I spent the night of November 17 sleeping outdoors in Vancouver with about 50 others to raise money for Covenant House to help the nearly 700 youth on our streets find a better path.
While I am grateful for the financial support – $17,000 and counting personally, more than $600,000 collectively – the one-night experience was all the convincing anyone would need to know this is no way to run the city.
Covenant House is illustrative of the compassion that I wish we didn’t need, but thankfully have. Want to feel like you haven’t done enough to help? Spend a few minutes there.
Just the notion that it had to turn away about 300 young people last year who desperately needed beds should make us ashamed to crow about aspiring to be the greenest city.
We often have ambitions in the wrong place – priorities that make us feel good even if there are others that would do more immediate good.
There are far more pressing issues on our streets than to create another lane for a bicycle. There is a crisis of opioid use, a life-threatening shortage of shelter and an overworked health and social services system that can barely deal with the symptoms, much less the roots, of the challenges with mental health, addiction, violence, exploitation and trauma in our midst.
This is a business publication, not a particularly political or socially activist one, but it takes a heartbeat for anyone to recognize the economic toll that arises from socio-economic conditions that are not holistically and heartily attacked. What we are losing financially as we build wealth without adequately ministering to inequity and disadvantage is practically incalculable.
But it is right there on our streets each night.
Which was why it was heartening last week to see senior levels of government more concertedly address one of the central public policy deficiencies in our effort to be the sound, sustainable country we wish: the need for housing as an instrument of inclusion.
The federal government – a Liberal government, it might be noted – rudely pulled itself out of the housing business nearly a quarter-century ago. The effect is especially evident in cities like ours. Last week though, Ottawa set the stage for a return to the stage – an imminent national strategy – by outlining what it has been hearing in recent months from those with stakes in the sector.
The themes it heard, if not necessarily those it is willing to pursue, are some of the clearest I can recall: housing for those in greatest need, helping indigenous people with their specific situations, eliminating (or at least making rare and non-recurring) homelessness, making housing more affordable, and delivering long-term and predictable financing. Government heard there needs to be measurable targets, all sorts of research and data collection to understand conditions and respond with policies, and most controversially, a recognition of the right to housing.
The strategy is promised in 2017. Many expect it before the next budget in the spring.
The provincial government, meanwhile, pulled a lickety-split Robin Hood manoeuvre last week. It took the windfall from property transfer revenues and approved a large helping of low- and middle-income housing initiatives aimed at seniors, single parents, youth in transition, people with disabilities, women and children fleeing abusive relationships, and First Nations.
True, there is an election looming and housing is for the moment the issue of the day that might very well stand in the way of reelection if not addressed. However, give credit where it’s due. The BC Liberal government is getting the message.
Victoria is also undoubtedly delighted to see Ottawa back in the game. It has been a lonely struggle for which it receives almost no credit and is handed almost all the blame.
Now that senior levels of government are attending to one issue that deals with our intrinsic challenges, might I note we also need …
Kirk LaPointe is Business in Vancouver’s vice-president of audience and business development.
