After sitting empty for more than two years, the more than century-old London Hotel on the edge of Vancouver’s Chinatown will soon be housing patients in St. Paul’s Hospital’s Road to Recovery program, Global News has learned.
Members of the local business community said they are hopeful the new tenants will be a good fit for the neighbourhood.
“I’m feeling optimistic,” Vancouver Chinatown BIA president Jordan Eng said in an interview Friday.
In January 2023, Vancouver city council approved a $720,000 grant to the notorious SRO’s operator, Atira Women’s Resource Society, for renovations to the 71 rooms at 208 East Georgia Street.
The City of Vancouver said the grant was never disbursed to Atira as its conditions were not met. The non-profit is no longer the operator of the former London Hotel it said, and Atira’s previous tenants were relocated to other permanent housing.
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Atira confirmed to Global News that renovation work was done, but its lease to continue running the building was not renewed.
Vancouver Green Party Coun. Pete Fry said the former London Hotel SRO had long been problematic.
“There (were) suites with doors missing, there was violence, there was (drug) dealing going on,” Fry told Global News in an interview Friday.
“It was horrible,” added Eng, who recalled seeing chop shops outside the building under its previous operator. “There was little management happening in there, there was a lot of criminal activity going in and out.”
Beedie Group purchased the London Hotel last year, and the development company said renovations are nearing completion to get the building’s rooms ready for community transitional beds for Road to Recovery patients.
Fry said the SRO had to be shut down for the upgrades and there were also concerns about making sure the new operator was doing things right.
“It took a while. I am happy to hear the new life that’s coming to it,” said Fry, who is confident the building will remain supportive housing.
“These are SRO rooms as well so they can’t be removed from that kind of stock without paying a pretty significant fee to the city.”
Launched in September 2023 out of St. Paul’s Hospital, the Road to Recovery initiative was billed as an “innovative approach to substance use,” aimed at bridging the gaps between prevention, treatment, and recovery.
The province said the model of care would cut weeks of waitlists and move patients seamlessly through a full spectrum of treatment services, from the Rapid Access Addiction Clinic through withdrawal management, in-patient recovery-focused beds, transitional housing, outpatient treatment, and more, all in one location.
“This is for the folks that have the most complex substance use disorders, that also have challenges with other mental health disorders, other physical health disorders that would require hospital-based intervention,” Road to Recovery medical director Dr. Andy Ryan said in Dec. 2023.
Providence Health Care did not make anyone available for an interview on Friday but said it started the planning process for renovations in May 2024, and it expects the London Hotel will reopen later this year with “appropriate supports” for 50 patients it described as “really vulnerable.”
“I don’t think there was any support there before, it was really just filling rooms,” Eng told Global News.
“I think with St. Paul’s, Providence Health, the Diamond Foundation, and Beedie — I mean, they’ll be good neighbours.”
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