Dear Editor:
Re: Homeless Undercounted, Study Finds, Sept. 29 front-page story.
Thank you for your front-page report and editorial on the North Shore Homelessness Report. None of us like to acknowledge that there are at the very least a thousand “absolute” homeless people and “at risk of homelessness” people living on the North Shore. “They must come from somewhere else,” we say. Most of us have not bothered to talk with them to find out where they went to school or why they are homeless. The new report does not help with the former, but it is embarrassingly clear on the latter. The unsheltered youth (103 individuals or 14 per cent of the total number of people who used services for the homeless in 2016) are often there because of conflict in the family, sometimes abuse. Half of the families accompanied by 143 children are at risk of homelessness because of domestic abuse. Obviously the vacancy rate (0.3 per cent) has a lot to do with inability to find affordable housing, because one-third of the homeless people are employed (not counting intermittent sources of income like bottle collecting).
I think I went to my first meeting on the problem back in 1995, and then the more frightening inter-municipality, inter-agency Poverty Forum in 2002 when all but one table group identified affordable housing as their primary concern. Since then we have had small additions to our below-market housing, most in the City of North Vancouver, but the number of below-market housing units is still inadequate. If we go by population numbers, West Vancouver needs almost 250 such units, the city slightly more, and the district almost 500 units.
At a city council meeting a couple of weeks ago, Coun. Rod Clark suggested that the city’s 10/10/10 policy should be changed to 20/10/10 (20 per cent of new rental units must be rented at 10 per cent below market rates for 10 years). That seems to me a reasonable suggestion, though the City of Vancouver, which has had a similar policy for years, has not solved its homelessness problem, partly because it has accepted cash in lieu of actual units.
We need a faster process. If we can’t access some of that temporary housing that the new government is sending to Vancouver, we have lots of creative problem-solvers on the North Shore who could propose speedier ways to house at least the 743 “absolutely homeless.” Almost a quarter (24 per cent) are seniors. The oldest was 88. And I don’t want him on my conscience this winter.
Donna Stewart
North Vancouver
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