I don’t often visit the centre of Vancouver, but recent travel through the city’s downtown east side was unsettling. I saw open drug use on the street, wasted people loitering on trash-laden sidewalks, and disabled people pushing loaded carts over neglected roadways. Emergency services are called to the area often to deal with life-threatening medical events.
In the DTES, extreme poverty is geographically concentrated, creating a feedback loop where dysfunctional residents lack the social capital needed to improve their situations. Instead, they learn to trust fellow street people and they remain wary of officials offering assistance.
Gastown began as a vibrant shopping area with desirable places for dining and entertainment. In recent years, it and nearby areas have become showpieces of urban decay. Countless residents and visitors are dismayed.
Wife Gwen and I recently spent a few days in Amsterdam. We noticed no signs of homelessness and extreme poverty. IN-SIGHTS reader Pat McCutcheon has noted Finland’s relative success in dealing with poverty.
That country has made significant strides in eliminating homelessness, primarily through its “Housing First” policy, which provides immediate, unconditional housing to those experiencing homelessness, coupled with comprehensive support services. This approach reverses the traditional “staircase” model, where individuals had to meet certain conditions (like sobriety) before being offered permanent housing. Key elements of Finland’s success include:
- Housing First Policy: Providing a stable home as a fundamental right, regardless of an individual’s circumstances.
- Conversion of Shelters: Transforming temporary shelters into permanent, affordable rental units.
- Investment in Affordable Housing: The government, municipalities, and non-profit organizations actively build, purchase, and convert properties to create a sufficient supply of affordable housing.
- Integrated Support Services: Offering a wide range of support, including health services, social assistance, and help with employment, tailored to individual needs. This support is provided after housing is secured.
- Financial Assistance: Providing housing allowances and social benefits to help individuals afford rent.
- Political Will and Collaboration: A sustained national strategy with broad political support and strong partnerships between the state, cities, municipalities, and NGOs.
- Prevention: Focusing on preventing homelessness by assisting tenants at risk of eviction and integrating homelessness efforts with the broader social safety net.
The Netherlands has a robust social safety net and a high percentage of social housing, which helps prevent extreme poverty and homelessness. While they haven’t “eliminated” homelessness to the same extent as Finland, they have a strong focus on prevention and a national action plan (Housing First 2023-2030) that aims to significantly reduce homelessness. Their approach includes:
- Strong Social Safety Net: Comprehensive social security reforms and minimum income support to prevent people from falling into destitution.
- High Percentage of Social Housing: A large stock of social housing, distributed across neighbourhoods, helps to avoid concentrated areas of poverty and provides affordable options.
- Prevention Services: Efforts to avoid evictions and address financial debts.
- Coordinated Approach: Collaboration between national and local governments, as well as non-profit organizations, to provide services and accommodation.
- Housing First Principles: Their national action plan emphasizes “first a house, then recovery,” recognizing housing as a human right and a prerequisite for addressing other issues.
- Support Services: Providing various forms of support, including help with finances, employment, and addiction, often through community organizations.
To implement similar strategies, British Columbia would need to implement more effective policies. MPs, MLAs and council members seem to prioritize salaries, expense accounts, and pensions. If only they would have the same concern for action on homelessness. If they did, this would happen:
- Prioritizing Housing as a Right: Shifting the paradigm from temporary shelters to immediate, unconditional permanent housing.
- Greater Investment in Affordable Housing: This includes building new units, converting existing structures, and potentially using public land for development.
- Robust Social Welfare Programs: Ensuring a strong safety net with adequate income support and housing allowances.
- Integrated and Tailored Support Services: Providing comprehensive support for health, addiction, employment, and social integration, accessible after housing is secured.
- Strong Political Commitment and Cross-Sector Collaboration: A sustained national strategy with buy-in from all levels of government and partnerships with non-profit organizations.
- Focus on Prevention: Implementing measures to prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless in the first place.
I understand that many people and public agencies are working on these problems. The fact that we have seen few improvements over recent years is evidence that too little is being done.
Categories: Housing, Inequality
in-sights.ca 
The current approach to housing seems to rely on developers who build for profit. I see mention of some small percentage of developments being designated “affordable” while the majority remains “market.” No matter how much is built, this approach will not help those in dire poverty. Profit has to be out of the picture, which means government subsidy, i.e., all of us who contribute via our taxes.
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Many of the “below-market” rents are not affordable for many people. Europeans seem more willing to build public housing, which may explain successful efforts to relieve homelessness. One of the difficult decisions to be made is the degree of compulsion exercised over people accustomed to living on the streets. Do we allow them to remain unhoused, or do we force them into public facilities?
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Missing in the standard (meaning acceptable) analysis of why a homelessness crisis waited to emerge until recently and became an epidemic are the words Rentier Economics.
https://www.prindleinstitute.org/2019/03/what-is-rentier-capitalism/
Economic rent is the unearned value within a profit. The term “rentier” refers to someone who obtains private capture of this unearned value. In other words, the rentier is someone who receives profit from some other basis than their own productive activity. One common source of value for economic rent is from natural resources (including land, oil, water, forests, air space, minerals, etc). Land is one of the most classical examples of the above (as indicated by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations): “As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.” Our everyday meaning of “rent” as applied to residential or commercial property use is one prime example of the unearned increment of land. When one pays rent for a property, one is paying not for a production or a service, but for limited access to the land which the landowner (or in this context, the “rentier”) has already claimed a monopoly.
In Canada’s this view would imply several interwoven problems were deliberately ignored, except as the report above indicates – in Finland.
1/ Hypothesis: It was an exceptionally dumb idea to allow vulture funds (the next generation of the Slum Landlord mentality) and venture capitalists to monopolize what used to be affordable housing. .
2/ An obvious homelessness/affordable housing crisis mushrooming this could prove politically embarrassing. So the crisis was ignored.
3/ Having zero policy at the ready to combat this crisis at the scale required the usual nonsense about “trust us: we’re working on it” beckoned a public response – why weren’t you working on it 20 years ago, like Finland?
As Ms. Driscol points out
No matter how much is built, this approach will not help those in dire poverty. Profit has to be out of the picture, which means government subsidy, i.e., all of us who contribute via our taxes.
As Mr. Farrell points out
Many of the “below-market” rents are not affordable for many people. Europeans seem more willing to build public housing, which may explain successful efforts to relieve homelessness.
In different words, counties who still support the fantasy that our Market God inevitably will solve this tricky situation via magical thinking – without massive government intervention – still holds sway.
Making things easier for investors and home builders to profit from this crisis? And that will make homelessness go away? That will make houses affordable agai9n? That makes zero sense.
Bottom line?
How much debt does Canada have?
https://theconversation.com/national-debt-explained-what-you-should-know-about-canadas-deficit-236841
By the end of the 2024-25 fiscal year, Canada’s total market debt is expected to surpass $1.4 trillion.
Every day, this debt grows by more than $100 million, and every second, Canada pays more than $1,200 in interest.
How much debt does BC have?
$200 Billion.
Twenty years from now our politicians will still insist, “trust us: we’re working on it”
Housing and homelessness? That’s our canary in the coal mine.
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During a visit to Newfoundland I asked why the houses were wood frame. Response. Bricks! Too damned expensive!.
Why no bricks? Historically, shipping companies measured cost by weight. Since bricks were too pricey Newfoundland adapted to reality with frame houses.
Ever noticed the eccentric seeming way Newfoundland houses painted? As in “The Republic of Doyle”? Again it’s practicality at work.
Atlantic sea air is corrosive. Storms frequent. Painting a house, highly expensive. Given that repainting is frequent the least expensive paint solves the problem..
When both downtown Vancouver and Victoria were first being built the Newfoundland problem emerged. No bricks. No one making bricks. No one selling bricks.
How to overcome brick scarcity? The solution was pragmatic. Ships arriving from Europe to deliver goods to our new outpost used sub-standard bricks as ballast. Sub-standard due to excessive wear and tear. They were unsuited for construction in Europe for being misshapen.
Solution? Buy the ballast, build the colony.
Later? During a quake in Washington State I watched the office wall in front of me ripple and oscillate. In Gastown.. MIshapened bricks.
Until much of downtown Vancouver and Victoria is torn down and rebuilt the un-safest locale is downtown. Where as you note the poorest people are concentrated.
“Gastown began as a vibrant shopping area with desirable places for dining and entertainment. In recent years, it and nearby areas have become showpieces of urban decay. Countless residents and visitors are dismayed.”
During a seminar on Search and Rescue operations the speaker mentioned a different problem for an upscale area near Stanley Park. Because glass weighs less and costs less to face highrise buildings, when The Big One hits those luxurious towers, exterior glass will shatter and fall. Leaving a pile several feet high in front.
Rescue crews with be unable to enter the building quickly, residents unable to exit at the worst possible time..
Sometimes what a community imagines is practical in terms of cost savings – isn’t.
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How not to solve the homelessness crisis in Vancouver? Ever.
Do the exact opposite of what Helsinki did.
Though a VanSun article doesn’t mention the example set by Helsinki it does seem to question City Hall’s ability to think…
https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vancouver-accelerating-demolitions-of-lowrise-rentals-says-former-chief-planner?itm_source=opinion
“The City of Vancouver is accelerating the demolition of lowrise, often-affordable, older rental apartment blocks so they can be replaced by increasingly taller towers along the Broadway and Cambie corridors, says a former city planner.”
“Vancouver is holding a public hearing on Sept. 16 to hear views on its intention to prezone a large swath of properties for higher density buildings adjacent to the Broadway and Cambie thoroughfares, said Robert Renger, retired chief development planner for Burnaby.”
“Vancouver city’s goal, he said, is to “rescue” developers who are worried they can’t make enough money during this market slowdown.”
That’s it. Rescuing developers must be our first priority in ending homelessness. Can’t wait to see who the city invites to speak on 16 Sept.
Any guesses?
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