Sam Sullivan attacks tent-city
Today in the Province:
Tent-city idea for homeless panned
Ethan Baron
Friday, August 08, 2008
It didn't take long for critics to pull the pegs out from Vancouver parks commissioner Spencer Herbert's idea of a tent city for homeless people.
Herbert said that if shelter space can't be expanded right away, Vancouver should consider a tent city.
"When did it become acceptable that we have 1,000 people sleeping in our parks and in our doorways?" Herbert said.
A tent city shouldn't go up in any parks, but could be sited on unused municipal or private land, possibly moving every few months like Seattle's, said Herbert, who is seeking the NDP nomination for the provincial West End riding.
The encampment could move throughout Metro Vancouver, he added, but would have to be visible, lest the public forget about it and it become an established response to homelessness.
"The last thing I'd want to see is for a tent city to become permanent," Herbert said.
He acknowledged that not-in-my-backyard resistance to a moveable tent city could pose a major obstacle.
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan immediately attacked Herbert's idea. "That's not the answer," Sullivan said. "You're institutionalizing the tent city. They become hotbeds for crime and abuse."
City hall's homeless advocate, Judy Graves, said she's "completely opposed" to tent cities, having visited the unofficial ones that have cropped up in Vancouver over the years.
"After the first week or two they all become dangerous, not to the general public certainly, but to the people that live in them. It becomes crowded, people are stressed, [drug] dealers from outside move in . . . and also set up a drive-by drug market."
Herbert noted that Seattle's moving tent city has operated with few problems, its residents maintaining order.
Provincial Housing Minister Rich Coleman said Vancouver has enough shelter beds for homeless people, and more than 2,000 social housing units are on the way.
"You have to have housing with supports [for addiction and mental illness]," Coleman said. "You find solutions . . . rather than pitch tents."
Meanwhile, the city has bought a building to provide up to 70 units of low-income social housing, Sullivan announced yesterday.
The $3.7-million purchase of a building at 1700 Kings-way will provide homes outside the problem-ridden Downtown Eastside, the mayor said.
The city will need public and possibly private partners to build and operate the units, Sullivan said.
ebaron@theprovince.com
why is it illigal to sleep out side when ignorant ppl would rather piss on you than help you out what happened to free country
NOVAKANE
Yes the city will need all sorts of money to build and support their programs and services. But what they don't understand is that the people who they claim need the help usually need it right now not in ten years- which seems to be every major cities target date on dealing with the homeless. Most of the planners are missing the fact the Portland and Seattle were started years ago and that the homeless were the key contributors to their success. They weren't always though but some how with their persistance they got themselves in through the social planning doors and onto the city council agenda and on the council committees boards. I personally at this moment think that the city council and MLAs are just jealous of the homeless because this community is thriving with absolutely nothing and this is something that the elected leaders are not able to do with out taking the circumstances to the table to try and figure out how they got there in the first place. Or it could be that they just haven't figured out how they can get away with eliminating the homeless without being found out or feeling a little bit of a twing of guilt or something like that. So there is already proof in the pudding that tent cities do work in the long run. The community leaders just needed to stop looking at the wallet, time restrictions and start looking at the people they are slowly killing with their stalling tactics-other wise called braucratic bull shit defense wall. womyn united will never be defeated when acting in solidarity