Living on the streets

City needs to do more to help: Councillor
By Dan Hilborn
Published Sept. 6, 2006


The cold weather of fall is fast approaching, and the City of Burnaby is doing precious little to look after its growing population of homeless people, says veteran city councillor Gary Begin.

"Burnaby did a lousy job last year in terms of providing shelter for people in need," Begin told the Burnaby NOW last week. "There's a lot of people that live in Central Park. They live and sleep under the awning at the Robert Prittie library.

"Winter is coming, and we go through these monsoon periods where it just rains and rains, and we leave these people to sleep under a cardboard roof some place. That's just not acceptable to me.

"The City of Burnaby is very wealthy in terms of real estate. We have houses we could probably zone for a shelter, but the mayor has said outright that he does not want a permanent shelter in Burnaby.

"I do not buy that, and I will not buy that. ... We are a very fortunate community which has a lot of resources available, and I think we need to respond to this," he said.

Begin is hoping to avoid a repeat of what happened last winter when Burnaby was an unwelcoming place for the homeless. Although an emergency homeless shelter was opened at the Burnaby Alliance Church during the final cold snap of the season in late February, poor communication resulted in nobody making use of the facility.

Begin believes the homeless problem is growing in Burnaby, and the most recent statistics back up that claim. In March 2005, a region-wide homeless count found 40 people living on the streets of Burnaby, more than double the 17 homeless people found during the previous homeless count in 2002.

And even though city hall officially joined the Fraser Health Authority's Burnaby homeless task force last February, it appears that a formal proposal to address the issue is still months, if not years, away.

But Lynn Wood, executive director of the Progressive Housing Society, said there is some good news on the homelessness file.

Progressive Housing recently received a grant from B.C. Housing to hire three outreach workers, and Wood is now working with the Lookout Emergency Aid Society to put together a proposal to provide some kind of affordable housing in the community.

"We're trying to find a building to get people off the street and connected to the services they need," Wood said. "It's a community social problem, so there's a lot of shared responsibility.

"The longer term issue is a homeless shelter in the community of Burnaby. I'm not really sure who would be stepping up to take that responsibility at this point.

"We have tried to provide our expertise and interest in serving that population," she said. "But it takes a lot of components - lands, building and money, both for capital and operating funds. And those dollars generally for non-profits are not easy to come by."

Coun. Colleen Jordan, chair of the city's community development committee, is confident that Burnaby will have another emergency shelter open this winter, but she agrees with Mayor Derek Corrigan that the bulk of responsibility for the homeless file lies with the federal and provincial governments.

"We're not in the social housing business. That's not our jurisdiction," Jordan said.

The big problem, according to Jordan, is that the provincial government has not yet allocated a $200-million fund set up by the previous federal government to deal with the homeless issue.

"Not a nickel has been allocated since the spring of '05," said Jordan. "Some of it is supposed to be going for shelters for the most desperate, but nothing has been done.

"If people or groups like Progressive Housing could have applied, you could be on the road to getting some kind of facility up and running."

When asked how long it might take to build and open a homeless facility in the city, Jordan said: "I don't know. Again it depends on funding and it depends on finding a location. We've had a few churches step forward and say they could provide emergency funding, and the Salvation Army are great. They're doing their best. But having a place, ... I don't know."

Jordan also said that the city might consider a low- cost land lease to allow a non-profit agency to operate a homeless shelter, but that would depend on a specific proposal, and nothing official has come forward.

"There might be some sympathy on council to give a reduced rate, but some of the facilities going up around the province are pretty substantial and, in general, the feeling at council is that we're not into social housing."

That cautionary note was echoed by Corrigan, who is adamant that the primary responsibility for the homeless issue lies with the federal and provincial governments.

"Gary (Begin) is just trying to stir things up as much as possible," the mayor said.

"He says what we need is an overnight place for them to stay. I'm sorry. It's not that simple.

"What we need are treatment facilities for people with mental illness. Giving them a place to sleep at night doesn't change any of that."

Corrigan pointed his finger at the provincial government, which he said has redirected much of the federal money intended for housing into other programs, such as extended care in the Health Ministry.

"I'm more than happy to pressure the provincial government, but I disagree strongly that the solution is a flophouse. ... Let's not take the easy route," said the mayor.

Corrigan also said that a recent report from SFU assistant professor Marina Morrow reinforces his view because it ties the issue of homelessness to a series of cutbacks of services for people with mental illness over the past five years.

Meanwhile, Wood said the Burnaby homeless task force will begin a public awareness campaign this fall, and she is confident a temporary shelter will be in place before the coldest weather of winter descends.

"My preference is to have the shelter planned so we know the location well in advance and we can make that information available to all the agencies," she said.

"The other thing is to build a level of trust with people on the street so we're not driving around in the middle of the night looking for people to take to the shelter."

Wood also pointed to the recent closure of an illegal 25-bed rooming housing on the east side of the city as an indicator of underlying problem.

"Something like that says to me that there is a lack of affordable housing in the community," she said.

"When something like that occurs, it's usually because people are trying to find a cheap solution."