Negotiations between the rich and the poor over who controls development in Downtown Eastside have been taken up a notch.

"Traditionally, the poor don't vote, don't have a voice," said Frazer, a DTES resident who wishes to remain anonymous. "But the Downtown Eastside residents are smart and are fighting back".

A 14-page report released by the Carnegie Community Action Project represents the concerns expressed by 1200 Downtown Eastside residents who feel they haven't had a say in the future of their community.

Co-author Wendy Pedersen said in a press release that the report urges the Mayor and Council to:

1.) Purchase five lots a year for social housing in the Downtown East Side

2.) Use its zoning and planning tools to slow gentrification until existing resident and homeless people have decent self-contained social housing, and our community assets are secure

3.) And use this Vision as the basis of a DTES strategy for change

Securing sites for low-income housing is vital to ensuring that the economic and cultural assets of the DTES community -- 70 per cent of whom live under the low-income line -- don't get swept away with rising housing costs, according to Pedersen.

City Councilor Ellen Woodsworth, who worked in the DTES for 10 years before being elected, sees the Community Vision released today as an important statement.

"Developers are pushing ahead with high-end development, thinking they have the right to maximize profits, which legally they do have the right [to]," said Woodsworth. "But morally, when we are in the biggest housing crisis this city has seen since the depression, everybody needs to be at the table."

Kerry Jang, a city councillor invested in DTES housing issues, said the CCAP is putting too much pressure on the City of Vancouver when they are really "kind of stuck."

Jang said the problem is that after the 14 low-income housing sites were already committed and the money allotted for SROs (Single Room Occupancy), "the provincial government is tapped out." Like Woodsworth, Jang feels that the federal government has been absent too long.

City council met today to vote on a motion that could see a new housing complex at Broadway and Fraser -- 24 units would be market rental, and 103 for supportive housing.

Josh Massey is completing his practicum at The Tyee.