We are a group of tenant leaders and academic researchers who are dedicated to mobilizing the rich history of tenant life and organizing in (Single Room Occupancy) SRO buildings to ensure that tenants are positioned centrally in efforts to improve housing habitability, sustainability, and dignity in the Downtown Eastside. This website preserves much of the work that we accomplished between 2012 and 2023, supported through a series of research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and other funders. Throughout this website you will find a collection of some of several of our community and academic activities and accomplishments. We are grateful to all of the tenant researchers who were part of our team over many years. Their voices, preserved here, are a testament to the vitality of tenant organizing, past, present, and for the future of the DTES.
White Riot: A Public Converstation about Powell Street and the Downtown Eastside (Powell Street Festival, August 5, 2023)
R2R collective members and friends (Nicole Yakashiro, Trevor Wideman, Jeff Masuda, and Audrey Kobayashi) discuss their chapter in Henry Tsang’s new book White Riot: The 1907 Anti-Asian Riots in Vancouver (Arsenal Pulp Press)
The Fight for Vacancy Control in Vancouver’s SROs | November, 2021
The Right to Remain is a research collective that supports tenant organizing for improved safety, habitability, affordability, and sustainability in Single Room Occupancy (SRO) buildings in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES). Inspired by the long and storied tradition of grassroots community organizing in the DTES, cross-community solidarity, and our own histories, we seek to uncover the story of Vancouver’s SROs while amplifying the voices and fighting for the rights of the tenants who live within them. Our project is graciously hosted by, and located within the DTES SRO Collaborative.
The R2R team, October 2021. Photo credit: Eliot Galán
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Front page photo credit: Middleton, W.E. Knowles. Powell Street fire escape, 1971. City of Vancouver Archives, AM1668-: CVA 293-87.