Last week, I tipped my hat to Mayor Stewart Kennedy for his $30-million proposal to address homelessness. This initiative was a welcome and significant step forward in addressing our current emergency homelessness crisis due to COVID-19. It was also a major first — never before has a Vancouver mayor proposed spending such an amount of money to address the issue.
However, the $30-million proposal was quickly dwarfed by unanimous city council approval to work with the federal and provincial governments to secure up to $1 billion through a joint investment partnership. (Note that three councillors were absent or abstained from the vote: the NPA’s Melissa De Genova and Lisa Dominato; and independent councillor, Rebecca Bligh.)
The funds will be used to purchase and fix up to 105 single-room occupancy hotels, or SROs, containing thousands of rooms. Many are unsafe and in horrible condition with bugs, broken plumbing, black mould and more.
I wish city council every success in obtaining the funding it seeks. At the federal level, the biggest stick council has is the amazing fact Jenny Kwan, the NDP MP for Vancouver East, dug out last month and I blogged about: BC has received only $7 million or .05% — that’s half of one per cent — of the government’s national budget for housing for homeless people. Ontario, by contrast has already received the lion’s share — $1.4 billion (that’s billion with a “B”).
As reported in The Tyee, long-time and respected DTES activist, Wendy Petersen, told city council, “Not since the early ’70s has the city been so bold in its vision and so responsive to community.” I could not have said it better myself.
At long last we are seeing some decisive action similar to what governments were doing decades ago.
I have been following civic politics since the late 1970s and I do not recall there ever being put forward a plan as aggressive as this one.
No more tinkering around the edges. No more “feel-good” cosmetic initiatives by city council. Finally, a very meaningful, tangible initiative to address the crisis faced by residents forced to live in unbelievably dire conditions — in filthy, infested SROs and on our city’s cold, wet city sidewalks.
Congratulations to city council for getting behind this proposal. Let’s all tip our hats to the mayor and the councillors who voted for it.
Daily atmospheric CO2 [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]
Latest daily total (Oct. 21, 2020): 411.85 ppm
One year ago (Oct. 21, 2019): 408.68 ppm
Click here to sign my empty homes tax petition!
Subscribe to Tim Louis
Keep up to date Tim's latest posts.
What about the sellout at 57th and Cambie and 41st and Oak.City Council will just rubber stamp these development of public land that will be home to about 300p units majority of them not affordable rental housing.
Thanks so much Tim for bringing this to our attention and this is wonderful news and this money is very much needed to cure the homeless and in adequate homes situation in Vancouver and hats off to our mayor and council who voted for this and $30million is a good start but $1 billion should make a huge improvement!