Cop calls for backup in fight against homelessness

VPD veteran says province must renovate 18 single-room occupancy hotels
Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, June 25, 2008

A senior Vancouver police officer says homelessness in the Downtown Eastside is the worst he's seen in his 23 years on the job.

Supt. Warren Lemcke, commander for the north part of the city, said the dire situation won't change until the provincial government renovates the 18 single-room occupancy hotels it purchased over the last year.

But Lemcke warned the hotels need proper management and support services for them to be effective. The city's commitment to build 12 social housing sites will reduce homelessness, but those buildings are years away from opening, he said.

Read the rest here

Homeless have right to tent in parks, Victoria lawyer argues

Last Updated: Wednesday, June 18, 2008 | 1:22 PM ET
CBC News

A Victoria lawyer has launched a court challenge against a bylaw prohibiting people from sleeping in tents in city parks.

Catherine Boies told CBC News on Tuesday the number of homeless people in the city far exceeds the number of shelter beds available.

"What we're saying is, in circumstances where people don't have the opportunity to have some kind of shelter, they have to be able to put up some form of shelter in the city," said Boies.

The case is a counter-challenge to a permanent injunction granted to the city in the summer of 2005. The injunction permitted municipal authorities to dismantle a homeless encampment that sprung up in a city park because of a shortage of shelter beds.

Read the rest here

The Homeless Hub

A link to The Homeless Hub can now be found on the sidebar under Homelessness.

The Homeless Hub is an innovative research library and information center focusing on homelessness issues in Canada. Building on the success of the Canadian Conference on Homelessness, held at York University (2005), the Homeless Hub represents a new approach to sharing information and research on homelssness. We strongly believe that evidence-based research can and should have an impact on decision-making and solutions to homelessness, through helping to educate the public, and to inform policy and practice at all levels of government and in the social, health care and housing sectors

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

Solutions for homelessness offered to City

Three young authors had plenty of advice to offer the City of Vancouver on how to address the growing issues of a lack of affordable housing and a growing homelessness crisis yesterday.

The authors were winners of an essay contest held by Pivot Legal Society that challenged entrants to think outside the box on how to solve one of the most pressing issues facing the City of Vancouver: the future of housing in the Downtown Eastside.

“These essays represent real and pragmatic solutions to homelessness and the future of the Downtown Eastside,” said David Eby, who heads Pivot Legal Society’s Housing Campaign. “But more importantly they represent the possibility that creative thinking and collaboration could help Vancouver solve some pretty challenging problems.”

A panel of high-profile judges, including Cameron Gray of the City of Vancouver Housing Department, Nick Blomley, Professor of Urban Geography at SFU, and developer Robert Brown, evaluated the entries for creative thinking, the practicality of the recommendations, and whether or not the proposals drew from successful models in other jurisdictions.Key proposals from the essays included:

• A “master lease” program, modeled on a program in San Francisco, where the city pays the capital cost for half of a new build of social housing units, and leases the remaining units from a developer funded by private capital, capital secured by the half of the units paid for by the city. In the alternative, the City could lease existing operating SRO buildings from operators to ensure continued access to those most vulnerable to homelessness. Rents could help offset City costs.

• A “homeless connect” program, modeled on another San Francisco program, where government and non-government organizations gather in a single location to help homeless people get basic services like replacement identification, eyeglasses and medical care.

• Employing the recently homeless in building social housing to help build skills and self-esteem.

• Incorporating economic rights, like a right to housing and a living wage, into our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

• Considering the issuing of a special development bond by the City for the benefit of the DTES, where individuals could invest in ensuring socially sustainable and mixed income construction, instead of forcing the City to rely on private investment and developers for revitalization of the area.

Click here to download the report

Long line waiting for housing in Toronto

Social welfare, housing advocates meet to discuss how best to provide affordable homes in the city
Apr 27, 2008 04:30 AM
Francine Kopun
Toronto Star

If Toronto is serious about fighting homelessness, it must make saying "Not In My BackYard" a taboo, a housing forum has been told.

"The city has to take a strong enough stand against NIMBYs that they realize it's not okay to speak that way," Angie Hains, executive director of Ecuhome Corporation, said yesterday during a meeting to discuss how to get people off the streets and into their own homes.

And for any assistance program to work, those people who move into new housing will need to get ongoing help from social agencies and the community as they adjust to their new lives.

"Supports are the foundation of houses," said Cynthia Kiy, manager of support services for Covenant House. "Without them, the houses are as flimsy as tents in the park. That's how I feel."

Hains was one of about 200 housing and social welfare advocates to attend the meeting to discuss Toronto's 10-year, $469-million-a year Housing Opportunities Toronto (HOT) – An Affordable Housing Framework 2008-2018.

Read the rest here

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.

Homeless no more

He's been dealt some poor hands in an up-and-down life, but Richard Smith was lucky enough to land a subsidized apartment
Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, April 23, 2008

He could be a character out of Damon Runyon with his wise-cracking and stories about the ponies, the girls and, well, life.

"You won't believe my name," he tells me. "The cops didn't the first time they stopped me on Hastings in the early '60s. I was going for a steak dinner at my favourite restaurant. I'd driven around the block three times before I found a parking spot. When I did there were two cops at my window. What's your name? Richard Smith, I told them. 'It can't be,' they said. 'We put him in jail a few hours ago.' So I told them it was Tom Jones and they let me go."

But his name really is Richard Smith. He's lived hard, played hard, worked hard, made money, lost money.

Read the rest here

Welfare system ineffective, study concludes

Poorest people in B.C. left scrambling to survive, move out of poverty
Frances Bula, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, April 22, 2008

VANCOUVER - The province's welfare system makes people homeless, sometimes forces women to turn to prostitution and relies on food banks and charities to help provide the basics to its clients, according to an unprecedented in-depth study of welfare recipients.

The two-year study, partly funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, tracked a small group of people who are part of what the provincial government decided in 2002 was a serious problem that had to be tackled - people who stay on welfare a long time but are classified as "expected to work."

Researchers found that, contrary to government claims that its new welfare policies helped people get out of poverty, almost none of the 45 welfare recipients they tracked between 2004 to 2006 ended up better off.

Read the rest here

See also Poverty Built into BC's System

Misconceptions About The Homeless

Many of the kids living on the streets are intelligent high school grads who shun drug use
Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Allen and Carly have a few secret sleeping spots where they won't be bothered by drug addicts, and by police on the lookout for runaways and people with outstanding warrants.

They stay away from where other homeless congregate. That means they keep as far as possible from the Downtown Eastside and the Granville mall area, where a lot of the younger homeless sleep in doorways and alleys.

Both are surprisingly healthy-looking, well-groomed and much younger-looking than their age, which is why police keep mistaking them for runaways.

Read the rest here

A Short Slide to the Mean Streets

Many people live only a few missed paycheques from disaster
Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, April 22, 2008

This is not a tale of squalor, depravity or unspeakable horror. But it could be. The North Shore Shelter occupies the corner of West Second Avenue and Bewicke, just a few blocks from the tony market at Lonsdale Quay. There is no open drug market. The streets are not littered with garbage.

The 25 year-round emergency beds and 25 additional cold-weather beds are filled most nights, according to Lauren Stinson, the shelter's case planner. Another 25 transitional housing spaces filled within weeks of the shelter opening its doors about two years ago.

Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside is clearly visible from the North Shore Shelter. It is a very short slide from here to there. It is a reality that terrifies the people here, many of whom were working and living ordinary lives just a few weeks or months ago.

Read the rest here

Homeless crisis grows while Canada prospers

The economy is strong, provinces run budget surpluses, yet we turn our backs on the destitute
Daphne Bramham, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, April 18, 2008

Multimedia:

Narrated slideshow: Daphne Bramham and Randy Shore reflect on the people they met for this series

Podcast: Download the above slideshow in a Quicktime and iTunes compatible format (m4a, 4.4 MB).

Not since the Great Depression have so many Canadians been homeless or at risk of losingthe roofs over their heads.

But what makes the homeless crisis different from the 1930s is that this is not the result of a natural disaster. It's the result of a perfect storm of failed government policies.

You see homeless people everywhere, not just in downtown Vancouver. Some sit quietly with their hands outstretched. Others prowl a favourite corner begging for spare change. Some huddle with their dirty blankets, cardboard and plastic in abandoned doorways and under bridges.

But there are others that you'll never see because they stay with different friends for periods of time or spend a night now and again with family members. Some hold down jobs and take their kids to school every day. Others have spent a lifetime working only to find themselves homeless in their 60s, 70s and 80s.

Even conservative estimates suggest that between 200,000 and 300,000 Canadians sleep in the streets, emergency shelters or transitional housing, or sofa-surf each night. The B.C. government estimates there are 5,500 homeless British Columbians, but the opposition New Democrats say it's likely at least double that.

The most shocking number comes from the Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addictions. Its estimate of 11,750 British Columbians who are "absolutely homeless" accounts only for those with severe addictions and/or mental illness. Its report - commissioned by the B.C. government and completed in October - suggests that there are an additional 18,759 people with addictions and/or mental illness at imminent risk of homelessness.

Every day between 1.7 million and 2.7 million Canadians go to work and worry that if they were to miss their next paycheque, they and their families would be on the street. That's what the Toronto-based Wellesley Institute has extrapolated from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. data on housing affordability.

In that same report, the institute pointed out that of all the provinces, B.C. spends the least on housing - a measly $41 per person compared to the national average of $109.

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

Two Upcoming Films

These films will be screened at the Vancouver International Film Centre & VanCity Theatre. Click titles for more information:

It Was a Wonderful Life
The Street and the Forgotten Woman
USA, 1993, 82 min,
Directed By: Michèle Ohayon

In this award-winning festival standout, Academy Award-nominee Michèle Ohayon presents a riveting and powerful account of six women who are members of America’s “hidden homeless” population. Narrated by Jodie Foster, and with an original musical score by Melissa Etheridge, this heart-wrenching film expertly captures the hardships and triumphs these courageous women experience in their daily struggle for survival. You won't see them on street corners, hand held out for change. At first glance you would not even realize that they are women without homes. They are clean, educated, well-groomed and articulate. It Was A Wonderful Life follows the stories of six different hidden homeless women as they struggle to survive, one day at a time, and find a place for themselves in a society ill-equipped to deal with the “used to haves.” With strength, humour and pride, these women manage to survive. They challenge our notion of who can feel secure in our society.

“Compassionately insightful...highlights the need to aid people before they are hopeless as well as homeless.” — Booklist


Bevel Up
The Street and the Forgotten Woman
Canada, 2008, 90 min,
Directed By: Nettie Wild

Nettie Wild’s Bevel Up explores a key question facing healthcare providers across this country—how can a nurse or outreach worker deliver effective and compassionate health care to people who use drugs? At the heart of Bevel Up is a compelling documentary following a team of street nurses through their day-to-day work in the alleys and hotels of Vancouver’s downtown eastside. The footage is startling in its intimacy, compassion and real-life drama. Most importantly, the nurses reflect on attitudes they bring to their work—attitudes that can make or break the relationship needed to successfully provide practical and nonjudgmental health care. But Bevel Up is more than a 45 minute documentary, as Wild also uses an interactive DVD to combine the cinéma vérité documentary with three-and-a-half hours of teaching menus. This extended format encourages the viewer to delve deep into relevant ethical, practical and legal issues that confront healthcare providers on a daily basis in big cities and small towns across Canada. Leading experts in their field address key subjects such as Drugs and the Brain, Pregnancy, Mental Health, Prohibition and Sex Work.

A member of the street nurse team will join Nettie Wild for both screenings at the Vancity Theatre. The documentary will be followed by a selection of menu items selected in response to questions and issues raised by the audience. Run time on this event is approximate.

Youth emergency shelter to expand

Premier says government has stepped up to address housing crisis all over the province
Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, April 15, 2008

B.C. doesn't need the United Nations to tell us we have a homelessness problem, Premier Gordon Campbell said Monday.

"I think all of us understand that there is work to be done," Campbell said at a press conference announcing the expansion of Vancouver's youth emergency shelter.

B.C. is already in the midst of a huge expansion of social housing, Campbell said. "That's why [the province] has acquired 28 single room occupancy hotels and upgraded them."

A group of activists from the Downtown Eastside announced over the weekend that they will take a human rights complaint to the United Nations complaining that the federal government is in violation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by failing to provide citizens with adequate housing.

With the 2010 Olympic Games and the international media scrutiny that comes with the Games now less than two years away, advocates for the poor are ramping up the pressure on governments to reverse the growth of Metro Vancouver's homeless population.

The official homeless count released last week found 2,600 people in Metro Vancouver living in shelters or sleeping rough outdoors, up about 25 per cent since 2005.

Read the rest here

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

Helping the homeless is a matter of self-interest and common humanity

Alan Ferguson, Special to The Province
Published: Thursday, April 10, 2008

One recent afternoon at a patio restaurant on Main Street, I sat in the sun within six feet of a figure lying prone on the sidewalk, covered head to toe in a tattered blanket.

The whole time I was there, it never stirred.

And, like the ghostly outlines in the current Salvation Army ad, whoever it was might as well have been invisible to passersby on the busy street.

I thought about how utterly divorced from normal society you would have to be to lie down fully clothed in a public street and go to sleep.

But, of course, Vancouver's growing number of homeless -- the tally for all of Metro is now 2,592, more than double the total of 1,121 in 2002 -- are about as far removed from "normal society" as it's possible to get.

If you cut to the core of the many reports on their plight, you find they inhabit a world where almost nothing has gone right for them since the day they came into it.

Read the rest here