With sobering North Shore homeless stats staring them in the face, including 143 children without a stable home, North Vancouver District council has directed staff to explore locations for a family shelter.
Council members unanimously agreed Oct. 2 there is now a sense of urgency to get the ball rolling on a business case for a new shelter, after learning of the emerging homeless crisis from a North Shore Homelessness Task Force report released last week.
In addition to the 736 unique individuals considered absolutely homeless on the North Shore last year, the report revealed another 295 people at imminent risk of being displaced. Twenty-four per cent of those people at risk of homelessness and seeking social services were families with children.
“I don’t think this is a very proud moment for the Lower Mainland or for this council,” said Coun. Lisa Muri.
While supportive of creating a family shelter, Muri suggested the stop-gap measure would not be enough to stem the homeless crisis.
“We’re the most expensive city on the planet and there’s 143 kids on the North Shore that have no place to live and we’re going to get ourselves off the hook by building a shelter,” said Muri, her voice breaking with emotion.
“I’d like to know how many of these people, with this (homeless) number going up, were living in apartments that we rezoned so we could build some new, very expensive, million-dollar two-bedroom condos.”
While acknowledging the district has a role to play in sheltering the homeless, Coun. Doug MacKay-Dunn said any such social program has to be a partnership.
A staff report states the district would work with the North Shore Homelessness Task Force to find a non-profit organization to operate the shelter and explore potential operational and capital funding partners.
Calling the homeless shelter a provincial responsibility, Coun. Roger Bassam said it needs to be funded wholly, not piecemeal, by the province.
“And if that means people have to pay more (provincial) tax, people have to pay more tax,” said Bassam.
The district might be able to supply land for a shelter, said some council members. Mayor Richard Walton, meanwhile, questioned where they would find land for the project.
“Land is not in huge supply in the district in places where you would choose to put a facility such as this,” said Walton, adding it would make sense to have the family shelter close to schools, public transit and within walking distance of community amenities.
Muri brought forward an idea to have the district right away put up several million dollars to buy three houses as an investment but temporarily use them as family shelters.
Should the homeless shelter project move forward, district residents would have a chance to weigh in on any land use changes.
Currently, there are two family shelters operating in Metro Vancouver, including a 12-bed facility in New Westminster that provides no-cost emergency housing to single parents (men or women and their children), two-parent families and single adult women.
Locally, there is an 18-bed transition house for women and their children fleeing abusive situations, operated by North Shore Crisis Services Society.
With another “bitterly cold winter” on its way, said Muri, time is of the essence to find shelter for the homeless.
Muri's motion to have district staff identify potential short-term tenancies and talk to developers to see if there are vacant suites in residential buildings waiting to be demolished passed unanimously.
The News reached out to development companies which currently have rezoning applications filed with the district, to see if they could house some homeless families temporarily.
At Maplewood Plaza an empty building with 14 three-bedroom townhouse-style suites might offer such an opportunity. Tenants in those 14 units moved out more than a year ago after learning a teardown of the building was imminent.
Property owners Maplewood Limited Partnership have this past year offered a vacant suite to a Syrian refugee family and also housed a young working couple at half the market rent.
While cautiously optimistic, MLP representative Don Liu said the property owners are willing to talk to the district about opening up that empty building for social housing, provided there’s no extra cost to them.
“We feel that having a building empty is ridiculous,” said Liu. “If we can help someone out, by all means.”
Standing out in the chilly fall air, Liu wonders if there is a way to help the homeless – at least for this winter. He’s anticipating it will be at least springtime before shovels are in the ground at Maplewood.
In the Seymour area, Anthem Properties, which owns an eight-building, 114-unit condominium complex, has filed a rezoning application with the district and recently had its first open house to introduce the proposal to the neighbourhood.
Anthem communications director Randene Neill said she wasn’t sure if there are vacant suites in Seymour Estates, but Anthem would “absolutely” be open to any requests from the district.
Meanwhile, there are no vacancies at Emery Village, a 65-unit townhouse complex in Lynn Valley awaiting redevelopment by Mosaic Homes.
“… I expect that the homes are going to stay occupied until there is certainty in what the future plans for Emery look like,” said Geoff Duyker, Mosaic’s senior vice-president of marketing, adding any units that have become vacant are re-rented fairly quickly.
