After rising safety concerns, B.C. government targets supportive housing with stricter controls
B.C. Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Christine Boyle said the changes aim to strike a balance between safety and stability.
“Operators of supportive housing are calling for more tools and support to deal with rare problematic tenants and guests,” said Boyle.
“By providing new tools to keep tenants and staff safe, we can continue the vital work of helping people find stability in their lives, while also assisting those living and working in supportive housing to feel more comfortable and secure.”
Under the legislation changes, housing operators will gain new authority to keep weapons out of supportive housing buildings, and manage urgent safety risks by temporarily limiting a tenant’s access to a building if there is an immediate threat to others — including during the scenario of waiting for a fast-tracked eviction decision. As well, the changes will better define when supportive housing falls under the standard rules of the Residential Tenancy Act.
The provincial government also notes that it will make legislative changes to strengthen protections for workers and guests across all types of secured purpose-built rental housing, not just supportive housing.
The move follows earlier updates in 2024 that formally defined supportive housing within tenancy regulations and allowed for practices like guest management and wellness checks.
In June 2025, the provincial government first publicly indicated that it was considering implementing new measures to enable the removal of dangerous residents from supportive housing. At the time, a new time-limited working group was established to give housing operators greater authority to respond to urgent safety issues.
Supportive housing in B.C. has become highly controversial largely because of how some locations have played out in practice.
While the supportive housing model is meant to house people with complex needs, a growing number of buildings — especially in Vancouver and other urban centres, particularly since the pandemic — have been linked by local residents, businesses, and police to extremely frequent emergency calls, open drug use, public disorder, violence, and property crime.
Residents and businesses near problematic locations often say the disorder spills into the surrounding streets, affecting safety, quality of life, and the bottom line of businesses, with some housing operators being highly unresponsive to their concerns. At the same time, frontline staff inside the buildings report burnout and difficulty managing tenants with severe addiction and mental health issues.
Critics argue the provincial government has not provided housing operators with adequate resources to operate supportive housing buildings, including the major support programs needed for residents.
These issues are exacerbated when old hotel buildings are acquired and rapidly converted into SROs and supportive housing, which was the case during the early period of the pandemic.
Earlier this month, the City of Vancouver and the provincial government reached an agreement to close three problematic SROs on the Granville Strip — the controversial Luugat Hotel (former Howard Johnson hotel) at 1176 Granville St., St. Helen’s Hotel at 1163 Granville St., and Granville Villa (former Hostelling International Vancouver Central) at 1025 Granville St.
To replace these properties, the municipal government will identify up to five sites outside of the Granville Strip for BC Housing to build 280 new purpose-built, self-contained housing units.
As previously announced in November 2025, the provincial government will lead efforts to relocate residents from the Luugat Hotel by June 2026. No timeline and strategy has been publicly identified for the other two Granville Strip properties. This is part of the overall strategy to aid the revitalization of the Granville Entertainment District.
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