Gotta Love Vancouver
New life from old buildings
Chance favours the connected mind.
Is our world locked in by the determined forces that give us humans little control over our destiny? Or is our life really shaped by our countless chaotic and random micro interactions that eventually form winning life changing patterns that feedback to the whole of our societies?
Vancouver's youth have different ideas
Gotta Love Vancouver is a youth movement that believes new life can come from old buildings. A team of high school students, university interns and foreign remote workers are committed to finding the ways and means to revitalize and replace Vancouver’s aging single room occupancy hotels and rooming houses.
A new generation of Canadians know that pain and suffering are common in places where wonderful people with life-trauma have been ignored and left with broken promises. Instead of protesting or performing another study on the issues, Gotta Love Vancouver is a hands-on and bottom-up proponent of renewal that understands that cities are smart and can solve their own problems.
Uncertain futures cause human anxiety tomorrow, but the depression of a meaningless life today is far worse. Click here to reach out and find your place on a team with a positive energy job to do.
What happens when the business community gives back?
In 2000, an off-beat Vancouver investor bought a 100 year-old building that was highlighted in the media as one of Vancouver’s most notorious rooming houses. After renovating the 80 tiny rooms. the impact investor partnered with a network of non-profits to make the building safe, clean and affordable. Research showed these efforts reduced additions, mental health struggles and sex trade linkages.
Does the market have a heart? Yes, because global financial markets are created by people that care about their own neighborhoods. When given the opportunity, persons of high net worth will make community investments to support efforts that provide high returns on social capital for initiatives such as affordable housing.
Everyone in Canada can have a safe, clean and supportive place to live. It is a long and winding road from pain to pleasure, but the journey is what life is all about. Click here to learn about impact investments in limited partnership affordable housing.
Transforming a community is out of this world
The Dodson Hotel on Hastings in Vancouver was upscale accommodation when it first opened in 1915. After Vancouver’s downtown moved to the uptown area of Georgia and Granville in the 1920s, the Dodson gradually deteriorated and became home to low income persons with severe health needs.
In 2004, impact investors purchased the Dodson for $1.5M and over the next 10 years donated $3M to upgrade the building and provide privately funded tenant supports. In 2013, the Dodson was sold to the Anhart Community Housing Society for 50% of market value. Anhart is now leveraging the $13.2M value of the Dodson to expand privately sponsored affordable housing development across Canada.
Plans are underway to utilize impact investments to convert the 71 Dodson rooms into 52 self-contained micro suites. During renovations, tenants can be housed in an Anhart-lead SRO replacement initiative. Click here to learn how the Dodson conversion and replacement model can help Vancouver’s 150 remaining SROs.
There is always room for one more.
Societies governed by advanced economics can often be cold and impersonal. But warm and personal pockets of caring people always find a way to survive. Your age, nationality, religion, education, and skills are not what is most important to our team. What matters is that you want to make a positive difference in our world. There is room for you.