U.N. Envoy Visits our Tent City

Envoy decries city's homeless problem
Lack of housing, disparity a national crisis
Suzanne Fournier, The Province
Published: Wednesday, October 17, 2007

The United Nations envoy on homelessness says Vancouver is a wealthy city that should use the 2010 Olympics to close the striking gap between the rich and the poor and to build more affordable housing.

Miloon Kothari, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, heard three hours of "stories of pain and hope" at a public hearing for the homeless yesterday and toured Vancouver's drug-ravaged Downtown Eastside.

"As for the Olympics, I see these large projects as a tremendous opportunity to improve housing conditions and, if even a small percentage of the billions of dollars in Vancouver real estate was spent on affordable housing, some urgent problems could be solved," Kothari told The Province in an interview.

Kothari is conducting a review of the UN's 2006 declaration that homelessness in Canada "is a national emergency."

He has visited Montreal, Edmonton and Ottawa and will also visit Toronto, then brief the federal government Monday.

"What I have seen and heard so far in Vancouver has convinced me that this dire state of homelessness in the face of so much wealth indicates that this is still a serious issue that needs continued monitoring by the UN," he said.

Kothari thanked the more than 50 speakers for "sharing your stories of pain and hope" and pledged to convey their housing needs to the UN as well as to city, provincial and federal government officials he will meet here.

Kothari plans to visit the tent city at 950 Main St. today where a group called Streams for Justice has set up tents and cooking facilities for rapidly growing numbers of homeless people seeking shelter from the rain.

Vancouver police spokesman Const. Tim Fanning said the squatters will not be evicted until at least Friday, when Pivot lawyer David Eby will argue in B.C. Supreme Court that the Charter rights of his homeless clients Dwayne Koe and Noah Sakee, both Inuit men now living at the tent city, are violated by laws against sleeping in public places.

Eby estimates the number of homeless people in Vancouver could triple to more than 3,500 people by 2010.

The B.C. government and Vancouver Organizing Committee for the Olympics have promised 3,200 housing units will be built by 2010 but at least 12 city-owned sites slated for social housing are sitting vacant, activists say.

Koe, who came to Vancouver 10 years ago from Aklavik, N.W.T., told his story to Kothari yesterday.

"I have been drinking for many years because of pain -- because of the residential school system I still suffer," he said. "When I was eight I watched my dad kill my mom. I have been homeless for years and tonight I will be sleeping at tent city, but I got accepted to BCIT. I had to starve and bum money to enroll, but I'm going in March."

The B.C. government announced plans last week to build 1,100 units of supportive housing in Vancouver while spending $41 million on emergency shelters and homeless-outreach services around the province.

"I want to thank . . . the entire provincial government for their commitment to social and supportive housing," said Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan at the time.

Globe and Mail coverage here:
Street tells real story about poverty, official says