By Sean Condon

Photo by Tony Pedley

During Gregor Robertson’s victory speech, Vancouver’s new mayor didn’t shy away from his commitment to end homelessness by 2015. Promising to put together an emergency task force and an action plan within 90 days, Robertson boldly claimed, “We are going to end homelessness in Vancouver.”

It’s a promise that helped Robertson defeat the NPA’s Peter Ladner, who insisted homelessness was the provincial government’s responsibility. But is it a promise Robertson can keep? Mayor Sam Sullivan promised three years ago to cut homelessness by 50 per cent by 2010. But during his term in power, the number of homeless people in the city actually increased 22 per cent to 1,576.

Although Robertson’s claim may seem ambitious, a number of cities across North America have also set targets to end homelessness, with varying degrees of success. Seattle and Portland launched 10-year plans, while Calgary launched a plan to end homelessness by 2018. But the costs are higher than any city can afford.

Earlier this year, Calgary’s homelessness task force estimated it would cost $3.2 billion to find housing for the city’s 3,400 homeless people. The entire City of Vancouver’s budget this year is just under $900 million. If Robertson is going to fulfill his promise, he’s going to need help from the provincial government.
However, Robertson is a former NDP MLA and a Liberal government is still in power. Although the provincial government has put millions into buying Single Room Occupancy (SRO) hotels in the Downtown Eastside over the past few years, it may not be as willing to make the NDP-supported Vision Vancouver municipal government look good.

“Robertson now owns homelessness,” says Kennedy Stewart, a political science professor at Simon Fraser University. “The province can now say, ‘we tried, but it’s not really our problem, it’s the mayor’s problem.’”

A request for an interview with Robertson was turned down by Vision Vancouver spokesperson Ian Baillie, who said the mayor-elect won’t talk about this issue until after the task force is put together.

But for some homeless activists, waiting a month-and-a-half for an action plan seems like a waste of time. The city already created a Homeless Action Plan in 2005 that called for the creation of 3,200 units of supportive housing and for the city to buy one SRO every year—a target the city has not been able to meet.

“It depresses me,” says Kim Kerr, executive director of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA). “We’re talking about human beings who are outside. I don’t understand what more research is going to prove. You open up spaces that are vacant, you put mats on the floor and you get homeless people involved.”

Kerr says the city should immediately open the old Storyeum building in Gastown, which is still empty after the tourism attraction went bankrupt and is equipped with cleaning and shower facilities. Independent council candidate Audrey Laferriere ran unsuccessfully in the municipal election on the single issue of turning Storyeum into a homeless shelter.

While Kerr agrees the ultimate goal has to be the creation of more social and affordable housing, he also argues that, with winter approaching, the city should open up as many empty buildings as it can now so people can get inside from the wet and cold.

“Let’s react right now like it was an earthquake,” says Kerr. “As the mayor of the city, if homelessness is a disaster, then he should be able to react appropriately to a disaster.”

With homelessness already a problem during good economic times, Stewart says the economic downturn could make a bad situation even worse and Robertson’s attempt to solve it even more difficult. For the city to homelessness in seven years means it will have to be the top priority for the new government.

“It’s a big problem,” says Stewart. “If you want to solve it, you’ve got to do big things.”