Units for Chinese seniors are being lost

A look at sales of buildings involving the owner of Vancouver Grace Seniors Home to non-profit groups to build affordable housing reveals how low-income housing for Chinese seniors is being lost.

There is high demand and long waiting lists for housing and care options that cater to East Asians of all incomes, according to a 2017 study by social services agency SUCCESS and Simon Fraser University's Gerontology Research Centre. But there is also more pressure to build new, affordable housing for other groups.

B.C. Housing and its non-profit partner, Lu'Ma Native Housing Society, are now saying the approximately 70 seniors living at Vancouver Grace Seniors Home at 333 East Pender near Chinatown will have the choice to stay after it completes the purchase of the building, rather than have to scramble for new housing. A sale is currently under contract.

The about-turn came after families of residents went public with their concerns. The owner, Stephen Lee, informed them at the end of March that Grace would close by June.

There is talk among families and their care workers that this isn't the first such case. In 2007, Grace Christian Church sold a building at 596 East Hastings to the Salvation Army. The land title for that sale was signed by Lee.

For the sale to happen, the City of Vancouver had to discharge a 2002 housing agreement it had for Grace's existing building at 596 East Hastings so the Salvation Army could develop low-income social housing.

There was concern by the city for the “security and well-being of the current seniors,” about half of whom qualified for B.C. Housing 's Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters subsidy.

Grace was running the home on East Hastings for 46 Chinese seniors, but the building wasn't fully used and Grace was reporting annual losses of $900,000, according to staff notes recommending city council approve the housing agreement change in November 2006.

The Salvation Army got funding under the Provincial Homelessness Initiative and rent subsidies from B.C. Housing for a 35-year operating agreement “to provide social housing targeted to low-income people who are homeless, at risk of homelessness, and in need of second-stage housing.”

It has since been running Salvation Army Grace Mansion, a transitional home for 84 residents.