“Remove the social housings,” was the message in a series of recent posts on Reddit, YouTube and other social media channels by a group called Neighbours of Richmond.
This is referring to a temporary modular housing (TMH) building that opened in 2019 whose lease could be extended to 2027.
BC Housing has asked to extend the lease until 2027 when another 60-unit permanent supportive housing building is scheduled to open, and Richmond city council will consider this request at Monday’s committee meeting.
Neighbours of Richmond is a group of residents and businesses calling for the removal of the TMH, located at Alderbridge and Elmbridge ways.
The group includes strata representatives from condos, including The Flo and Lotus, as well as businesses such as the Executive Hotel Vancouver Airport surrounding the Alderbridge TMH.
When asked about their goal, the group initially expressed interest in public consultation about the TMH’s future. However, when pressed by the News, they said they ultimately wanted the housing gone.
“We were all told in the consultations of 2018 that the modular home would bring diversity to the neighbourhood. Well, it certainly did,” said Clifton Jang, who filmed video clips for a YouTube video that he claims are from his neighbourhood.
“We were told, or implied, that it would be positive diversity. It certainly was not.”
He thinks the City of Richmond is backtracking on the temporary nature of the housing facility by considering a lease renewal.
“But if the city wants to do diversity, well, diversity is a good thing, right? So why not spread the wealth? Send it to another place for another five years,” said Jang.
Harald Kurtzke, Executive Hotel Vancouver Airport spokesperson, claims crime has increased in the area since the arrival of the TMH.
“Prior to the shelter coming in, we had the normal amount of incidents as every city has. But since the arrival of the shelter, the break and enters and incidents on the property where we have to evict people because they’re (overdosing), they’re hiding in the bathrooms, et cetera, they’re just so massive,” he said.
According to the City of Richmond’s crime map, the most common crime types recorded in the area between 2021 and 2023 are commercial break-ins and bike thefts.
Advocates want TMH to stay long term
But one group that advocates for low-income Richmond residents thinks the TMH is needed in the current housing climate.
People staying at the TMH aren’t able to move on to permanent housing, explained the Richmond Poverty Reduction Coalition (RPRC), and, as homelessness grows in the city, it will be still needed in the future.
The original plan was for the building to be temporary, “but in the absence of anything else this is where people end up staying,” RPRC said in a submission to Richmond city council.
In a “well-oiled housing continuum” people would move from the street, into shelters, then supportive housing and then into permanent housing.
“The gap in housing causes a backup where people in shelters cannot get into temporary supported housing because those in temporary supported housing have nowhere else to go,” their letter to city council reads.
RPRC is asking city council to keep the TMH into the far future, adding a 60-unit permanent supportive housing building that is supposed to open in 2027 won’t replace the 82 units at the current TMHs, the Alderbridge one and Aster Place near Costco.
“It is vitally important that this type of housing remains open and operating as Richmond’s homeless and at-risk populations continue to grow,” reads the submission.
Jang and Kurtzke told the News the TMH should be in a better location closer to police stations, but when asked what that location would be, they said it would be something for the city to deal with.
“We’re identifying problems, and we’re… communicating those problems to the city council. That’s their job to identify how to fix and how to address those problems. That’s not our job,” said Jang.
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