Social housing, not just emergency relief, needed for poor
John Bermingham
Province
The provincial government is working on plans to build about 1,100 units of supportive housing in Vancouver — and B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman says he’s eyeing other projects in Surrey, Victoria and Kelowna.
Coleman was speaking Friday at the announcement by Premier Gordon Campbell of a $41-million investment in emergency shelters and homeless-outreach services around the province.
The new measures include:
– Turning shelters into 24/7 operations, which will open 500 beds during the day, with options for health and addiction treatment.
– Adding 750 more people to the rental supplement program, so they can rent in the private housing stock.
– Adding homeless-outreach services to seven communities, including Campbell River, Vernon, Nelson and Dawson Creek, and expanding in another 20.
– Contributing $10 million to pre-development costs to fast-track supportive housing on city sites.
Despite these initiatives, critics highlighted the fact that there were no new social-housing units in Friday’s announcement.
“This government has created a homelessness crisis over the past five or six years,” said NDP housing critic David Chudnovsky. “Of course we need shelters, but shelters are not homes. They are emergency relief for people.”
Pivot Legal Society spokesman David Eby said he’s concerned police will use the 24/7 shelters to sweep the streets of the homeless, prior to the 2010 Olympics.
“People won’t see as many homeless people, because they’ll be moved into the shelters by police and by security,” said Eby.
“I can see that acting as a tool, a place for police to put homeless people, to keep them out of the way of Olympic spectators. It’s a pattern that we’ve seen in other Olympic cities.”
Coleman said he’s in talks with the City of Vancouver to turn 12 city-owned sites into supportive housing, mostly in downtown south and the Downtown Eastside. He’s already involved in three projects in Vancouver, for almost 300 housing units. Coleman also said he has two projects in Surrey, three in Victoria and one in Kelowna.
“Bring us your sites,” said Coleman. “We will look at the opportunities. We’ll look at the need in the community.”
Coleman wants to speed up the zoning and building design process, to have a number of projects under way within the year.
Vancouver has previously offered the province a dozen sites for a 60-year lease with nominal rents and no property taxes.
“We’ll have it ready to go, then we’ll find the partners, so that we can get it done quicker,” he said.
Building 1,500 units could cost $300 million, Coleman said. The province won’t fund all the development costs, he said, but will ask private investors and charitable foundations to invest.
“If you want to put up a million, we’ll put up a million,” he said. “This is the beginning of the line. There’s more to come.”
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, whose goal is to halve homelessness in the city by 2010, was beaming at Friday’s gathering.
“It looks like many more of the city sites will be developed, and that is great news,” he said. “As of today, the tide is turned.”
Karen O’Shannacery, who runs the Lookout shelter at Yukon and 5th Avenue, said outreach services are vital to breaking the cycle of homelessness.
“The commonality between all people who are homeless is that they are facing really serious issues,” said O’Shannacery. “What they need is people’s help to overcome their issues.
“The shelters and outreach services are really a safety net. They are a path out of homelessness.”
© The Vancouver Province 2007
