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#BCPoli | BC NDP Will Implement a Dignified Province-Wide Supportive Housing Agenda

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In British Columbia, Single Room Occupancy (SRO) units have long served as a last resort for many of the province’s most vulnerable individuals, including low-income residents, those with mental health challenges, and people grappling with homelessness.

However, these aging, often dilapidated buildings are increasingly unfit for human habitation. As such, there is an urgent need for the British Columbia government to transition vulnerable populations out of rundown SROs in Vancouver, Victoria and elsewhere, toward sustainable, supportive housing models.

By providing care similar to the successful systems used in European countries like Finland, B.C. can address the root causes of homelessness, poverty, and social marginalization while promoting long-term well-being and social integration.

In a 2022 interview with B.C. Legislative reporter Katie DeRosa, then with the Vancouver Sun and now in the same role with the CBC, B.C.’s New Democratic Party Attorney General and Minister Responsible for Housing, David Eby — who was running to replace Premier John Horgan, who had resigned as Premier for health reasons, as leader of the BC NDP — had the following to say about the need for government to provide dignified supportive housing for members of British Columbia’s vulnerable populations living in communities across the province, and move these abandoned individuals out of rundown SROs …

Premier David Eby addresses need to transition people out of SROs

“There really hasn’t been a co-ordinated strategy or a plan about how we get out of the problems of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, Victoria and elsewhere. I think … putting an invisible fence around neighbourhoods and saying ‘this is the best we can do’ and just hope that things work out, it’s a strategy that will no longer carry us forward.” Eby said if he’s successful in his bid to replace Premier John Horgan … he’ll co-ordinate a long-term response to homelessness issues across the province, with the support and assistance from the federal government, our province’s towns and cities, and concerned groups.

In point of fact, Premier David Eby has committed to just that, copying the Finnish model that provides supported and affordable housing.

Juha Kaakinen, Finnish CEO of the Y-Foundation, providing low-cost housing to the homeless

“We had to get rid of the night shelters and short-term hostels we still had back then. They had a very long history in Finland, and everyone could see they were not getting people out of homelessness. We decided to reverse the assumptions,” says Juha Kaakinen, CEO of Finland’s Y-Foundation, which provides low-cost flats to homeless people across Finland.

The Deplorable Conditions of SROs

SROs, originally constructed as affordable housing for the working class, have deteriorated significantly over the decades. Many SRO units in cities like Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna are plagued by chronic disrepair, pest infestations, poor heating and ventilation systems, inadequate plumbing, and a lack of basic sanitation. These environments are not only uncomfortable but dangerous, often exacerbating the mental and physical health challenges faced by their residents.

Research shows a strong correlation between poor living conditions and poor health outcomes, including increased rates of addiction, infectious diseases, and mental health crises. Furthermore, many SRO buildings are located in areas with high crime rates, compounding the risks for residents already facing social vulnerabilities. In essence, SROs have become a symbol of the failure to provide adequate housing and services to the people who need them most. Moving vulnerable individuals out of these dangerous environments is not only a moral imperative, but also a matter of public health and safety.

The Case for Supportive Housing

Supportive housing offers a more sustainable solution to the complex needs of the vulnerable populations currently residing in SROs. Unlike SROs, which often serve as temporary, stop-gap measures, supportive housing provides stable, permanent accommodations where individuals have access to social, medical, and psychological services on-site. This model addresses not only the need for safe and secure housing but also the underlying issues that contribute to homelessness and instability, such as mental health disorders, addiction, and unemployment.


The Globe and Mail’s Kerry Gold on how Finland is solving the problem of homelessness.

In European countries like Finland and Austria, supportive housing has proven to be remarkably successful. Finland, for instance, has implemented the “Housing First” model, which provides stable housing to homeless individuals as the first step toward addressing other social issues. This approach has reduced homelessness by over 50% since its introduction in 2008, with most formerly homeless individuals remaining housed long-term. Austria follows a similar model with an emphasis on affordable, long-term housing paired with social services, which has also led to positive outcomes for at-risk populations.

For B.C., adopting a comparable approach would mean transitioning away from crisis management in the form of emergency shelters or rundown SROs and toward long-term solutions that focus on stability, health, and empowerment.

Supportive housing projects, when coupled with services such as healthcare, employment training, and mental health support, help individuals reintegrate into society, reduce their dependence on public services, and lead more fulfilling lives.

Note should be made that Premier David Eby’s government alone has a long term strategy — that they have committed to implement in their next term of government —  to transition members of our vulnerable population out of rundown SROs and substandard accommodation into supportive housing

Cost Efficiency and Long-Term Benefits of Building Supportive Housing

One of the most compelling arguments for supportive housing is its cost-effectiveness. Studies from both Europe and North America demonstrate that investing in supportive housing ultimately saves governments money in the long run. Homelessness and inadequate housing impose significant costs on public systems, including healthcare, law enforcement, and emergency services.

For instance, individuals living on the streets or in unstable environments are more likely to require emergency medical attention, experience police interactions, or become involved in the criminal justice system. In contrast, when people are find safe haven and community in supportive housing, they use fewer emergency services and are better able to manage chronic health conditions, or avoid encounters with law enforcement. Finland’s Housing First model has shown that for every dollar spent on housing and support, the government saves approximately $2 in costs related to homelessness.

B.C., with its high cost of living and significant homeless population, faces similar challenges. Building and maintaining supportive housing units may initially require significant investment, but it will result in long-term savings by reducing strain on public health, criminal justice, and social services systems. Moreover, the social and economic benefits of helping individuals regain stability, employment, and health far outweigh the upfront costs.

In a government publication titled Lost in Transition, the cost of construction of thousands of supportive housing units would be made possible in part by the savings that would accrue from merging the 277 social services agencies on the DTES into 30 umbrella organizations.

Each of the 277 social agencies employs an Executive Director — at an average annual salary of $500,000 — Directors of Finance, Directors of Human Resources, Managers of Supported Housing, Property Managers and other senior administrative staff — each of these 247 individuals earning up to $375,000 annually — a duplication of services and administration funded by the province, Merging agencies would save more than $1 billion dollars annually that would helo to pay for the cost of building supportive housing on the DTES, and across the province.

The Lost in Transition report questioned if such duplication of services properly serves the interests of those who are resident, and cared for, on the DTES.

There was also recommendation in the Lost in Transition report that argued for the provincial appointment of a Commissioner who would oversee the reformation of the provision of services on the DTES, a person with the authority of a Deputy Minister who would report only to a provincially appointed Board of Directors, which would oversee the transition of the current service model, reporting as well as to the office of the Premier.

A Moral and Social Imperative of Providing Dignified Supportive Housing


Eby government planning to take co-ordination of housing provision for B.C.’s most vulnerable citizens

Finally, there’s a moral dimension to the issue.

In a society as wealthy and resource-rich as British Columbia, allowing vulnerable members of our population to languish in unsafe, unsanitary SRO units reflects poorly on social priorities.

The government has a responsibility — a responsibility recognized by those within the B.C.  New Democrat government — to protect its most vulnerable citizens, ensuring that these individuals have access to the basic necessities of life, including safe housing, healthcare, and social support.

Housing is not just a commodity; it is a human right.

By moving away from the outdated, harmful practice of relying on SROs & instead investing in supportive housing, B.C. can take a meaningful step toward ending homelessness and improving the quality of life for our most marginalized citizens.

Relocating vulnerable populations out of rundown SROs and into supportive housing is not just a practical solution; it is an ethical and economic necessity.

In adopting the supportive housing model, British Columbia can — and will, with the re-election of an NDP government — address homelessness more effectively, reduce the long-term social, moral and medical costs associated with inadequate housing, while promoting a more inclusive and caring society.

The time to act is now, with the re-election of a David Eby-led government.

The benefits of the B.C. New Democrats’ approach to building dignified housing for our most vulnerable population will be felt for generations to come.

#VanPoli | Homelessness + Housing | A Series | Part 2

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When Gregor Robertson was first elected to office as Mayor of the City of Vancouver in 2008, as he had throughout his months of campaigning, the new Mayor made a commitment to eliminate homelessness in Vancouver by 2015.

That Mayor Robertson and his Vision Vancouver Councillors were unable to fulfill that laudatory commitment occurs partly as a consequence of what we wrote yesterday — that the steady and unrelenting influx of homeless persons into our city annually frustrates meeting that otherwise laudatory goal — and partly resulting from politics: neither the right-of-centre federal government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, nor the right-leaning provincial administration of Premier Gordon Campbell were kindly disposed to providing assistance to someone they viewed as their political enemy, a recent provincial BC NDP MLA turned Vancouver Mayor.

Still and all, things weren’t as bad as they might have been.

In the autumn of 2006, then Non-Partisan Association (NPA) Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan negotiated an agreement with B.C. Liberal Housing Minister Rich Coleman to build 12 new social housing projects in the City of Vancouver.

The original agreement Mayor Sullivan struck with the provincial government was to build 20 social housing projects — in 2007, Minister Coleman reconsidered Mayor Sullivan’s original 20 project proposal, signing on to build the full 20 social housing project contingent, with the understanding that the properties would be sold to the province for $1 apiece, and that the City of Vancouver would both expedite the construction of the projects — cutting all City Hall red tape — while foregoing the usual $1 million dollars for each project in development fees. The deal was done.

The actual number built: 14 social housing projects, with the final 6 projects jettisoned by Vision Vancouver when they were elected to civic government.

One of the first projects to open its doors was the McLaren Housing project, a 12-storey, 110 multi-tenant residential supportive social housing complex located at 1249 Howe Street, in downtown Vancouver, just south of Davie Street.

Also in the mix in 2007: Mayor Sullivan convinced Minister Coleman to purchase and renovate 23 (a number which rose to 30) SRO hotels located on the DTES, renovate them to make them livable for the new tenants / formerly homeless persons who would live in the newly renovated hotels, ensuring that a reputable social agency would be hired to operate each hotel, and provide support services.

The 2008 homeless count results indicated there were 2,660 homeless living rough in the City of Vancouver, couch surfing, living in their cars, and living in shelters.

In early 2013, when construction was completed on all 14 social housing projects, and 30 renovated DTES hotels, with tenants moved in, the homeless count that year indicated a rising number of 2,777 homeless persons — even given that all the new 6000 social housing and renovated SRO hotel units were fully occupied.

How does one build 6,000 new units of social housing in the City of Vancouver, and the homeless count rises? See yesterday’s VanRamblings’ column.

Time for A Bit of B.C. Homelessness History

In 1981, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that “the state does not have the authority to institutionalize and warehouse its citizens” who suffer from a mental health disability, that this population embodies the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as do all citizens.

As such, SCOTUS ordered the United States federal government, and all U.S. states, to de-institutionalize all those persons who were resident in mental health facilities located across the United States of America.

The Supreme Court of Canada made a similar ruling the following year.

In British Columbia what that meant was: all persons resident in facilities such as the Woodlands Asylum in New Westminster (pictured above), at Riverview and Essondale in Coquitlam, at the Willingdon Treatment facility in Burnaby, and the Tranquille Sanitorium in Kamloops (pictured below) must be released from each of these facilities with all due haste, in order that those persons who’d been locked away from society for decades might once again be free to join society.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, VanRamblings worked with a number of Woodlands’ former residents, who told stories of a hell on Earth, as they were locked away for years from the eyes of society. Horror stories of abuse were reported in the media, the electroshock therapy, lobotomies conducted with a butter knife under an eyelid — when nerve pathways in the frontal lobe were severed, rendering the person apathetic, emotionally unavailable and passive — and the inhumane, Marquis de Sade-like, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest conditions which many residents had suffered through relentlessly for decades on end.

Said one resident of the Woodland facility to VanRamblings: “I was a resident, a prisoner in Woodlands for 3 decades, institutionalized when my parents died in a car accident when I was a  young boy, locked away with no contact with the outside world for decades.

Friday night was bathing night. No matter the time of year, no matter the weather, the inmates — for that’s what we were — of Woodlands would be lined up naked, outside along the concourse leading to the shower facility. Sometimes we’d be in the cold for half an hour. Upon entering the brick shower room, we would be hosed down with a hose with great velocity, like a fire hose, sometimes lifted off our feet and thrust against the wall behind us. When the staffperson conducting the shower thought we were clean enough, we were dismissed, returning naked to our room.”

The humane plan of action to transition those millions of persons across the United States and Canada who had long been imprisoned in “mental health” facilities “to protect the health of society”, into homes in neighbourhoods adjacent to the mental health facilities, cared for and supported in community housing settings that would allow these persons freedom of movement, to live their lives with a modicum of respect and dignity, to  find a job, or love, never came to pass.

In the 1980s, North American governments consisted of socially maladaptive, right wing, penny pinching ideologues, each seemingly without hearts or a conscience: U.S. President Ronald Ronald Reagan, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and in British Columbia, a miserly Premier Bill Bennett, who were unwilling to spend one red cent to house and care for these newly “free” persons.

And, of course, you know where this newly-released but homeless population took refuge: on our streets, in our back alleys, under bridges, alone and uncared for, the beginning of a homelessness crisis that maintains until this day, those living rough who no longer had access to the medication they received at Riverview or Tranquille, self-medicating with drugs from the street, paid for through the commitment of crime. A new disorder now reigned on our streets, a smell of death.

Upon being elected Premier of the province of British Columbia, on election night Thursday, October 17 1991, Mike Harcourt pledged to alleviate the misery of those persons who were living and dying on Vancouver city streets. Safe haven was the order of the day: the province stuck a deal with dozens of DTES SROs — facilities inspected for their livability — where the government would pay the shelter portion of the income assistance cheque directly to the landlord / owner of the SRO.

Building wrap-around services for these former residents of Tranquille, Riverview and Woodlands now living on the downtown eastside, all remained quiet on the social services front for a decade. The homeless were off the street and cared for, a continuing homelessness crisis ended, until two watershed events took place …

  • Soon after becoming Alberta’s 12th Premier, on Monday, December 14th, 1992, a newly-elected Ralph Klein made a controversial decision to ship the province’s welfare recipients to British Columbia, giving them a bus ticket and waving them goodbye. Alberta’s indigent de-population programme proved so successful that it was adopted by provinces across our federation — in 1995, the government of Ontario Premier Mike Harris offered up to $1,500 in travel expenses to welfare recipients to move to B.C, and in 2016, the Saskatoon Star Phoenix published a story that stated two young First Nations men were each given one-way bus tickets from North Battleford to Vancouver and Victoria — in a practice that remains active to this day;
  • In 2001, British Columbians elected a far-right, disreputable Mike Harris clone as our Premier: Gordon Muir Campbell. Even before the new Premier got started cancelling union contracts, Gordon Campbell passed an Order in Council requiring all recipients of income assistance and persons with disability to re-apply for their benefits, proclaiming to the masses, “There is immense fraud in B.C.’s welfare system. My government is going to root it out, and save the Treasury billions of dollars.” Yeah, well, that didn’t happen, did it? What happened instead is that Campbell cancelled the NDP programme that paid for SRO accommodation for Vancouver’s soon-to-be homeless population, thrusting hundreds of income recipients onto Vancouver streets.

So, 2001: Canadians provinces sending their homeless to B.C., as Canada’s new dumping ground for our nation’s indigent population, while a cruel Gordon Campbell government de-housed hundreds / thousands of income assistance recipients, forcing them onto the streets. No wonder Gordon Campbell came perilously close to losing government in the 2005 British Columbia provincial election.

Clearly, all you have to do is look around, or watch the news, to realize the homelessness crisis in Vancouver has not abated, has only gotten progressively worse since 2001. Lives of desperation, and a population of the perpetually unhoused.

What is to be done? How do we end the human misery of homelessness?

VanRamblings will present a bit more history on our province’s homeless in Wednesday’s column, and present a a revolutionary programme of restoration, recovery and deliverance, as envisioned by both soon-to-be Premier David Robert Patrick Eby, and certain-to-become Mayor on October 15, 2022, TEAM … for a Livable Vancouver’s, that Irish gal you love so very, very much, Colleen Hardwick.