Ken Sim

In March 2023, during Sim's mayoral term, a homeless count took place, the first since the beginning of the pandemic. Results of the count will become available in Fall 2023. A local non-profit serving the population expects the results to show increases given their increased demand for services.[15][16]

Sim's plan to address the housing crisis in Vancouver revolves around decreasing permit processing times to stimulate the development of housing.[17]

In early April 2023, news sources obtained leaked documents of a city of Vancouver plan to escalate the forced removal of tents and personal belongings from an encampment on East Hastings Street. Sim remarked that the removal of the encampment is part of a larger effort of “finding empathetic ways to get people off the streets and into housing that they need.”[18] Advocates from the downtown east side noted that the alternative housing offered by the city and province, mainly in the form of Single Room Occupancy units (SROs) is often unsafe and unlivable, leaving residents of the East Hastings encampment with no safe alternative.[19]

On April 5, 2023, Sim’s administration involved the VPD to remove the tent encampment on East Hastings Street. Police clashed with protestors and DTES residents. The traffic cameras at Main and Hastings streets went offline as the escalation began, leading many to question the administration’s commitment to transparency. City officials later claimed that the outage was due to a “staff error”.[20] Despite the traffic camera outage, video from protestors and media showed police clashing with protestors and escalating violence, in some cases using police bicycles as weapons to assault protestors.[21][22] At the end of the day, city workers had removed the encampment on Hastings, thrown residents’ personal belongings into garbage trucks, and left long-term DTES residents with no place to go. Sim’s administration’s actions were criticized by the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) BC as “cruel and dehumanizing”.[23]

During the 2022 campaign, Sim promised he would hire 100 nurses to join the previously established Car 87 program, alongside 100 new police officers. The proposed program was criticized for its expense (costing an estimated $20 million a year) and for the way in which police presence can escalate a mental health crisis.[24] On February 14, 2023, Vancouver City Council made the decision to allocate $2.8 million to Vancouver Coastal Health, to hire 58 mental health workers (not specifically nurses) who will cooperate with police to "to support people who are suffering from mental illness combined with lack of stable housing and substance abuse issues."[25][26] Mental health workers will be recruited throughout 2023, and Sim expects that nurses who left hospital work during the pandemic may be interested in the opportunity to co-operate with the police in this new program.[17]

In 2023, the City of Vancouver invested $18,900,000 towards the Rain City Strategy. The Strategy uses natural infrastructure to prevent urban flooding and improve water quality by capturing and cleaning 90% of the city's average annual rainfall.[27]

When surveyed during the 2022 election campaign, Sim and other ABC candidates indicated their support for cycling infrastructure generally, and for a protected cycling lane on Stanley Park Drive specifically. However, upon entering office, Sim and the ABC councilors immediately took action towards removing the lane, which was installed during the COVID-19 pandemic and was immensely popular among cyclists. After announcing the planned removal of the lane, cyclists and activists organized a “Love the Lane” community bike ride in sleet and rain to show their support for active transport infrastructure and cyclist safety within Stanley Park.[28][29]

Sim’s major campaign promises included increases to the budget of VPD and a commitment to pay for these budget increases without cutting services or increasing property taxes.[30] Despite campaign promises, in a council meeting early in his term, he suggested that the Vancouver Public Library should look into “potential revenue opportunities” to fund operations.[31]

Largely due to inflationary pressures of 7% and downloaded costs from other levels of government, Vancouver City Council increased property taxes by 10.7% during Ken Sim's first year in office. The property tax increase resulted in the average condo owner paying an additional 33 cents per day and the average home owner paying an additional 83 cents per day in property taxes. To offset these increases, the administration eliminated the ineffective cup fee of 25 cents per cup.[32][33][34][35]