METRO MAYORS DEMAND ACTION
Homelessness now a crisis, leaders say
Gregor Robertson never had a hope to end homelessness in Vancouver through unilateral action as mayor.
His pre-election promise to end street homelessness, if made in earnest in 2008, was naive in that it could never be met without shared vision and action from Victoria and Ottawa. It may also have been unproductive in that it drew attention away from the senior governments primarily responsible for keeping people off the streets, or housing those who end up there.
On Monday, Robertson joined other Metro mayors at a news conference in Burnaby to point the light back on Victoria with a joint position paper on homelessness and sharp words for its sitting government. At least some of those words were earned. Robertson said he made his promise “assuming that the provincial and federal government would come to the table and fulfil their key roles.” He recalled making headway in cutting Vancouver’s homeless population from 800 to 150 during his first three years in office.
“In 2011, things turned and Christy Clark became the premier of B.C.,” he told reporters. “There was no commitment to solving homelessness here in the province.”
A record number of people now live on the streets or in shelters in Vancouver. At last count, it was 1,847 in the city. But contributing factors to rising homelessness started before 2011. Welfare rates have been frozen since 2007 and the province has not increased shelter rates from $375 a month.
“If anyone in this room can find a place to live for $375 a month in Metro Vancouver,” Robertson said, “you can share that information with the 10,000 people who are on the B.C. Housing waiting list.”
Robertson alleged the province has been more focused on megaprojects like the Massey tunnel and Site C dam instead of its people.
“It’s been war on the poor in B.C.,” he said, “while we invest billions and billions of dollars in projects of questionable merit.”
Rich Coleman, B.C.’s housing minister, spared little fire in his retort to Robertson.
“The comments … by the mayor of Vancouver are patently so untrue, I’m flabbergasted. There’s hundreds of millions spent at that city. He shows up at the openings of these places, so he knows we continue to do it,” Coleman told legislative reporters, adding that B.C. spends more than $200 million a year in operating costs in Vancouver to help care for 27,500 people.
Despite that spending and more elsewhere in the region, there are now about 70 homeless camps scattered around Metro Vancouver. Living in those camps, on streets and in shelters are 4,000 people.
About 80 per cent of those people have a chronic health issue, according to health authorities. Some 49 per cent have a substance addiction and 34 per cent suffer from mental illness. The majority say they have experienced abuse or suffered trauma.
Insufficient action is costly. Taxpayers spend $55,000 per homeless person per year, for a total of more than $200 million, according to the position paper.
Included in Metro’s paper was a series of 12 recommendations. Among them was a call on the province to help build 3,000 new transitional housing units by 2019 and spend another billion dollars on mental health and addictions care over the next decade as a preventive measure.
“We want to see the next B.C. government very focused on affordable housing and solving homelessness in Metro Vancouver,” Robertson said.
The report, which was released leading up to a provincial election, focused little on the federal government.
But the mayor must also turn an eye to his own government’s role in helping keep people off the streets. Setting aside a spike in rental housing starts last year, too few affordable homes have been built in this city. Vancouver’s sluggish permitting process has not helped.
Meanwhile, the Vancouver Affordable Housing Agency, sparked in 2014 with a goal to house 500 by this summer, has created just 40 homes to date. All are temporary. In fairness, that association relies on partnerships with other governments. But Vision created VAHA.
The Metro paper also recommends affordable rental units be preserved. That will take difficult planning decisions to increase density in wealthier areas of the city.
Ending homelessness will also take a mayor who can build relationships and collaborate with whichever government is voted to the legislature on May 9.
I’m flabbergasted. … (Robertson) shows up at the openings of these places, so he knows we continue to (spend on homelessness).