Housing plan debated

By Dan Hilborn
Published July 26, 2006


A provincial government plan that could give direct cash subsidies to help low-income families pay for housing is coming under fire in the Burnaby city council chambers.

Coun. Colleen Jordan, chair of the city's housing committee, said the proposal, which is expected to be made public in early September, will do nothing to help the estimated 3,800 Burnaby residents who are currently on the B.C. Housing waiting list.

"If you just give low-income people a subsidy, it may not go to housing at all," Jordan told the Burnaby NOW Tuesday morning. "It'll also just cause landlords to raise the rents, because they know people have more income."

Jordan said that a better plan would be to have the provincial and federal governments work together to build more affordable housing.

"There hasn't been any more non-market housing built in years and years," she said. "The feds have not put money up for it, the province has not and I think the last time any GVRD housing was put up was eight years ago.

"Even if people put up the land, there's no money for the capital. ... There's nothing to address any of it."

Jordan noted that the lack of funding is being felt in a wide variety of ways, including the pending loss of a 'safe house' for streets kids in North Vancouver, which is used by young people from Burnaby. At a recent GVRD workshop on the homelessness issue, North Vancouver City mayor Darrell Mussatto told Jordan that his council was looking for an additional $120,000 to keep open its safe house for kids.

Jordan also noted that a similar five-bed youth safe house in Burnaby operated from 2000 until 2003, when its funding was cut by the provincial government.

"What that tells me is there's young people looking for a safe place to stay, and we don't have it in Burnaby anymore," Jordan said. "If kids are looking for a safe place to stay they now have to go to North Vancouver or Surrey. But they've closed Burnaby, and now they're going to close the one in North Vancouver."

Jordan's words were echoed by Team Burnaby councillor Garth Evans, who described direct cash subsides to low income families as "the worst way to provide housing."

Evans said a better alternative might be to to give subsidies to landlords or developers to help keep their rents low.

And mayor Derek Corrigan waded into the argument by stating that shelters are not necessarily the best alternative either. "People don't just need a shelter. They need comprehensive assistance to deal with other problems like alcohol and addictions," he said.