A commentary by a Victoria councillor.
Like city councils everywhere, Victoria council is grappling with the problem of homelessness. The failure to support the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens and the ongoing disorder on our streets demand action.
In British Columbia, the homelessness problem is exacerbated by a general shortage of housing, the right to carry and consume hard drugs without penalty, and the strong conviction of politicized groups that police involvement is unhelpful.
As a neighbourhood volunteer for many years, I have watched the steady deterioration of the quality of life in parts of our city and the intractability of this problem.
I want to say at the outset that I don’t have any grand, sweeping solution. No one does, to be frank. But I do want to contribute some thoughts on how we might start to get a handle on this problem.
Advocates for the unhoused fail to recognize several important issues.
First, they fail to recognize that solutions must involve all levels of government. Federal financial support, provincial government action within its constitutional responsibility, and the partnerships and involvement of the city and community service associations are needed.
Second, we cannot wait for a grand alliance among the federal and provincial governments and their pronouncements for action over the next 10-20 years. Victoria has lost too much already.
Third, we must stop speaking of the homeless as a single undifferentiated group. Those who are homeless due to addictions and severe mental-health problems require different housing than those who are unable to secure housing due to mental or physical limitations or due to bad luck.
Fourth, we are trapped by ideologies that blind us to finding real solutions. The “defund the police” perspective that objects to enforcement in our streets and parks and to rules in supportive housing solidifies the status quo. Permitting drug dealing and other criminal activities in supportive housing is antithetical to rehabilitation and metastasizes to nearby neighbourhoods. Ideology should not trump common sense and objective reality.
Finally, our goal should be to rehabilitate, and not simply to house. We should create conditions to help as many of the homeless as possible to live productive lives. What we are doing now is creating a permanent underclass of people dependent on social welfare, free drugs and free accommodation. Very few graduate to a productive life in this system, and year by year, newcomers add to the numbers and to the chaos.
To succeed in this initiative, we need to agree that getting people off the street and into appropriate care requires that the drug dealers and the criminal element cannot continue to ply their trade among the vulnerable in supportive housing.
Recently, B.C. Housing confirmed that for new supportive housing there will be no screening of prospective tenants for violent offenders and no restrictions on drug supply or use. In other words, there will be no guardrails in place to make both tenants and neighbours feel safe.
B.C. Housing needs to change course. We need real and safe supportive housing for those who are not a danger to themselves or others.
The criminal element should be dealt with by enforcing the law and removing career criminals from our streets and supportive housing. Those who refuse to undergo treatment or rehabilitation should be placed in involuntary custodial care.
B.C. Housing and B.C. Health also need to create safe places for the most vulnerable, those who are in the world of substance abuse or are otherwise unable to make sound decisions for their own well-being.
We can and must fix the homeless problem and the chaos on our streets. It will take time. It is not compassion we are lacking, or even financial resources. We have to change our mindset about how to handle the small minority of the homeless who create the lion’s share of the problems and put our city, our residents and our businesses, in jeopardy.
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
