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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.

Know Your Local Ruling Class

#VanPoli | Kareem Allam

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That handsome, despicable fellow you see pictured above is Kareem Allam.

We’re kidding. Honest. Just joshing. Sheesh, no one can take a joke these days.


Afford yourself the pleasure of listening to / watching B.C.’s most accomplished politico, Kareem Allam

Who is Kareem Mahmoud Abbas Allam?

Most political folks will recognize Mr. Allam as the architect of ABC Vancouver’s overwhelming victory at the polls on October 15, 2022, in that year’s decisive municipal election, where every ABC Vancouver candidate was elected to office.

Clearly, Kareem Allam is a master strategist, a superior motivator and a campaign manager par excellence, an individual who means to win, not necessarily at all costs, but still — and, if we might suggest, a man of principle and integrity who fights the good fight, in 2022 on behalf of the beleaguered citizenry of Vancouver.

In 2022, post pandemic, an irritated Vancouver public had become fed up with a do nothing, whiny, Kennedy Stewart-led (if in anyone’s wildest imagination, Mr. Stewart might have the appellation of ‘leader‘ applied to him) administration, where he worked within a disparate and wildly dysfunctional civic administration.  Mr. Stewart is, fortunate for us,  now back at the post from whence he came, as the defrocked and much mocked Simon Fraser University Political Science professor.

If you go to the Fairview Strategy website — where Mr. Allam is employed, Fairview Strategy an integrated public relations company which offers government relations liaison and expertise, communication, media relations, digital communication, Indigenous relations, and market research — you will read this …

With two decades of private and public sector experience in public affairs, Kareem has successfully leveraged his knowledge of people, policy and community into triumphant political campaigns at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.

Kareem managed the winning Kevin Falcon for BC Liberal Leader campaign and the ABC Vancouver municipal campaign, electing 19 out of 19 candidates, including Mayor Ken Sim. In 2023, Kareem achieved #9 status on Vancouver Magazine’s annual Power 50 list.

Kareem has served as a member of the Board of the Fraser Health Authority, and as a member of the Translink Screening Panel, among other appointments which serve the community interest.


Sarah Blyth, community advocate and organizer, founding member of the Overdose Prevention Society

Did we mention that Sarah Blyth holds Mr. Allam in the highest possible esteem?

One year ago, Mr. Allam left his post as Chief of Staff to Mayor Ken Sim. Suffice to say that Mr. Allam’s leave-taking — he was very unhappy — was none too pleasant.

Well worth watching and listening to the Hotel Pacifico podcast interview with Kareem Allam that you’ll find above — given that Mr. Allam will continue to be long into the future, a British Columbian of wit, intelligence, perspicacity and accomplishment, who will endure as an individual who will make a difference for the better in each of our lives, in the many, many years to come. Best to get to know Mr. Allam a little better now, to help provide a bit of context for your confounding life, and perhaps even inject a smidgen of hope for a better collective future for all of us.

#VanPoli | Movements Build Slowly, Inexorably

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Vancouver’s West End in the 1960s, a comfortable family neighbourhood next to Stanley Park

In the 1960s, when Vancouver was still very much a village rather than the thriving metropolis we know it to be today, in those near soporific, pre-movement times, rare was the occasion when the citizens of our fine city got up on their hind legs to protest the status quo or what seemed like the inevitable, as wealthy old men of circumstance wrought change unchallenged, untrammelled by reflection.


Tom ‘Not So Terrific’ Campbell, controversial Vancouver Mayor, in office from 1966 to 1972

Such was the case in 1971, when Vancouver Mayor Tom Campbell and his Non-Partisan Association Council cohorts decided that the time had come to develop the Coal Harbour site at the entrance to Stanley Park, cherished green space of long duration, but not much longer if Mr. Campbell — and the provincial government, led by 17-years-in-power Socred Premier W.A.C. Bennett — had their way.

The Coal Harbour site, owned by Harbour Park Developments, a politically connected local group with strong ties to the Non-Partisan Association, developer Tom Campbell — who in 1966 ran for Mayor as an independent, and won — and the Socred government, first unveiled their development plans in 1965.

The Four Seasons Hotel chain came forward in 1965 with a $40-million development plan on the Coal Harbour waterfront. The initial plan would house 3,000 people in three 30-storey buildings, including a 13-storey hotel and townhouses.

Over time, the development plan was expanded into an unheard of at the time $55-million massive multi-tower plan, with 15 apartment towers, ranging from 15 to 31 storeys set to be constructed on the then green space, a veritable high-rise forest along the Georgia Street causeway entrance to Stanley Park.

As you might well expect, the massive tower development plan for the 14-acre Coal Harbour waterfront site turned into a contentious issue that lasted for years and years, causing increasing numbers of people to rise up in adversarial opposition. The public wanted the site preserved as green space. Developers, Tom Campbell, the Non-Partisan Association, and the Social Credit government had other ideas.

Each week, for years, the community rose up in high dudgeon.

After all, the West End at the time was a single family dwelling neighbourhood, the tallest structure in Vancouver was the Marine Building on Burrard Street.

In 1966, each weekend for the first couple of months, a rag tag group of community activists — who came to include a young storefront lawyer, Mike Harcourt, and Darlene Marzari, an employee of the City — protested on the deserted site. Over time, their numbers grew to five hundred, and then a thousand, rising up in protest and stark and strident opposition to development plans for the cherished green space.


Vancouver City Councillor and then Mayor, Art Phillips; Councillors Walter Hardwick and Harry Rankin

In 1968, a reform-minded Art Phillips and his friend, Walter Hardwick — an Urban Planning professor at UBC, and a community leader whose work would come to shape the city and Metro Vancouver region — ran for Vancouver City Council under the banner of a civic party they had created, The Electors’ Action Movement (TEAM), securing two seats on City Council, joining a young lawyer by the name of Harry Rankin, who had been elected to Council in 1966, sitting in sole opposition to the developer-friendly Non-Partisan Association City Council of the day.

Throughout their campaign for office in 1968, both Art Phillips and Dr. Hardwick stated their clear opposition to the Harbour Parks Development / Four Seasons plan for the green space at the entrance to Stanley Park, standing with the community, and with Vancouver City Councillor Harry Rankin. Would community opposition to the Coal Harbour development plan, in ever increasing numbers, carry the day?

Only the continued opposition of Vancouver citizens could and would tell the tale.


A model of the Harbour Park Developments proposal for the entrance to Stanley Park. The $55-million development would have constructed 15 high-rise towers. Photo: Selwyn Pullan / PostMedia

By the early spring of 1971, hundreds of community activists gathered each weekend on the Coal Harbour site at the entrance to Stanley Park, in protest.


June 7, 1971. All Seasons Park after squatters reclaimed the site. Photo credit: Vancouver Sun

On May 29th, 1971, seventy community activists (hippies they were called by the press) took matters into their own hands, ripping down a fence surrounding the site, storming onto the Coal Harbour waterfront site to plant maple trees, setting up a camp of tents and ramshackle huts, the protest squat sustaining for a year, each subsequent weekend joined by hundreds and hundreds of concerned, mostly young, Vancouver citizens, at what was now called All Seasons Park.


September 23, 1971. An A-frame squatter’s shack in All Seasons Park. Photo: Ross Kenward / PostMedia

In early 1972, bowing to public pressure, a combative Tom Campbell announced there would be a plebiscite on the Four Seasons development, but that only property owners could vote.

This was roundly denounced at a public meeting on June 21, when urban planner Setty Pendakur dubbed the project “the biggest abortion in the history of development in Canada.” Pendakur said the development would create traffic chaos at the entrance to Stanley Park, that Council was confusing people with its plebiscite.

Property owners voted to reject the Four Seasons proposal by 51%. Then the federal government stepped in. On February 10, 1972, Pierre Elliot Trudeau’s government killed the proposal by withholding the transfer of a crucial water lot.


1972.  Alderman Harry Rankin talking to activists at All Seasons Park. Photo: Gord Croucher / PostMedia

With a new Mayor and majority progressive T.E.A.M. (The Electors’ Action Movement) Council voted into office in 1972 by a public eager for change, led by Mayor Art Phillips, with Walter Hardwick, Darlene Marzari, Mike Harcourt and Setty Pendakur securing seats on, perhaps, Vancouver’s most progressive Council ever, in November 1973, the City of Vancouver bought the entire site for $6.4 million.

The green space at the entrance to Stanley Park is now known as Devonian Harbour Park, but for some of us, it will always be All Seasons Park.

Some historical source material for this article provided by Vancouver Sun reporter John Mackie.

There is a correlation to be drawn between the movement leading to the defeat years ago of the Harbour Park Development project at the entrance to Stanley Park — championed by the City Council of the day — and the movement opposition of, now, 200 informed citizens (and more) who gathered at City Hall two weeks ago, and again this past Monday evening to state their opposition to the initiative of the Ken Sim-led ABC Vancouver City Council to eliminate Vancouver’s cherished, 135-year-old, independent and elected Board of Parks and Recreation.

Movements start off small, with generally only a few of our better informed citizens coming to the fore to state their opposition.

As time passes, more of our citizens become informed, inform themselves, taking the power to change for the better into their own hands, to rise up for the better, to work in common cause with friends and neighbours who share their concern to, in time, elect a more democratically-minded local government committed to the livability of our beloved city.