GVRD to unveil its solution to affordable housing
William Boei
Sun
Squatters took over empty building at 5 West Hastings in October to draw attention to housing issues. Photograph by : Ian Smith, Vancouver Sun Files
LOWER MAINLAND – The Greater Vancouver Regional District plans to unveil a housing strategy today that includes creating a $250-million-a-year fund to pay for affordable housing.
The regional district said Wednesday its research indicates that “fully one-third of households in Greater Vancouver have difficulty finding and remaining in affordable housing to rent or own.”
The GVRD is proposing to contribute $50 million a year to the fund, generated by a regional surcharge on municipal levies such as development fees. The surcharge would require changes to provincial legislation.
The federal and provincial governments would each be asked to contribute $100 million a year.
Details of the proposed strategy were to be announced today by New Westminster Mayor Wayne Wright, who chairs the regional district’s housing committee.
“It is time we all — the private sector, as well as local and senior levels of government — step up to the plate and seek out ways to address this serious and growing problem of housing affordability,” Wright was quoted as saying in a GVRD statement.
The GVRD said the fund “would be spent on increasing the supply of social housing in Greater Vancouver.”
The district said it would make land it owns or controls available to developers at less than market value.
The strategy appears to have grown out of a staff report that recommends trying to set up a multi-jurisdictional committee to come up with “enduring solutions” to the region’s affordable housing problems.
The report, by senior GVRD planner Verna Semotuk, said a provincial housing strategy announced in October was helpful, but left serious shortfalls in the supply of affordable housing.
Semotuk recommended the GVRD seek a meeting with Forests Minister Rich Coleman — the minister responsible for housing — to set up a task force of federal, provincial, regional and municipal officials to tackle affordable housing.
She said the group’s focus should be on housing and support services for the homeless — including physical and mental health issues and addictions — and the needs of low-income families and individuals.
Coleman could not be reached Wednesday.
Semotuk said the district and some municipal governments have been working on their own housing strategies and the new provincial plan provides “an important framework.”
However, she said, there are “significant gaps in the supply of affordable housing which will remain unresolved by the new provincial strategy.”
The most recent homeless count in the region, conducted last year, found 2,174 homeless people, more than double the 1,053 found in 2002. That didn’t include “sofa surfers,” people who can’t afford to own or rent homes and who sleep on friends’ couches.
“To address and prevent further homelessness, in Greater Vancouver alone an estimated minimum of 5,000 units of supportive housing is required,” Semotuk said.
Supportive housing includes services for those with addictions and physical and mental health issues that affect many of the region’s homeless.
In addition, “Greater Vancouver has the largest share of working poor families of any major city in Canada, with almost one in 10 workers living in poverty,” Semotuk said.
Her report says the region needs 2,250 new units of affordable rental housing per year.
It says there are “critical shortfalls” in the supply of social housing, and that more than 11,000 households are on waiting lists for social housing in the region.
Some local and provincial politicians have been calling for better ways of financing affordable housing but so far no comprehensive plan has emerged.
THE HOMELESS AND SOCIAL HOUSING
11,000: the number of households on waiting lists for social housing in Greater Vancouver.
2,250: the number of new affordable rental units needed in the region each year.
1,053: the number of homeless people in Greater Vancouver in 2002.
2,174: the number of homeless people in 2005.
40: the number of families with children found among the homeless in 2005.
171: the number of seniors 55 and over found homeless in 2005.
74 per cent: the proportion of homeless people suffering from drug addiction, mental and physical illnesses or other medical conditions.
$250 million per year: the amount the regional district thinks is needed to supply affordable housing in the region.
Source: Greater Vancouver Regional District
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
