By Former CRAB Park Residents and Ayx Community Bus Members

The City of Vancouver calls its new Downtown Eastside (DTES) Plan a “revitalization.”

But for people who live and organize here, it feels less like renewal and more like removal—displacement dressed up as progress.

Jason, a former CRAB Park resident, puts it plainly: “They’re trying to get rid of us in the most inefficient way possible.”

Under the city’s newly approved framework, long-standing protections for truly affordable housing have been weakened.

The previous 2014 Downtown Eastside Oppenheimer District Plan required 60 percent of new housing to be non-market. The new plan quietly erases those requirements, replacing them with far lower targets while opening the door to high-profit development.

The plan, described by the city as a significant change in........

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