Additional emergency homeless shelters are opening in Vancouver this winter to meet increased demand, but all of them are due to close April 30, when provincial funding runs out.

Credit: Jackie Wong

NEWS: New shelters open as homelessness continues to spread

A new emergency homeless shelter opened in the West End on Tuesday night (Jan. 12), the sixth shelter to open under the City of Vancouver’s Homeless Emergency Action Team (HEAT) established by Mayor Gregor Robertson in winter 2008. The 24-hour shelter, located at 747 Cardero Street and operated by RainCity Housing, offers 40 beds, two meals per day, and storage space for shopping carts and pets. A bed reservation system will be in place to reduce lineups and outdoor crowding.

The shelter is part of the City of Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Response program, which aims to address street homelessness by closing crucial gaps between temporary and permanent housing. “We really need to transition people from shelters into housing,” Mayor Robertson told reporters at a press conference January 5. “That’s the whole rationale of this program. Once they’re in shelters through the winter and stabilizing, improving their health conditions and connecting to services, hopefully we have a group of people who are ready to move into housing, and we can create those options with the Province.”

The Cardero Street shelter joins two other temporary shelters — at 677 East Broadway and 1435 Granville — opened by the City in the past month. Other HEAT shelters that have continued operations over the past year are in the Downtown Eastside’s First United Church; a section of the Stanley New Fountain Hotel, near Gastown; and at 201 Central Street, near Main Street SkyTrain station.

“The problem has never been this bad,” Mayor Robertson added. “Over the last couple of years, the homeless population [has become] bigger than it’s ever been, and that extends across the country.”

The City’s emergency shelters will cease operation by April 30, when provincial government funding runs out. In terms of funding for future housing initiatives in Vancouver, Mayor Robertson mentioned interest from the business sector, faith-based groups, and philanthropists. “I’m optimistic, but we don’t have the dollars identified yet,” he said. “Hopefully, we’ll have more solutions coming on-stream in the spring, when we need them the most.”

In response to the city’s growing street homeless problem, the Streetohome Foundation released its 10-year plan for Vancouver on Tuesday (Jan. 12). A joint partnership between the Vancouver Foundation, the City of Vancouver, and the Province of British Columbia, the Streetohome Foundation formed in 2008, and has since been a key partner for funding the first HEAT shelters, investing in the Aboriginal Mother’s Centre, and supporting a national housing project initiated by the Mental Health Commission of Canada.

The 10-year plan tackles three goals: invest philanthropic funding from the private sector into permanent housing; prevent people who are most vulnerable from becoming homeless; and build public support and community involvement.

The Streetohome report estimates that 3,700 people were homeless in Vancouver in 2008. With 1,700 housing units created or under development since then, Streetohome estimates another 2,000 units are needed for people who are homeless. Anyone who has been homeless for more than a year or more will require supportive housing, the report says, even if they have no particular health issues.

“The plan... focuses on three population groups: the chronically homeless, youth, and families, particularly single women and children,” says Barbara Grantham, acting president of the Streetohome Foundation. “If we’re measuring our success in 2012, we’ll have put on-stream another 600 units to close that gap down into the 1,400 range.”

While the City is in the midst of opening emergency shelters to get people out of the cold (more HEAT shelters are planned for Kitsilano and Mount Pleasant), the Streetohome 10-year plan focuses on permanent housing. “Streetohome’s focus is not on shelters. It’s on creating permanent, long-term, supportive assets,” says Streetohome director Don Fairbairn.

As for Mayor Robertson’s plan to end street homelessness by 2015, Fairbairn is supportive, but says a major challenge for Streetohome and for the City is, as always, funding.

“We think we can bring new resources to the table. We’re not talking about reallocating existing philanthropic funding. We’re talking about bringing new money with players, individuals, companies, organizations that, to date, haven’t participated fully,” says Fairbairn, who sits on the 25-member Streetohome board alongside a range of Vancouver notables, including real-estate marketer Bob Rennie, Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu, city manager Penny Ballem, and former Vancouver mayor and B.C. Premier Mike Harcourt. “We may not find unanimity around everything, but that isn’t a precondition for doing something. What is a precondition for doing something is a strongly-held view, by many, that this is the right thing to do.”