Mayor Gregor Robertson spent part of two days this week explaining how his promise to end “street homelessness” by 2015 has always included the need for senior levels of government to help fulfill that promise.
The need for an explanation came after speakers at city hall Tuesday and Wednesday, including homeless people from a protest camp at Oppenheimer Park, lashed out at Robertson for not finding people homes.
“You promised that you would end homelessness and you haven’t,” said Brody Williams, one of the spokespersons for the Oppenheimer campers. “In fact, it’s gotten worse. Shame on you.”
In response, Robertson told the roughly 20 members of the group that providing homes for homeless people is ultimately the responsibility of the provincial and federal governments.
“As a city, we’ve been trying hard to make a difference on the ground but it’s been very challenging,” said the mayor, whose promise involves finding homes for more than 500 people that were counted living on the street in March.
The Metro Vancouver Homeless Count conducted across the region March 12 revealed a total of 1,798 people identified as homeless in Vancouver, with 538 living on the street, 1,136 in shelters and 124 of no fixed address residing in hospitals, detox facilities or jail.
The overall homeless population in Vancouver is the highest it has ever been since the city and region have counted the number of people without homes.
Robertson, whose inspiration to run for mayor in 2008 came after a homeless man died near city hall, has become a lightning rod for housing activists and homeless people frustrated by governments unable to move people from the street into homes.
While provincial Housing Minister Rich Coleman has said ending street homelessness by 2015 is achievable, Robertson is the politician who set the goal. Federal politicians have been silent on whether Robertson can achieve his goal, which he set shortly after he was elected in November 2008.
The mayor told reporters after Tuesday’s council meeting that city efforts to reduce homelessness have been successful in “stabilizing” the situation. He was referring to the opening of city shelters, the city’s purchase of former hotels for temporary housing and providing land for the province to build 14 social housing sites.
Though he pointed out “the city doesn’t have jurisdiction for homelessness and housing,” the mayor said the city has to play an active role in addressing the problem.
“We can’t let up on homelessness and just hope that someone else will solve it for us,” said Robertson, whose first act when he was elected in 2008 was to open city buildings as shelters.
Two weeks ago, city manager Penny Ballem told council that it wasn’t “magical thinking” to put an end to street homelessness by the next homeless count in March 2015.
Ballem outlined “action steps” at Tuesday’s meeting that have to occur to achieve that goal, with much of it relying on the B.C. government to complete social housing buildings and provide rent subsidies to homeless people.
As for the Oppenheimer group, Ballem said the city will look at what it can do as a city while lobbying senior levels of government to provide immediate housing for at least 10 people camped in the park.
“I have asked staff to go away and really get much more innovative and creative and we’re going to have to stretch our regulatory framework to try and see what we can do,” she said, noting that could include a plan to eradicate bedbugs from single-room-occupancy hotels, which people are leaving to sleep in the park.
Though the city issued eviction notices to the tenters, Ballem, the mayor and Vision Vancouver Coun. Kerry Jang wouldn’t say if action would be taken to remove people.
“That’s an evolving question,” Jang said. “But certainly we made a commitment to stand with them to address their immediate housing needs and into the future.”
Downtown Eastside resident CeeJai Julian, who attended a meeting with Jang and city staff over the Oppenheimer group’s demands for housing, said her understanding is the city will keep the park’s bathrooms open around the clock and install portable toilets.
Julian said she also understood from city staff that protesters could stay in the park — without the tents. But Julian said the tents will remain.
“I don’t agree with that because there’s no harm being done,” she told reporters.
