This week, we bring you the positively maddening story of Fran Flann, the 82-year-old North Vancouver woman convalescing from cancer treatment in a homeless shelter.
Without the shelter and its volunteers, it’s too horrible to contemplate where Flann would be. But this is no place for a senior on the mend from a mastectomy.
To be clear, Vancouver Coastal Health is not on the hook for this. They struggle as it is to ensure people like Flann and the rest of us have access to the life-saving medical treatment when it counts.
We’re grateful for non-profits like the Hollyburn Family Services Society, which is doing everything it can to help people like Flann. But there simply isn’t enough to go around.
She has fallen through a rather wide gap in the social safety net we Canadians like to be proud of. Housing insecurity is a gap in that safety net that’s growing wider by the day.
The province has become addicted to the revenue generated by multimillion-dollar home sales, but it seems every week we’re learning of new ways capital gains, GST and property transfer taxes can be skirted, all of them perfectly legal.
And it’s clear not enough of that money is flowing back to the people who need it.
For the most part, our government has stood back and watched the housing crisis blossom in slow motion, dazzled by the windfalls of equity most homeowners never dared dream of.
But at the other end of the spectrum are people like Flann. They deserve better.
What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below.
