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| Homeless need shelters |
Meanwhile, Vancouver made it a priority to create shelter
for those in need. What gives?
Bill Tieleman’s 24
Hours Vancouver / The
Tyee column
Tuesday October 29, 2014
By Bill Tieleman
"And homeless near a thousand homes I stood / And
near a thousand tables pined and wanted food."
- William Wordsworth, poet, 1770-1850
Pity the homeless in Burnaby or Surrey, because both
municipalities are avoiding their social responsibility by refusing to open
shelters for those in need.
Voters in those municipalities should be asking why. Why
are Vancouver, New Westminster and other cities in the region doing more than
their fair share while Burnaby and Surrey shirk their duties?
Sadly, it's unlikely that homelessness will be a major
issue in the Nov. 15 municipal elections in either city, but pressure should be
put on all candidates to do the right thing.
It is ironic that two of the most popular politicians in
Metro Vancouver -- Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan and Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts
-- are the ones declining to act on an obvious and pressing need.
Burnaby, astonishingly, has no homeless shelters at all,
and adamantly refuses to construct any, blaming the province for any problems.
And for the second year running, Surrey will not have a
winter shelter because city officials claim they can't find a location where neighbours
don't fear its presence.
Homeless just aren't mayor's concern
Burnaby Mayor Corrigan has been clear: the homeless are
just not his concern.
"Where some people worry about the indigent, the
homeless, I worry about the working poor. We need these people in our cities,
and we need to find a way to keep these people in our cities," Corrigan told a
local paper last year.
While no one should disagree with supporting the working
poor, Corrigan's comments seem particularly harsh. And he didn't stop there,
adding that: "The people [in shelters] are the impossible to house... so addicted
that all they worry about is the opportunity to feed their addiction, whether
it's alcohol, drugs or anything else."
Last week, Councillor Paul McDonnell of Corrigan's
Burnaby Citizens Association argued the
same position: "How are you going to cure homelessness if you can't cure
the person?" he said.
Others might ask, how do you cure a person when they have
no home? Those who help the homeless say a safe shelter is the first step.
'Homeless people are just people': Graves
Meanwhile, Surrey won't open a 40-bed winter shelter that
in 2012 provided shelter to 157 people over six months and helped nearly half
find long-term housing.
Why? "People are scared to have programs of that
magnitude in their community," Shayne Williams of Lookout Emergency Aid
Society told 24 Hours Vancouver last week.
My Vancouver business office is next door to a new
supportive housing unit that opened in 2012 thanks to the city, province and
the non-profit MPA
Society, and unfortunately some businesses and residents did oppose its
construction.
But luckily they were unsuccessful, and since its opening
residents of the Katherine Sandford Apartments have been no problem -- and lots
of people in need are getting help.
Former City of Vancouver advocate for the homeless Judy
Graves explained succinctly why some of my neighbours shouldn't have been
worried.
"It sounds alarming to move homeless people in, as
if homeless people were another kind of people," Graves said in 2012.
"But homeless people are just people who don't have
a home. And as soon as they have a home, they cease to be homeless people and
they start to look better... and will just become very indistinguishable from
the rest of the community. That always happens, and it will happen here,"
she continued.
Vancouver made it a priority
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who I support, has been
criticized for setting his government a challenging goal of ending street
homelessness by 2015.
But Robertson made it his priority, and worked with the
province to open new shelters, buy single room occupancy hotels run by slum
landlords and turn them into decent, low-rent accommodation, create 600 new
social housing units opening this year, and pledged to keep trying.
Not in Burnaby. Not in Surrey.
High-sounding words blaming other levels of government
don't cut it for those in freezing cold, rainy weather who desperately need a
warm, dry place to stay, and a hot meal.
Obviously there must be safeguards and sensitivity to
community concerns when locating shelters.
But for big cities like Burnaby and Surrey to refuse to
accept their responsibilities to the neediest in our communities is heartless
and shameful.
.
2 comments:
Would you want a homeless shelter complete with drug abuse next door Bill? Have you taken in a homeless person for 6 months?
At some point the province needs to assume the responsibility they off loaded when they got out of the social service "business".
The province closed Riverview. They closed hospitals, hello el gordo. They sell buildings which could be used for housing and health care.
dealing with homelessness in many cases is more than just building a place for people to go at night. Now Surrey may have an attitude which has more to do with politics than money, but to expect any number of smaller municipal entities to build and maintain homeless shelters is just asking too much.
Cities in Canada have a lot of responsibilities but little authority. We are not like some American cities, such as New York and Chicago which have wide reaching powers, including taxing, on more than properties. Cities in B.C. aren't even permitted to run a deficit. The province, not so much.
Medical care is the responsibility of the province. It is time they assumed it. Much of the homelessness we see today, is based in medical needs not met. While B.C. premiers have stood around smiling about how low corporate taxes are, they haven't given a shit about homeless people, children living at 50% below the poverty line, etc.
Bill, don't "dump" on Burnaby or Surrey. its the province and federal government who need to step up to the plate.
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