A new report confirms what anyone working on the front lines of homelessness could tell you: The number of people living on the streets, or at risk of imminent homelessness on the North Shore, is far worse than we thought.
Upwards of 736 people accessed services on the North Shore that are reserved for the homeless, according to a report by the North Shore Homelessness Task Force. This year’s Metro Vancouver homeless count surveyed just 100 people without proper shelter.
The hope of agency workers who contributed to the report is that it will shock senior levels of government into action.
The province and the feds are beginning to put up money for social housing again after shirking the responsibility for years. Municipalities have precious little cash to put up for social housing but they do have some pockets of land.
The District of North Vancouver is mulling a proposal that would see affordable units being built on the site of the former Delbrook rec centre. West Vancouver has plans in the works for the former Vancouver Coastal Health building on 22nd Street.
But we can already foresee what the discourse will look like when these proposals come to council chamber. Much of the discussion around these projects will focus on the extent to which the neighbours, who are all quite comfortably housed, like it.
We’ve listened to endless hours of our councils ruminating about affordable housing. These are opportunities for them to stop talking and start taking action.
When these projects come forward, we’ll be watching very closely to see if our elected officials are willing to comfort the afflicted, even if it means afflicting the comfortable.
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