The Homelessness Crisis In BC - Why Now?

This is the third in a series of excerpts from the report on homelessness in BC, "Finding Our Way Home" prepared by David Chudnovsky, Opposition Critic for Homelessness in the Legislature. The complete report can be read at http://www.bcndpcaucus.ca/files/HomelessReport-low.pdf

There are many reasons why homelessness has reached the staggering level it has in British Columbia. The federal government must take its share of the blame. In 1994 the federal housing program was cancelled. It provided tens of thousands of high quality social housing and co-op housing units.

By 2001, British Columbia was one of only two provinces in the country with a provincial social housing program. But the Gordon Campbell Liberal government cancelled that program in 2002. If it had simply continued, there would be at least 4,000 additional low-rent units of housing in British Columbia.

Income is an important variable in providing the possibility for affordable housing. But it’s clear that incomes have lagged dramatically behind the cost of housing. 250,000 employed British Columbians make $10 an hour or less. It’s virtually impossible at such a wage level to find adequate and affordable housing.

The administration at Kelowna’s Mission Gospel emergency shelter reported that 30% of people who use the shelter get up in the morning and go to work. This has been confirmed in other emergency shelters, soup kitchens and food banks across the province.

Those on income assistance have an even bigger challenge in finding affordable housing. The $375 per month shelter allowance for single people is totally inadequate. It forces people to supplement their rents with money that should be going to food, clothing, transportation and other purposes. The Campbell Liberals created barriers (such as the 3 week wait, 2 year independence test, etc.) which make it much harder to get on income assistance and stay on income assistance.

A recent report of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives which followed welfare recipients in BC since 2004 found that 100% of those studied who were forced to leave welfare became homeless.

The de-institutionalization of people with mental health problems has also contributed to homelessness. Without adequate community-based mental health services many people become vulnerable to homelessness, and to many other challenges – drugs and drug addiction, physical and sexual abuse, intimidation etc.

The recent report of the Vancouver Police Department calls attention to the woeful lack of health services for this population and subsequently the inappropriate and wasteful use of police services to deal with health issues.

Another extremely significant factor which has led to the current crisis of homelessness is the cruel irony that with the dramatic rise in the value of real property there has been a dramatic increase in homelessness. When the cost of buying homes at the top of the market increases, the demand, and therefore the price of housing in the cheapest part of the market increases too.

This is the case, it is worth noting, not just in the Lower Mainland but in communities across the province. So while some British Columbians have become wealthy because the value of their homes have appreciated, many of their neighbours have become homeless as part of the same phenomenon.

The lesson here is that the market alone will not and cannot resolve the current crisis of homelessness in the province.

Also adding pressure to the stock of affordable housing, is the drive to re-develop manufactured home parks, especially in smaller centres across the province. Decades ago, when many of these parks were established, they were often at the outskirts of towns and cities. With the passage of time and the expansion of municipalities, they are now closer to the centre and the land on which they sit has increased in value. As many of these parks are closed and developed they contribute to the problem. A great number of the manufactured homes cannot be moved and their owners are at grave risk of becoming homeless.

Because of the critical shortage of low-cost rental accommodation, landlords are in a position to pick and choose tenants. One phenomenon which has been reported is landlords not only doing credit checks on potential tenants, but criminal record checks as well. Obviously, someone who has been homeless for any length of time has little hope of getting past these obstacles.



“10,500 people are homeless in British Columbia. That’s the population of Williams Lake. If tomorrow the people of Williams Lake had a catastrophe, if there was a flood or a fire and every one of them lost their homes, we as a people, as British Columbians who are caring and decent people, would get together and find homes for those people. We’d build homes for those people. We’d solve their problem. And we’d do it quickly. Today in British Columbia that’s the crisis we have. More people than the population of Williams Lake are homeless today in British Columbia. It’s time for government to take it seriously, to roll up their sleeves and to find a solution for those people.”
- David Chudnovsky