I really can't believe that people can still be so stupid as to believe that the major cause of homelessness here in Vancouver is from people migrating here from other parts of Canada because of our mild climate. I would really like to know where this nonsense began. It is absolute crap. I had this conversation again today with an older woman at my church, during the coffee hour. She simply could not face the reality that the right of centre government that has been ruling this province for the last thirteen years was also the major trigger that caused record homelessness in Vancouver.
All they had to do was get tough on welfare recipients, cut benefits, make them harder to get, and kick people off of social assistance at random and within months of being elected our streets and sidewalks were suddenly choked with homeless beggars. I could very easily have been one myself especially following my own nine and a half months of being homeless 1998-1999. Fortunately I was able to couch surf all the way through without actually ending up in a shelter or on the street, but had certain friends not been available at critical times I also would have been on the street myself.
The dear lady at church seemed to be in an awful hurry to get away from me as soon as I mentioned that the governing BC Liberal Party has been the main culprit for street homelessness. She quickly flagged down another lady to start talking to instead. I didn't let her get away with it. I resumed our talk until she heard everything I had to say about the government's culpability for the more than tripling of homelessness here. That is when she recited the mild climate myth.
I only regret that she didn't stick around long enough for me to explain to her just why I happen to know these things. Having been homeless myself, I have also lived in the Vancouver area for my entire life. I did not come here looking for a milder climate to sleep rough in. I already lived here. When I spent all of the year 2003 as a social services worker at the front desk of three of the shelters for Lookout Emergency Aid Society I interviewed a huge number of people coming through our doors. All of them were suddenly homeless for a huge variety of reasons. Not one of them came here from elsewhere in Canada because of the climate. Any who did come here from elsewhere in the country were already housed here in Vancouver, but then became homeless because they could not pay the rent, or for other problems for which they had no available financial supports. Before this I did volunteer work in a church homeless shelter as well as serving meals to street youth. None of them were homeless till after they came here and for some reason or other found themselves out on the street, but usually because welfare was not going to keep them alive and they had no other recourse for paying for housing.
Naturally there are other factors that aggravate homelessness, and I'm not thinking here of mental illness or addictions as there are plenty of both who are already securely housed and employed with families and social and professional networks. We have among other things the highest housing costs in the country and among the highest in the world. We have a criminally low vacancy rate on top of that and a plethora of jobs that don't pay a living wage. All of these things need to be addressed and resolved but before anything else please cut the crap about homeless people moving here from elsewhere in the country. Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Edmonton, all hells frozen over between October and May all have there resident homeless populations just the same as Vancouver. None of them are going anywhere. The problem is nation-wide and nothing much is going to change until we begin electing governments that care enough to make life bearable and dignified for our poorest citizens. Put the blame where it belongs.
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