Lucy Maloney is a City Council candidate with OneCity Vancouver.

There are few things in life as unsettling as an eviction.

I know. I’ve been through one.

After moving to Canada, my family and I settled into a rental home in the West End. It was perfect—a two-minute walk from my children’s school, Lord Roberts Elementary.

It wasn’t to last, of course. We got notice from our landlord that the building was going to be renovated, and we had to leave.

In that, we’re hardly alone.

Evictions are a fact of life in Vancouver, from renovictions like ours to own-use evictions. But the type that gets the most press in Vancouver these days are demovictions—particularly in one small stretch of our city:the area around a new subway line that has been re-planned under the Broadway Plan.

As area plans go, the Broadway Plan surely is ambitious: nearly 140 projects in the development pipeline, representing tens of thousands of units. It is not a secret that Vancouver suffers from a profound shortage of housing, and more homes are a good thing.

But the Broadway Plan area is full of renters, many of whom live in low-rise apartment buildings with relatively affordable rents........

© Georgia Straight