SRO hotel residents in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Downtown Core are at high risk of suffering heat-related illness and death in their homes, and are living on the frontlines of the intersecting climate and housing crises.
Throughout the summer of 2024, from June 1–September 16, tenants in 14 SROs (around 850 units in total) recorded the temperatures in their buildings with support from the SRO Collaborative and funded by the City of Vancouver and BC Ministry of Housing.
3 KEY FINDINGS
- Finding 1. Indoor temperature recordings show that tenants experience prolonged heat exposure in their homes, with temperatures regularly exceeding guidelines of safe indoor temperature suggested by the City of Vancouver.
- Finding 2. Indoor temperatures also consistently surpassed outdoor temperatures in all areas of buildings, especially at night, indicating that SRO buildings do not offer a reprieve from outdoor heat. Consultations with 18 tenants, heat vulnerability surveys (n=38 in 2022, and n=684 in 2024) and general SRO tenant surveys (n=908) further suggested SRO tenants have limited access to resources to cope with the heat.
- Finding 3. Cooling equipment remains out of reach for some due to financial barriers and restrictions from aging building infrastructure, and many tenants go without regular access to trusted drinking water in their homes.
IMPLICATIONS FOR PUBLIC POLICY PARTNERSHIPS
We propose both short term and long term policy solutions and partnerships.
Short terms solutions include:
- Supporting targeted and creative emergency responses to extreme heat in SROs
- Promoting SRO tenant empowerment and access to information and resources
Long term solutions include:
- Facilitating access to cooling infrastructure in SROs
- Supporting SRO building habitability and adaptation to extreme weather through repair funding
Housing precarity and climate change contribute to SRO tenant vulnerability to heat and significantly constrain tenants’ abilities to manage and adapt to a changing climate, but there are areas for policy partnerships to meaningfully improve conditions together with and for SRO tenants.
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