With over 600 citizens registered to speak to the mayor and council regarding the proposed 2026 budget, some are bound to mention the potential impacts to Chinatown. Writing for the Vancouver Sun, Joanne Lee-Young covered some of the community concerns in this recent article, with a particular focus on the built heritage of our community and the intangible heritage it supports:
Chinatown community members are worried that proposed cuts to the City of Vancouver’s budget could set back progress made in recent years to bolster cultural spaces, housing for low-income seniors and legacy businesses.
“They’re slashing the budget, but they don’t know what they’re cutting and we just want to trigger them to rethink a little bit,” said Jeffrey Wong, director at the Wongs’ Benevolent Association.
He said that funding and grants in the past few years have been crucial in helping groups such as his make progress in revitalizing the historical, but struggling, area.
“They have actually dramatically improved the neighbourhood,” said Wong.
He said this funding from the city has come as generational change in some associations such as his, which dates back to the city’s early history, has allowed younger members to repair buildings and invest in programs.
For example, money from city grants allowed the Wongs’ Association to complete a fire safety upgrade and improve a building built in 1911 that it has owned since the 1950s.
In another case, Wong said, city funding and staff helped the owner of a legacy business, Modernize Tailors, located in one of the association’s buildings, navigate the steps to getting her occupancy permit and creating what is now a reimagined venture that is self-sustaining and pays rent.
“It would be quite a risk on the associations to uphold initiatives without secure funding and support,” said Wong, giving the example of helping legacy businesses pay their rent.
Some associations have been able to make “drastic improvements when it looked like their buildings were close to being condemned,” said Wong.
Young also spoke with Wilco Van Bemmel, who has worked with several clan and hometown associations in the neighbourhood, and noted that the city funding supports the commercial viability of small businesses in the neighbourhood, contributing lease income that can help maintain these heritage buildings:
“The unique setting of Chinatown is that the stewardship is in the community’s hands and they are all volunteers. They could do other things. They could (use their time) and go on a hike or go skiing — and I hope they do that, too — but they give their own time, their own sweat equity, so a bit of funding is important to make it count. It’s some wind in the sails,” said Van Bemmel.
Fred Mah, president of the Chinatown Society Heritage Buildings Association (CHSBA), which represents several clan and hometown associations who own heritage buildings in the neighbourhood, also spoke to the diverse uses supported in these buildings that rely on city funding and support:
Aside from housing ground floor businesses, these wood frame buildings that are over 100 years old are also community centres of sorts where people play mah-jong and table tennis and practise kung fu, said Fred Mah, a longtime community advocate and president of the Chinatown Society Heritage Buildings Association, which includes the owners of 12 buildings.
“Council has declared the area as a cultural district, so it’s not just the buildings, but what’s going on inside the buildings that matters,” he said.
Van Bemmel agreed and added that, for example, when the Chinatown community holds a Remembrance Day ceremony every year in its Chinatown Memorial Square, “all that is being prepared in the society buildings,” he said.
In the past few years, city funding has allowed the association to do assessments on four out of the 12 buildings, which identified critical problems that need addressing as a soon as possible.
“We’re hoping that the city doesn’t cut this funding. These buildings are important,” said Mah. “Everyone is speculating as to what could be cut.”
There has been no indication if or what of this funding for Chinatown might be dropped, but there’s “a general anxiety in communities like Chinatown,” said Van Bemmel.
The article ends with a brief summary of cuts as shared by SaveChinatownYVR, who noted that cuts “will hit the departments that sustain culture, community, and neighbourhood life the hardest, including those directly responsible for Chinatown.”
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