Vancouver council moving forward on emergency options to house homeless

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Vancouver city council is moving forward with a plan to look at ways to ease the city’s homelessness crisis after an emergency meeting spurred by concerns over the growing encampment at Strathcona Park, and climbing COVID-19 case counts.

Monday, council unanimously passed Mayor Kennedy Stewart’s motion “Emergency COVID-19 Relief for Unsheltered Vancouver Residents.”

The motion directs staff to look at options to “accelerate the creation of emergency housing” and report back on “the feasibility and cost” of each by Oct. 2.

One option is to lease or purchase housing units, including hotels, and single-room occupancy residences. Another is to establish a temporary emergency relief encampment on vacant public or private land. A third is to temporarily convert city-owned buildings into emergency housing or shelter space. Establishing tiny house villages, and adding spaces for people in RVs are also being considered.

Thank you to Council for the thoughtful debate and consideration of my emergency motion on Unsheltered Vancouver Residents.

The next step is for staff to quickly report back on the options Council has outlined and then get to work supporting our neighbours.#vanpoli pic.twitter.com/ldGLt3avGn

— Kennedy Stewart (@kennedystewart) September 15, 2020

Coun. Pete Fry spoke at Monday’s meeting about how the encampment at the park has affected the neighbourhood in which he lives.

“The neighbourhood and folks in the camp are feeling abandoned,” he said.

“This is an opportunity for us to really try and calm the situation and make sure that we’re really protecting everybody in our city.”

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Fry also said he has seen willingness from the province to intervene and assist, but the city also has an obligation to act.

“This is a real disaster and we need to triage it the way we would any disaster — be it wildfires, or floods, or earthquakes. So, there’s a role for us to pull together and deal with this crisis as it’s rolling out in real-time,” he said.

“We’re recognizing parks are a valuable green space for everybody’s enjoyment, for all people to share including housed residents and unhoused residents. We’re finding more appropriate spaces to triage this crisis while we try to get folks into real housing. I think we’re all in agreement that the status quo is not working.”

Preliminary figures from the 2020 regional homeless count show 547 people living unsheltered in Vancouver — including as many as 400 at Strathcona Park.

With files from Tarnjit Parmar