Placing housing policy: plans, challenges and advocacy in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

As regulatory frameworks, social housing policies are intended to assess, frame and reflect the general ideals and priorities of societies regarding poor and ‘hard to house’ populations. Yet, the extent to which abstract principles of well-being are achieved is dependent upon the daily practices, decisions and discretion of a multitude of advocates from across the housing sector. This research is a multi-scalar analysis of the relationship between urban housing policies and the practices of housing advocates involved in maintaining and creating housing for low-income populations in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The work focuses on how people and places are represented in policy documents and explores how and if these constructions are reproduced in the practices of housing advocates. Using a poststructuralist framework, I argue that current municipal policy is based on a neoliberal approach to housing provision that is reflected in both the challenges and strategies to housing vulnerable populations.