Housing for Seniors

Affordable rentals are currently difficult to find in Vancouver. Ask anyone who is looking for studio or 1-to-3-bedroom apartments or condos, and they have stories to tell!

Numerous development permit applications have been submitted for Westside locations, but new buildings, even those with a percentage of below-market rental units, are not yet ready for tenants.

When their tenancy is threatened or ended, many elderly tenants on fixed incomes are unable to relocate anywhere near their former homes, even temporarily.

What are Westside Seniors Hub members doing about housing for seniors?

January 2024

A questionnaire circulated by WSH Council to its Partner Organizations produced:A Snapshot: What Partner Organizations are Seeing, Hearing and Doing

February 2024

Council prepared some briefing materials to inform WSH Partners:

Selected Housing Navigation Supports & Trainings

and

Selected Recommendations from UWBC’s Aging in Uncertainty: The Growing Housing Crisis for BC Seniors report (Nov 2023) & IRPP’s Affordability Action Council report (Feb 2024)

Entire UWBC Healthy Aging report Aging in Uncertainty

and

City of Vancouver Seniors’ Housing Strategy: What We Heard report (July 2023)

February 21, 2024

Representatives from a dozen WSH Partner organizations met at a Quarterly Partners’ meeting to discuss seniors’ housing affordability.

They were joined by guests from the City of Vancouver, City’s Older Persons & Elders Advisory Committee, Healthy Aging United Way BC, Hey Neighbour Collective & SFU Housing Solutions Lab, Premier’s Legislative Office, Frog Hollow Neighbourhood House, and South Vancouver Seniors Network.

Presentations at Quarterly meeting:

Healthy Aging UWBC presentation by Dr. Laura Kadowaki and Dr. Beverley Pitman
City of Vancouver Older Persons & Elders Advisory Committee (OPEAC) by Dr. Marc White
SFU Housing Solutions Lab Exploring Housing Options for Older Adults concepts discussed by Michelle Hoar

March 1, 2024

Council prepared a resource list:

Housing Resources Referenced at Quarterly Housing meeting

March 25, 2024

Council circulated:

Seniors Housing Issues for Action: Follow-up to 2024 Q1 Partners’ Meeting

April 15, 2024

Anticipated release of City of Vancouver’s Seniors’ Housing Strategy for public feedback – will be available via this webpage.