A City of Compassion and Opportunity

Vancouverites have heard many politicians say that homelessness is their top priority and yet in the last five years, the number of people living on the streets has doubled.

There is both a business case and a moral case to take strong action on homelessness. The cost of homelessness to our society is not just lost human potential, or lost business, but includes police and fire department resources, court time, healthcare costs, and emergency shelter and food costs, costs which have been tabulated in a recent study to be $55,000 per homeless person, per year, which is $17,000 more per year than simply providing supportive housing.

Calgary and Portland have both shown what can be accomplished with a united city and political leadership that sets a clear goal of ending homelessness. Supporting people in getting out of poverty and homelessness requires governments prepared to provide two things: compassion and opportunity.

A city of compassion and opportunity would take bold action to:

Support Low Income Renters by enforcing existing bylaws that prevent the loss of low-income housing to conversion or safety problems. We also need new bylaws that prevent housing from standing empty for long periods of time when so many people are in need of affordable housing.

Make Sure No One is Left Out in the Cold. The number of homeless has doubled in the last five years but the number of shelter spaces remains static meaning on every cold, wet, miserable night, one in every two people living on the street will have no place to go. While we open up new housing, we also need to make sure no one is left outside by finding emergency shelter space for all.

Expand Staff Support for Mental Illness and Treating Addictions and ensure other levels of government step up to the plate to provide support for mental illness and treating addictions to drugs and alcohol.

Support a Living Wage because you need a minimum of $10 an hour to live in Vancouver. In return, Vancouver benefits by ensuring workers can afford to get by in the city while we catch up on building affordable housing.