More Money to Revitalise Vancouver's Chinatown

More provincial funding will help revitalise Chinatown

Vancouver's Chinatown's appearance has dramatically improved since the city last month cleared out all the tents where homeless people lived, and stepped up cleaning the streets more often. 

Back alleys which used to be strewn with trash and human waste are practically clear of garbage, and sidewalks are pretty spotless.

And now the province is chipping in C$2.2 million to fix up the neighbourhood, from storefronts to the Chinese Cultural Centre which have been covered in graffiti and damaged by vandals.

Lee (second left), and Eby, (fourth to left)

The announcement was made by BC Premier David Eby, who says the new funding will help Chinatown "realise the clear plan that this community has to revitalise the neighbourhood for residents, for visitors, and for businesses."

The money is going towards the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation of which Carol Lee is the chair. She said the announcement is a "turning point" for the neighbourhood because it creates a catalyst for sustainable economic revitalisation, signalling to visitors that Chinatown is once again "the place to be."

However, while some business owners in the neighbourhood are grateful for the financial injection, they think more needs to be done in terms of safety, as there are still homeless people occupying their storefronts or making visitors feel uneasy and as a result don't want to stay long.

Cruise ship season has started, but these Chinatown business owners say tourists aren't coming to the area, but to Gastown instead, because they have heard of the safety issue in the news or through word of mouth.

Hopefully people's perception of Chinatown will change soon, and there are also other initiatives to bring more people into the area, like parking meters on the street will charge C$2 an hour starting on June 1.

I visit the neighbourhood once a week and the area is grappling with how it should move forward. There is no question that business owners and residents want to keep Chinatown going, but how? There are issues of gentrification, keeping legacy businesses open, and getting the next generation to come down to Chinatown more often and patronise shops.

Tent encampments are gone, some people remain

But first the issue of safety needs to be tackled and that means finding social housing for the homeless -- if they want it, and helping them get treatment if they want to wean themselves off drugs. It's a complicated set of problems, but when six people die per day from drug overdoses, it's an issue that can't be overlooked. 

Sadly successive governments, municipal, provincial and federal have ignored the problem for decades and now here we are. Hopefully this problem will finally be sorted otherwise Chinatown is going to continue to hang by a thread through no fault of its own.