Rooming houses (sometimes called Single Room Occupancy units) provide affordable housing for low-income people. Since the 1970s, gentrification has led to the loss of tens of thousands of rooms, which have been replaced by high-priced “yuppie palaces.” The migration of young professionals into poor neighbourhoods has also led to demands for more aggressive policing against low-income and street people. A fire in December 1989 at the Rupert Hotel at Queen and Parliament streets, which left 10 residents dead, sparked an innovative pilot project. Co-ordinated by a community-based group, the Rupert pilot project used provincial and municipal funds to renovate more than 500 units of rundown rooming house stock. The project created successful models for collaboration between government and community, but new development stopped in 1993 when the provincial government refused to renew funding.

Michael Shapcott