vows Drury.

You can follow Yolande Cole on Twitter at twitter.com/yolandecole.