Vancouver and Victoria mayors cheer Ottawa’s $11.2 billion homelessness plan as taxpayers face another big spending gamble
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Federal housing minister Gregor Robertson announced an $11.2 billion four-year homelessness plan, with the mayors of Vancouver and Victoria endorsing it while admitting it will depend on more coordination, more provincial money, and more government spending.
The Liberal government’s budget, presented on Thursday, earmarks $11.2 billion over four years for a national strategy aimed at ending homelessness within ten years. The plan emphasizes prevention, rent assistance for low-income households, expanded mental-health and addiction services, and new supportive-housing projects, including provisions for veterans — all of it another massive federal commitment that will now have to prove it can actually work.
Federal housing minister Gregor Robertson, who served as Vancouver’s mayor in 2008, said the earlier effort failed because provincial and federal authorities did not coordinate well enough or provide sufficient funding. “We did not have the support,” he told reporters in Winnipeg.
Vancouver Mayor Pete Fry said the federal pledge is “aspirational, but very possible” if Ottawa, the province and the city work closely together. He noted that reversing the previous mayor’s freeze on supportive housing would be a critical step.
Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto also expressed confidence that the goal is achievable, citing the city’s Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan as a model for moving people from shelters to independent housing. She said the program will require “hundreds more supportive and below-market units” and corresponding provincial funding.
Dean Kurpjuweit, president of United Gospel Mission, welcomed the clear timeline in the federal announcement but warned that provincial operating funds will be needed to sustain the new housing units.
The upcoming provincial budget from British Columbia’s new Conservative government will be closely watched for whether it aligns with the federal homelessness initiative, or whether yet another costly plan runs into the same old problems of bureaucracy and dependency.