Vancouver calls on neighbours to do 'significantly' more for regional homeless response
The city says it provides three-quarters of the shelter spaces and supportive housing regionwide
Vancouver says it provides about three-quarters of the shelter beds and supportive housing meant to address homelessness in the region and is publicly asking neighbouring cities to pull their weight.
The demand came this week as B.C.'s most populous city presented a plan to clean up a three-year tent encampment, where 50 people stay legally, after a 2022 court ruling protected the site from decampment.
The site at CRAB Park, along the downtown waterfront, has been a sticking point for Vancouver in addressing homelessness, as officials have not been able to come up with alternative housing for everyone still living at the camp, which began in 2021.
In discussing plans to temporarily move people to another section of the park for two weeks, Vancouver's Deputy City Manager Sandra Singh presented a list of all the resources Vancouver brings to tackle homelessness and compared them to offerings in other Metro Vancouver cities.
"The city continues to make significant investments and decisions to support people experiencing homelessness and we don't see that stopping, but we do need other communities to lean into this and do significantly more as well," she said on Tuesday.
Vancouver says although it has 25 per cent of Metro Vancouver's population, it is home to 75 per cent of the region's operating shelter spaces, more than 77 per cent of its supportive housing units, and more than half of its social housing.
For example, Vancouver has 1,250 shelter beds, but if beds were evenly distributed by population across Metro Vancouver, its responsibility would be for 422.
Vancouver's data showed that Surrey would have to increase shelter beds from 173 to 363, Richmond from 30 to 134 and Burnaby from 50 to 159 to pick up the slack.
Other municipalities in Metro Vancouver said they acknowledged Vancouver's numbers and aren't necessarily offended by being asked to do more, but in general there is a frustration about the lack of resources available to tackle the problem in smaller centres.
"The reality is that every municipality does need to do more but we can't do more without the support and funding from senior levels of government," said Burnaby Coun. Daniel Tetrault.
Burnaby has made progress on addressing homelessness in its city where 209 people were recorded as being unhoused in 2023, compared with 2,420 in Vancouver, he said.
This year, Burnaby put in place a 24-hour, 40-bed extreme winter shelter, added social housing and has a task force looking at other initiatives, Tretault noted.
"Having said that, we recognize that there's still much more we can do as a city and in the region because we know that people are getting turned away because the shelters are full," he said.
Vancouver asking cities like Burnaby to do more ultimately means securing funding from the provincial and federal governments for homelessness projects and housing overall.
Metro Vancouver mayors, like Maple Ridge's Dan Ruimy, said that process has been deflating at times.
"It's amazing how much money is being floated out there," he said. "Is that money effectively getting where it's supposed to go? Is it creating more housing?"
In particular, he pointed to a federal housing accelerator fund, which is part of the federal government's $82 billion national housing program. The fund had $4 billion that cities could apply for to support local initiatives to build more homes, faster.
Despite applying for $16 million from the fund, Ruimy said Maple Ridge received nothing and was told the program was oversubscribed with 550 applicants.
It was the same for Delta, whereas Burnaby received $43 million, Vancouver $115 million and Surrey $95 million under the fund.
"You can't advertise a fund to Canadian cities and say, 'Hey, if you do everything right, if you reduce red tape, if you reduce process, if you get new housing built, if you go faster, we'll be there to support you and then not have the dollars available," Delta Coun. Dylan Kruger said, noting the fund appeared to cater to bigger cities.
Meanwhile, the federal government is expected to unveil its 2024 budget on April 16.
Metro Vancouver policy-makers like Kruger said they'll be watching for extra support to help them meet the demand to shoulder a regional homelessness response that is more equitable.
"We can't do it on our own with our limited opportunities to raise revenue," he said. "That's where we need partners in the province and federal government to step up and put dollars in."
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