Sending homeless to other parts of B.C. a possibility
John Bermingham
Province
Protesters demand more housing for the poor during a march in the Downtown Eastside last October. Provincial Housing Minister Rich Coleman says his Liberal government has implemented numerous policies to address the lack of social housing. Photograph by : Jason Payne, The Province
Provincial Housing Minister Rich Coleman says the eventual answer for the homeless of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is relocation — to another B.C. community.
Towns in the Fraser Valley and the Interior offer a better chance at an escape from the addiction cycle that leads to homelessness, Coleman told The Province in a wide-ranging interview about the job he faces.
Communities who object to taking in those now gravitating overwhelmingly to Vancouver’s streets will get little of his sympathy if they try to keep the poor and troubled from their midst, Coleman added.
“The Downtown Eastside is going to have to change,” he said.
“Over time, it frankly needs to disperse its problems out of that one particular area of the city.
“We can’t put all the services for these folks in one place, because we’re creating our own self-fulfilling prophecy.”
As for the not-in-my-backyard syndrome he anticipates in areas where people may land, Coleman conceded that “we have communities that have difficulty dealing with some homeless issues.”
“Leadership has to be taken on this issue,” he said. “People with mental health [issues] and addictions shouldn’t be stereotyped. You have to give it a chance.”
Coleman himself has taken the lead in many of the housing debates now raging in the public sphere.
He does so after years of accusations that his Liberal government was ignoring the swelling ranks of homeless in Canada’s poorest neighbourhood.
In describing the challenge before him, Coleman said he wants to not only house the homeless but ultimately get them back into the mainstream.
“I wanted to change the philosophy within government from what I call ribbon-cutting to helping people,” said Coleman, casting his eye over a view of the city’s central waterfront. “You need to focus on the client and the person to help.”
In April, the province paid $37 million for 10 single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotels in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The move was aimed at protecting almost 600 rooms from being converted into condos or backpacker hostels.
Coleman said he wants to turn the SROs into supportive housing that would provide rooms for Vancouver’s hard-to-house by providing them with the supports they need. The hotels are now being fixed up; non-profit groups will be contracted to manage them.
The hotel purchases stunned many anti-poverty activists.
“It was a big surprise,” said David Eby, a housing advocate with the Pivot Legal Society. “That was definitely a big change of policy.”
Eby was also surprised in February when the Liberals boosted welfare rates by up to 20 per cent — or $100 a month — and the shelter allowance by $50, from $325 to $375 a month.
Still, Eby said, problems remain because the government writes cheques to the hotels without pressuring landlords to fix them up.
Coleman focused instead on the good he said his ministry is doing:
– In his two years as minister, he said, he saw his annual housing budget hiked by $200 million.
– The province already supports about 6,000 housing units in the Downtown Eastside, which also gets the largest chunk of Vancouver’s annual $127 million in housing funds, he noted.
– Last winter, Coleman’s ministry funded emergency beds at churches in the Downtown Eastside and made cold-weather shelter beds year-round, he said.
– It hired outreach workers to connect with the homeless and get them to the supports they need, like medical and social assistance, he said.
– Some 2,000 units of social housing are planned for B.C., including 200 units at Woodward’s and another 100-odd at 55 East Hastings.
– The ministry gave more than $11 million to the Salvation Army to run transition housing for 85 at-risk residents at Grace Mansion at 596 East Hastings.
– The ministry is also lining up 300 new units on sites owned by the City of Vancouver, including a pilot project of 100 controversial “small suites.” The rooms, which measure 18 square metres, contain a bed, washroom and kitchenette.
Critics say they’re an insult to the poor. Coleman’s answer: “The same people who don’t like that are happy to put someone in a single-room-occupancy hotel in a 10-by-10 room with no washroom.”
As for anti-poverty groups who talk of mass evictions prior to the 2010 Olympics, Coleman said they’re fear-mongering.
“I think those comments from those groups are the most disingenuous and dishonest comments that anybody makes in housing in B.C.,” he said. “I don’t know of anybody who would want to mass-evict a building for 14 days.”
Finally, to the anti-poverty advocates who want 3,200 more units of social housing by 2010, Coleman said he doesn’t want to re-invent social-housing “projects.”
“I would rather have those 1,500 people integrated into the housing market,” he said.
© The Vancouver Province 2007