An update on the city's strategy to tackle homelessness was challenged by one city councillor who felt there should be a more immediate response to help those living on Richmond’s streets.
The city’s 10-year strategy was approved in 2019 by city council and staff give annual updates on what has been done to tackle homelessness.
Actions in 2022 include the opening of Aster Place, a 40-unit supportive housing complex near Costco and the running of warming centres during winter months, paid for by the province to the tune of $3.35 million.
The city also gave almost $87,000 in grants to support a drop-in centre at Brighouse Park, a crisis line, outreach and advocacy programs run by Chimo and money for food programs run by the Salvation Army and St. Albans Church.
The city also held community conversations about homelessness, attended by 73 people.
Coun. Bill McNulty said the city’s strategy is making indents in the issue, giving hope to people who are homeless to bring “normality” into their lives.
“I think it’s an aggressive approach… but I think it’s realistic,” McNulty said.
Coun. Kash Heed, however, responded to McNulty’s comments saying it was a “long sermon” that confused the issue further.
“He honestly thinks within six years within this strategy, we’re going to solve homeless or homelessness,” Heed said.
Heed referred to Vancouver’s former mayor who promised to end homelessness, something that has since increased annually in that city.
“I’ll remind (McNulty) of a former mayor of Vancouver, Gregor Robertson, who said he’d solve homeless in his term in office – we know what happened there and we know what happened in Vancouver,” Heed said at the meeting.
The update on the homelessness strategy came just weeks after the discovery of a deceased man in a burnt tent in a homeless camp behind Costco, under the Oak Street Bridge.
While Heed supported the homelessness strategy to tackle long-term solutions, he told the Richmond News issues such as poverty and other social problems, drug addiction and mental health - “that are really causing the homeless side of the equation” - also need to be addressed with more immediate actions.
Heed will have a motion at next week’s committee meeting that will look at tackling the issue of homeless people in Richmond with a more immediate, short-term and multi-pronged focus.
Heed said he’s encountering the same opposition he had as a police officer to finding solutions for people living on the street.
“(It’s) the same opposition I get to any creative solution for the low rung of the socio-economic scale,” Heed said. “This is my never-ending battle.”
At Monday’s meeting, Coun. Carol Day suggested, in order to help people living on the street, that council write to the province suggesting the re-opening of a “modern Riverview,” referring to the former hospital that housed people with mental illnesses.
This, however, was withdrawn after several councillors suggested they don’t have enough information to make such a recommendation to the provincial government.
The city has also created a “community homelessness table” that has met several times, according to the report.
Coun. Michael Wolfe asked city staff whether there were any people with lived experience at this table.
He noted “one thing we heard from people (when the strategy was first critiqued) was the table… needs to have representation from people with lived experience.”
City staff responded, however, saying the community homlessness table currently consists of service providers and government agencies.
