Steps to ease rental price pressure

Suzanne Anton, Special to the Sun
Published: Friday, June 27, 2008

Many people, not enough homes, and one of the best pieces of real estate in the world -- that combination in the West End of Vancouver has led to significant price pressures on renters.

What can the city do? What can citizens do?

- Zoning: Prevent outright demolition and loss of rental housing by requiring a one-for-one replacement of rental units in the apartment districts. This policy has been implemented by council. We are reviewing the zoning bylaws to see how we can strengthen and improve the stock of rental housing.

- Conversion of rentals to condos: Not a big issue in Vancouver. Council must approve all applications to change existing buildings from rental to condos. They are not particularly well-received and are very costly to property owners so there are very few of them.

- Speculator tax: A tax on vacant properties may have some initial appeal, but would require an army of bureaucrats peeking through keyholes to see who's in and who isn't. It is the kind of big government intervention that I don't favour. The city could not implement a tax of this nature as property tax is a provincial responsibility.

- Federal tax treatment of rental property: Federal tax laws discourage rental housing so essentially none has been built for 30 years by the marketplace. Here's a "to do" for everyone -- talk to your federal representatives and let them know that some very straightforward changes to federal tax laws will open the market up again for new rental construction.

- Condo rentals: Allow all condo owners to rent. Many condos are empty because strata councils prohibit rentals when owners aren't using their units. City council has asked the province to make this kind of prohibition illegal. This would free up many empty units for rental and requires virtually no government intervention.

- Right of first refusal: Renters need to be given the option of returning to their suites after renovations. We have asked the province to address this issue.

- EcoDensity: This city-wide initiative is attempting to answer the issue above -- many people, not enough housing.

Mayor Sam Sullivan on behalf of Vancouver council has written to the provincial government to ask for its consideration of these many issues.

Suzanne Anton is a Vancouver city councillor.

Homeless, and Marching

A member of the Citywide Housing Coalition, Laura Stannard, send this around regarding the definition of "homelessness" which I think is very helpful in thinking about the issue.

It used to be that the definition below, adapted from the Shelter UK website, www.england.shelter.org.uk , was the accepted definition of homeless for BC Housing. Then they got involved with the homeless count and solved some of their waitlist problems by not prioritizing the people living in the situations below (to my knowledge, they never did include the last point, but they did include everyone in a DTES hotel) and only recognizing shelterless people as homeless.

Homelessness:
Homelessness means not having a home. Even if you have a roof over your head you can still be homeless. This is because you may not have any rights to stay where you live or your home might be unsuitable for you. You don't have to be sleeping on the streets to be classed as homeless. You might also be homeless if you are:

* temporarily staying with friends or family
* staying in a hostel or bed and breakfast
* living in very overcrowded conditions
* at risk of violence or abuse in your home
* living in poor conditions that affect your health
* living somewhere that you have no legal right to stay in (eg. a squat)
* living somewhere that you can't afford to pay for without depriving yourself of basic essentials
* forced to live apart from your family, or someone you would normally live with, because your accommodation isn't suitable.

Imagine if we were able to count the numbers of these people! Everyone in DTES hotels would be included, plus thousands of other people meeting the old definition.

Far more people fit into this understanding of homelessness than what was registered in the homeless count last March. It is incredible that while thousands are shelterless and many more thousands are homeless (by this definition), condos are being built at a rapid pace that far outstrips the construction of safe, stable housing accessible to people living around or below the poverty line.

This is most visible, and disturbing, in the Downtown Eastside, where poverty, homelessness and ill-health dominate the experience of the majority of the residents yet condo developments are being easily approved by the city and construction is moving ahead quickly. This has all kinds of effects that result in the displacement of people from their community and supports, the increase in homelessness, and the transformation of the neighborhood into a place for those who can pay for these "affordable" (by the city's definition) units of housing (ranging from $300,000 - $500,000).

There is something remarkably perverse about this, yet it is so normalized within the system of private property acquisition and the rights of the wealthy to have their way in the "free market" economy. Hundreds and hundreds of minimal units of housing (the SROs) are being lost in this area while land is consumed by mega-developers and promoted by city officials who see this "revitalization" of the neighborhood as essential. What they don't see is that there is an already existing extremely "vital" community of people; this is an area that the rest of the city has much to learn from in terms of what constitutes a real community.

This is why we are participating in the march and rally this Saturday, July 5th @ 2:00 pm beginning at Pigeon Park (corner of Carrall St. and Hastings St.). It is a wake, to grieve the loss of housing, land, amenities and human lives in this community's struggle against economic and bureaucratic power that want to "clean" it up through processes of development and enforcement. But to grieve is to announce that something is very wrong; it is to raise a cry of suffering that calls for justice. It is, in this sense, an act of communal resistance, vision and hope.

As a group explicitly aligned with the poor and their struggle for justice, we need to take this opportunity to stand with this community in solidarity, to lament with them and to add our voices to their cry for justice.

I know it is summer and there are many other things going on in your lives, but if you could devote a couple of hours this Saturday to participate in this event, it would mean a lot to those with whom we stand and together we can make our voices heard to those in power (think of the Whos in Whoville, in the story of Dr. Seuss, Horton Hears a Who).

EVENT: Valuing Human Dignity: Challenging the Trafficking of Women

Friday, 27 June and Saturday, 28 June

Organized by the Interfaith Summer Institute for Justice, Peace and Social Movements (ISI)

Simon Fraser University Segal School of Business
500 Granville Street (at Pender St.)
Friday: 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm
Saturday: 9:00am – 5:00 pm

Suggested donation at the door: $20 (nobody will be turned away, but registration is required as there is limited space.)

Please pre-register by sending your name and phone number with your first three workshop choices to info@interfaithjustpeace.org under the subject heading Human Dignity Conference.

Workshop details here

Housing group turns up heat on bedbugs

Vancouver complex to include 'sauna'to zap pests infesting belongings as frustration rises over cost of outbreaks
WENDY STUECK
June 17, 2008
The Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- Bedbugs can go a year without a meal, hide in tiny cracks and survive chemical campaigns to kill them.

But they don't do so well in heat, which is why a housing complex under construction in Vancouver will include what's been dubbed the "bedbug sauna," a room where furniture, clothing and other belongings can be heated to a point that kills Cimex lectularius, the common bedbug enjoying a worldwide resurgence.

The idea was born of frustration with the rising cost of treating bedbug infestations and the desire to find some way to get rid of them that wouldn't force people to throw away their belongings, says George Simpson, operations manager for RainCity Housing, the non-profit group that has ordered the bug room for a 92-unit complex now under construction.

Read the rest here

A raspberry for Vancouver

D. J. STEWART
June 17, 2008
From The Globe and Mail

North Vancouver -- Please, can we have a moratorium on declaring Vancouver one of the "most livable cities" (Vancouver Strikes A Fashionable Pose - Life, June 16)? No city that leaves its homeless people to sleep on the street is truly livable. A city that has garbage trucks pick up the meagre belongings of those street sleepers (as happened Friday) is uncivilized. We hear we have to "spruce up" for the 2010 Olympics. Are the Games more sacred than human beings?

Insite Saves Lives: An Interview With Liz Evans

Am Johal
Vancouver, British Columbia
June 8, 2008

Liz Evans is the executive director of P.H.S. Community Services Society, which operated Insite, Canada's first supervised injection site, in partnership with the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.

A British Columbia judge ruled late last month that Insite could stay open another year even without an exemption from current drug laws. Its current exemption was to expire at the end of June.

Evans corresponded with Am Johal in Vancouver.

Read the interview here

Shelters turned away homeless 40,000 times in nine months

Frances Bula, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, May 22, 2008

Metro Vancouver homeless shelters had to turn away people more than 40,000 times between April and December last year, according to confidential statistics that BC Housing produces for the Greater Vancouver Shelter Strategy.

Women and children accounted for almost 16,000 of the turnaways listed in the summary, which compiled numbers of occupancy and turnaways for 36 shelters throughout the region.

"I was blown away by these numbers," said David Eby of the Pivot Legal Society, which obtained them and is making them public at a news conference today.

"To know there were 40,000 incidents was very surprising, especially because the city is cracking down on people sleeping outside."

He said this is a clear indication that BC Housing needs to look at what other services are needed. As well, cities that have policies of trying to move along or penalize people sleeping outside need to take into account the fact that it appears those people have nowhere to go.

The report indicated that most of the general-purpose shelters were at or over capacity during those same months. Places such as St. Elizabeth House in Vancouver, Hyland House in Surrey and Richmond House had over 100-per-cent capacity in some or all of the months the report covered.

Read the rest here

The new face of social housing

Projects win praise for modern design, green construction
Frances Bula, Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, May 24, 2008

The corner of First and Main in Vancouver is home these days to a sad-looking Burger King, a muffler shop, a tire store, Buster's Towing and a steady stream of commuter traffic.

It's not a place where you'd expect to find an architectural diamond.

But there will be one three years from now, when an unusual new building will rise on that corner. It will be a model of green architecture and innovative design, with an unusually rich exterior texture, in sharp contrast to the city's ubiquitous all-glass towers.

Read the rest here

No One Is Illegal-Vancouver & neworldtheatre present: The Displacement & Storytelling Project

The Displacement & Migration Storytelling Project is part of an exciting year-long collaboration between No One is Illegal and neworldtheatre, through which we hope to jointly contribute to bridging the gap between art and activism by developing tools of artistic resistance that are less individualistic and professionalized, and more deeply rooted in community social movements.

PROJECT BACKGROUND

No One is Illegal-Vancouver is a grassroots anti-colonial migrant justice group taking action on combating racism, colonialism, deportations, detentions, wage-slave conditions, and security measures in the context of the so-called "War on Terrorism."

neworldtheatre is a Vancouver-based theatre company which creates, develops, produces and tours politically and culturally charged plays that investigate intersections between communities and peoples.

Drawing from NOII's ongoing work, the Displacement & Migration Storytelling Project aims to create the space for participants to explore and bring their stories of displacement and migration creatively into the community. This project draws upon the deeply rooted and central role of culture, creative expression, and storytelling as key components of resistance movements by providing a connection between personal narratives and global understandings.

The project will consist of three major elements:

1) 8, 3-hour Weekly Workshops, during which participants will explore lived experiences, develop theatrical skills, and create one (or more) stories based on their experiences. Weekly workshops will run every Tuesday starting May 27th. The workshops will be co-facilitated by Marcus Yussef, Co-Artistic Producer of neworldtheatre, and Carmen Aguirre a Vancouver-based theatre artist, playwright and educator who has worked extensively in North and South America.

2) A minimum of 4 participant-driven performances that will be brought into the community, showcasing the stories that participants have developed. The first performance will happen the weekend of July 18th.

3) A minimum of 4, 3-hour Organizing Meetings dedicated to community outreach and performance planning. These meetings will happen separate from the Weekly Workshops. These meetings will be held every second Sunday starting June 1st.

GOALS

The goals of the project are to:
- Share experiences
- Empower people to tell their stories
- Develop basic theatre and performance skills
- Provide a space that bridges the gap between art and activism by developing tools of creative resistance that are less individualistic and professionalized and more deeply rooted in community
- Engage in a participant-driven and collective process
- Culminate with a minimum of 4 Community Performances
- Establish dialogue and community building around shared but unique experiences
- Provide the space to build connections between individual lived experiences and broader systemic forces at play including how racism, colonization, and the structuring of the global political economy exacerbate the process of displacement and migration

INTERESTED? HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

- No prior experience is necessary at all! This is a learning process!

- This project is open to People of Colour only. People of Colour is defined here as those who self-identify as having a lived experience of racism personally/in their community and include those of African/Black, Latina/Hispanic, Asian, First Nations/ Indigenous, South Asian, Arab/Persian/Middle Eastern, Pacific Islander, Biracial/Multiracial background

- To reiterate this project focuses on a broad understanding of displacement and migration which is inclusive of experiences of displacement that have affected Indigenous/black/racialized communities, both historically and on an ongoing basis.

- Participants will be expected to attend and participate during in all 3 aspects of the program as outlined above (Weekly Workshops, Organizing Meetings, and Community Performances). As this is a cumulative process with the aim of bringing what is created into the community in a series of participant-driven performances and/or presentations, please ensure that you are able to make a decision about your commitment beforehand.

- This project will require that participants be willing to explore and engage their personal, familial, or communities' experiences around displacement both within and/or across borders. For example, displacement/migration due to the need to escape unsafe situations, oppression, marginalized identities, colonization, racism, war and occupation, poverty etc.

- All participants must have a basic understanding and acceptance of the principles that guide No One Is Illegal's work such as anti-oppression principles, anti-colonial and anti-capitalist values, autonomy from government and corporate bodies, and non-hierarchical and collaborative working environments.

- While the workshops will take place in English, there will be lots of room for participants to work in languages other than English throughout the process. There is also room for translators to be present, however these will have to be arranged by participants who may desire a translator with them.

- In appreciation of the work, time, and effort this Project requires, participants will receive $200 total each as an honorarium. Bus tickets, childcare subsidies, and dinner will be provided at each workshop.

TO PARTICIPATE

Unfortunately participation is limited to 10 people due to resource constraints. In order to be considered for participation, please write or provide a verbal response to the following questions (1-2 sentences are sufficient):

1) Why do you want to be a part of this project?
2) Have you had similar opportunities in the past? If not what obstacles have prevented you from participating in similar projects
3)What identities shape your experience of the world?
4) What communities do you connect to and in what ways?
5) How do you see this project fitting into other community-based work you might be involved in?
6) Are you are available:
a) every Tuesday from May 27th – July 15th for the workshops?
b) every second Wednesday starting June 1st for Organizing Meetings?
c) July 18th for the first Community Performance?
d) to commit to participating in a minimum of 3 other Community Performances from July – September 2008.
7) Is there anything you want us to know that might affect your participation?

*** To arrange to submit your responses over the phone or in person please contact Alex at 604.727.7838 NO LATER THAN May 15th.

*** Responses being submitted by email can be sent to noii-van@resist.ca NO LATER THAN Saturday May 17th. People selected to participate in the project will be contacted by May 23rd.

*** Selection will be based on the goal of creating a multiracial, multiethnic, intergenerational group, that includes gender and queer balance.


FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT US at:
604.727.7838/noii-van@resist.ca

End Homeless Now - Forum

The number of people experiencing homeless in Vancouver is on the rise

What has happened and what is next?

Join other citizens and business leaders to discover how we can end homelessness in Vancouver

Free public forum
Thursday May 22
7:00 pm
(Doors open at 6:30)

St. Andrew's-Wesley United Church
Burrard & Nelson
Vancouver
(Free underground parking)

Speakers Include:

Steve Snyder
President & CEO, Translta Corporation
Chair, Alberta Secretariat for Action on Homelessness

Tim Richter
President & CEO, Calgary Homeless Foundation

For more information call: 604-683-4574

www.endhomelessnessnow.ca

A family problem

Blood relations or not, we all share responsibility for our brothers and sisters on the street
Rick Ouston, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, April 25, 2008

We apply many labels to people living on the street. The homeless. Unemployable. Binners. Bag ladies.

But when Christina Windsor Reid of Vancouver saw her brother Rick Windsor being interviewed on a Global television newscast after getting his only possessions in a pair of shopping buggies crushed by a city garbage crew (see story below), she knew what Rick said was true.

He was homeless, looking for affordable housing -- he often does -- and now he owned nothing.

Read the rest here.

Follow-up story here.

Sometimes hard work is still not enough

A renter for almost 25 years faces almost overwhelming obstacles finding a new place to live
Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, April 24, 2008

Dorothy Kerr has always worked hard, paid her bills and her rent on time and saved what little she could from her paycheque. It was never enough for a down payment on a home of her own.

Kerr has lived in Vancouver for nearly 25 years and most of that time she's worked in temporary clerical positions for the City of Vancouver. In December, the 49-year-old Kerr was 13 days away from being homeless.

"I absolutely never believed this could have happened to me," she said. "I'm a homebody. I'm house-proud and I just kept thinking, how can this be happening to me? I actually thought that I was going to end up outside United We Can [in the Downtown Eastside] selling my Swarovski crystal on the street. Why can't somebody like me get a clean, decent place to live?"

Read the rest here

Condo project targeted by activists

Concord Pacific building at Hastings and Carrall stalled by Carnegie Community Action Project
Frances Bula, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, April 24, 2008

VANCOUVER - A Concord Pacific project in the booming Downtown Eastside has become the first to be targeted by local activists who are gearing for an anti-condo war.

The 154-unit Greenwich condo project -- which is being built near Hastings and Carrall in the middle of what has been the city's drug market, scavenging centre and residential-hotel enclave -- has found itself temporarily stalled as area advocates protest a technical glitch in the approval process.

But those advocates say they're willing to try to make a test case out of the project to highlight concerns about the onslaught of condos in a neighbourhood that has been traditionally the home for the region's poorest.

Read the rest here

Solidarity With Tenants of Little Mountain

PROVINCE-WIDE STAND for HOUSING!
Saturday MAY 3, 1:00 – 2:00 pm

WILL YOU STAND WITH US?

in Vancouver at Main & 33rd Avenue
and many other locations

After the STAND our blue banners from all over Vancouver will converge at Main & 36th to show solidarity with the tenants of Little Mountain Housing. Please join us!

Check our Website http://www.my-calm.info/
for locations of STANDs around the city!

SAVE SOCIAL HOUSING AT LITTLE MOUNTAIN

Little Mountain Housing, Vancouver’s oldest social housing complex with 224 homes, is slated for redevelopment. The publicly owned 15-acre site adjacent to Queen Elisabeth Park is being sold to the highest bidder and density of expensive market housing will be increased dramatically. It was reported that the government even may renege on its commitment to replace the existing social housing at Little Mountain (Globe & Mail, 21/03/08). Construction will not start before 2010, but tenants are being pressured to move to provide the developer ‘vacant possession’. A well-functioning community, where people depend on each other for many kinds of support is being displaced, causing untold hardship.

At this time, over 170 habitable homes stand empty at Little Mountain, while thousands of people are homeless. Homeless people are dying on our streets. Hundreds of people in need of housing could be temporarily housed until construction begins. Instead, our governments have decided to demolish habitable buildings as they become vacant!

It is a scandal to leave habitable homes empty while thousands of people sleep on our streets.

Tell our governments:

• Stop the needless displacement of families from Little Mountain and let the remaining families relocate on site while new homes are constructed.
• Re-open vacant homes to families in need of housing - no bulldozing of homes until construction begins.
• Increase low-income housing at Little Mountain, and keep all housing non-market.
• Keep public land public – No sale of public land to private interests
• Implement a comprehensive public housing program – we need immediate action at all levels of government to build social and affordable housing.

Download the Little Mountain Rally poster here.

A neighbourhood speaks - and hears its own voice

THE DOWNTOWN EASTSIDE: HOPE IN SHADOWS

TIMOTHY TAYLOR
ttaylor@globeandmail.com
April 21, 2008

VANCOUVER -- 'I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them," photographer Diane Arbus once wrote. It's a comment that came repeatedly to mind reading Hope in Shadows, a collection of photographs taken and stories told by residents of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The book, which comes out next month, grew from a popular program run over the past five years by the Pivot Legal Society, a non-profit legal advocacy organization based in the neighbourhood. Since 2003, Pivot has been handing out cameras to residents and assembling pictures in a calendar. If you live or work in the downtown area, Gastown or Yaletown in particular, you've likely bought one of these from a street vendor at some point.

The book, edited by Vancouver poets Brad Cran and Gillian Jerome, takes the idea of the calendar a step further by building in the stories behind the images, as told by the people who took them. The result is likely to overturn a few "skid road" misconceptions, which reduce the citizens of the neighbourhood to mere emblems of its well-publicized problems: poverty, homelessness, prostitution, drug abuse and so on.

Read the rest here

Voices From the Street

Monday April 28th @ 7:00 pm
Grandview Calvary Baptist Church.
1803 E. 1st Avenue,
Vancouver, BC

We will host an evening called "Voices from the Street" which will consist of listening to people who are currently or have been homeless tell something of their experience, specifically with regard to the areas of family, work and institutional bureaucracy. This will be a more informal time of hearing what they have to share and interacting with them. They will be our teachers on this occasion and will help us deepen our understanding of their reality.

BC's Homeless Death Toll: 56 or More in Two Years

Tally of homeless deaths released to Tyee by chief coroner.
By Monte Paulsen and Tom Sandborn
Published: April 17, 2008
TheTyee.ca

At least 56 homeless British Columbians died during 2006 and 2007, according to provincial statistics obtained by The Tyee.

B.C.'s homeless died at a rate that's at least 19 per cent higher than the general population, according to the office of the chief coroner.

"These deaths were preventable," said MLA David Chudnovsky, a New Democrat who serves as the opposition critic for homelessness. "These are people who would still be alive if they'd had someplace to live."

The report tallies 31 homeless deaths in 2006 and another 25 in 2007. But housing advocates criticized the coroner for excluding the deaths of some formerly homeless people who died in hospital.

"Our governments are culpable for these preventable deaths," said David Eby, an attorney at Pivot Legal Society. "People are literally dying in the streets."

The office of the chief coroner prepared this report in response to requests from The Tyee. Among its findings:

The death rates among homeless persons in 2007 was 21.3 per 10,000 people, while the rate among the general population in 2006 was 17.9 per 10,000. So using the coroner's indirect comparison, B.C.'s homeless population is dying at a rate 19 per cent higher than the general population.

Two thirds of the homeless dead were living on the street, while the remaining third lived in a homeless shelter. Thus the (uncalculated) rate of death among street homeless is higher than 19 per cent above average.

Poisoning by drugs or alcohol was the leading cause of death, followed by blunt injuries (e.g., hit by a car), hangings and stabbings. One drowned and one died of smoke inhalation. Another nine deaths are either undetermined or still under investigation.

All of those counted were found in B.C.'s cities: 13 in Vancouver, 11 in Victoria, four in New Westminster, three each in North Vancouver and Surrey, and two each in Chilliwack, Kelowna and Nanaimo.

Read the rest here
See also Overdoses, disease cause of half the deaths of B.C. homeless people

City hall mulls nine-storey social housing project

East Side building one of 12 city-owned sites to receive provincial funding
Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008

The first of 12 projects identified last fall by the provincial government for social and supportive housing is slowly making its way through city hall for approval.

A brief progress report on the nine-storey project, which will offer 101 units for men and women at the southwest corner of Main and First Avenue, goes before council tomorrow.

It's the first step in a process that requires council to approve the rezoning of the site, which would trigger a public hearing in June. Council would then decide whether the project should go ahead.

Read the rest here

Activists take housing cause to UN

Government accused of not doing enough
Catherine Rolfsen, Vancouver Sun
Published: Monday, April 14, 2008

A group of students and Downtown Eastside advocates is today sending the United Nations a human rights complaint against the government of Canada, protesting the lack of adequate housing in the troubled community.

In the document, addressed to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, the complainants argue that the federal government has violated the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Canada is a signatory.

"The federal, provincial and municipal governments in Canada are not upholding basic human rights standards associated with the right to adequate housing in Vancouver, British Columbia, leading up to the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games," reads the letter. It is signed by representatives from Pivot Legal Society, the Carnegie Community Action Project and the Impact on Communities Coalition.

"We're at our wits' end," said Jean Swanson of the Carnegie Community Action Project at a press conference Sunday. "With the Olympics coming, maybe if these levels of government are embarrassed enough, they'll do what everyone knows they need to do: build housing, buy the hotels, bring in rent control."

Two University of B.C. students -- Mike Powar and Gayle Stewart -- initiated the complaint after studying the issue of homelessness in Vancouver in a global politics class taught by Michael Byers.

"I hope that by filing this human rights complaint with regards to the SROs [single-room occupancy buildings] we can really make a difference," said Powar, a political science student.

The complaint is filed through a mechanism that allows human rights and victims' groups to petition the UN. It has been used to protest apartheid in South Africa and conditions in the former Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, said Byers, who holds a Canada research chair in global politics and international law.

It will be considered by the UN Human Rights Council over the next few years, Byers said. The council can't fine Canada, Byers said, but could call upon Canadian politicians to discuss homelessness and may eventually produce recommendations.

"Through this petition, these NGOs [non-governmental organizations] and my students are prompting the eyes of the world to turn to the Downtown Eastside," Byers said.

Vancouver city Coun. Kim Capri said in an interview that the Olympics will bring increased international attention to Vancouver's social ills, such as homelessness.

"The Olympics are a catalyst for action," Capri said. "We're hoping that they will be a catalyst for positive action."

She defended the city and the province's track record of tackling homelessness, pointing to recent purchases of Downtown Eastside hotels for low-income housing and to the planned development of social and supportive housing on 12 sites across Vancouver.

But she said the recent Metro Vancouver homeless count, which found there has been a 20-per-cent increase in the number of people living in shelters and on the streets since 2005, highlights the enormity of the challenge facing the region.

"Having anybody sleeping outside in the conditions that homeless people live in, in a country as wealthy as Canada, is very problematic and it's troubling," she said.

"As a country, and as a province, we need to do better."

Monte Solberg, the federal minister of Human Resources and Social Development, and Rich Coleman, the provincial Housing minister, could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Link to article

For a contrary opinion see also Blaming B.C. Olympics for housing ills wrong

Homelessness unlikely to abate

Allen Garr, Vancouver Courier
Published: Friday, April 11, 2008

If you are waiting to see Mayor Sam Sullivan's promised reduction in homelessness of 50 per cent by 2010, you'll have to wait a while longer. The numbers are still going in the wrong direction. To no one's surprise, homelessness in Vancouver and across the region has increased in the three years since the 2005 count. If there's any good news it is this: The increase is not as much as in the previous three years and not as much as some predicted.

Sullivan's promised reduction was a figure plucked out of the air. It came along with promises to reduce the open drug market and aggressive panhandling by 50 per cent. He also promised to increase "the level of public satisfaction" with the city's handling of public nuisances by 50 per cent.

Those figures, too, were pulled out of nowhere.

Read the rest here