“A Community Under Attack”: Burnaby ACORN and Allies Release Metrotown Demovictions Report

On May 16, 2016 the Burnaby ACORN chapter and its allies in the fight to Stop Demovictions in Burnaby released their report, “A Community Under Attack”, highlighting the mass displacement of low-income renters in Burnaby’s Metrotown neighbourhood. Burnaby ACORN, the Alliance Against Displacement, and the Metrotown Residents Association surveyed 60 households in low-rise apartment buildings of the Dunblane block in Metrotown. Each one of the 15 buildings surveyed has since been approved by city council for demolition in the next year.

For over a year the Stop Demovictions Burnaby Campaign has been working to get council to stop approving rezoning for higher density buildings – which provides incentive for developers to tear down the low-rise affordable rental housing and replace it with 40-storey condominium buildings.

The goal of the survey was to get a sense of the experience of residents facing demoviction – the process of demolition of, and eviction from, their homes. The results show that the process of demovictions is causing a health and social security crisis among renters. Within this group, those more vulnerable to poverty – women and single parents, families with young children, people with disabilities and on income assistance, low-wage workers, new migrants and refugees – are hit the hardest.

That evening the coalition presented the report’s findings to Burnaby City Council – yet Council’s reaction showed a deep indifference to the city’s most vulnerable citizens. Without asking a single follow-up question or making any comment – despite having had an energetic 30-minute discussion with the previous delegation on an unrelated topic – council has demonstrated that a lack of any concern for Burnaby’s lowest-income people is failure in their leadership.

The campaign for Burnaby’s lowest-income residents will move forward!