Helps to Ottawa: Step up on housing
Helps urges next government to improve funding
Capital region taxpayers can pay to end homelessness by borrowing up to $50 million over the next 15 years, but it’s really up to Ottawa to reinstate the socialhousing budget slashed in the past quarter-century, Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps said Tuesday.
Helps told about 100 people attending the annual meeting of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness that lowincome housing should be an election issue that translates into improved funding — no matter which party forms government after the Oct. 19 federal election.
Victoria councillors will debate Thursday a proposal to ask the Capital Regional District to borrow $50 million to build 367 supportive housing units for the chronically homeless — the number of units some believe would effectively end homelessness in Greater Victoria by 2018.
It would cost about $2.08 million a year to service the debt, which could be paid through an annual levy of about $11.18 per household in the capital region, the resolution says.
“We are prepared to do this in the event that we have to, but we state very firmly, if you read through the motion, that we want the federal government to step up,” Helps said. The coalition has kicked off a social-media campaign that includes videos and yellow stickers warning that affordable housing gets less than one per cent of the federal budget. This year’s Treasury Board budget estimate was roughly $241 billion.
Helps said feedback on the $50-million proposal has been “almost entirely positive” and noted it would save taxpayers sums spent on health care and social services for homeless people. It costs $21,000 annually to house a homeless person but $55,000 in health, social and other costs for a person living on the street, she said.
Ottawa spends barely half of what it spent on social housing 25 years ago, even though the Canadian population has increased by 30 per cent over that same time, she said.
“Federal spending on lowincome housing per capita has dropped from $114 in 1989 to $58 in 2014,” she said, adding the result of the diminishing housing options is obvious on streets across Canada.
“There is a federal election well underway, and the Coalition to End Homelessness is working in Victoria and with organizations across the country to encourage people to vote for housing,” Helps said. “If we all do our job well here on the ground in Victoria and our colleagues across the country, hopefully the CRD will not have to borrow one dollar. Hopefully, the federal government will listen to cries across the country from Canadians and will invest in housing in this region and across the country.
“All we need is to increase the investment in social housing to 1.6 per cent of the federal budget and we can solve the problem.”
The coalition received $782 last year from the federal government but nothing in 2015, its audited financial statement shows.