Front page news points out the obvious: Homelessness costs us money
By samanthaorwell on March 22, 2008 - 3:29pm
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http://thevancouvermanifesto.blogspot.com/2008/03/front-page-news-points...
http://thevancouvermanifesto.blogspot.com/2008/03/front-page-news-points...
http://thevancouvermanifesto.blogspot.com/2008/03/front-page-news-points...
The front page of The Vancouver Sun posted a story entitled, “The cost of homelessness”. (Note that the online equivalent reads, “The high cost of homelessness”- which was published earlier on Friday, March 21, 2008- the word "high" a bit much for the front page?).
The Vancouver Sun, Saturday, March 22, 2008.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=11fdf74c-9130-41b3...
"Every homeless person costs system $55,000, an amount that could buy supported
housing for each of them…annual total of $644.3 million in health,
corrections and social services spending for all the homeless in B.C."
Thanks to the Homeless Count (see http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/homelessness/whatsnew.htm) and researches from SFU, UBC and U of Calg, there has been a 150pg report written about the REAL cost of homelessness. I am so glad it reached the front page because advocacy groups have been saying for forever about the real cost of what happens when you don’t care for the most at-risk in our communities/society. It costs taxpayers MUCH more to criminalize homelessness and pretend its an individual problem rather than admit that it is a SOCIAL problem and result of a number of social forces (including the roll-back/ roll-out of the welfare state, closure of supportive/social/affordable housing, closure of mental health institutions, decline in Fordist manufacturing, increased professionalization and income polarization.. to name a few off the top of my head).
The resultant report is a great step towards getting citizens and governments to admit that what they are doing NOW is NOT working. Instead of shelling out millions of dollars to MAINTAIN our homeless problem we could be putting good money, towards state-led programs and supporting (and I mean REALLY truly supporting) current service providers to deliver services with a guaranteed and sufficient budget, to actually SOLVE the homeless problem. This report gives cold hard numbers (the only thing government bureaucracy responds to) to support the proper implementation of a program that will properly address homelessness.
The study estimated the number of people with severe addictions and/or mental illness who are homeless in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority jurisdiction is between 2,000 and 4,000.
Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan said in an interview Friday that he believes those numbers are accurate, and said more needs to be done to help them.
"It's a real problem," he said.
However, Sullivan noted the city is working with the province to create more housing units and that the federal government recently committed $10 million to Vancouver in drug treatment funding.
Sam really knows how to pass the buck. And you can thank Sullivan for addressing our homeless problem with the awesomeness that is Project Civil City , the best homeless-hating document that ever existed in the City of Vancouver.
Speaking of passing the buck..
Also in news was “Mayor seeks church exemption: Churches would not need permits to shelter and feed homeless” (See http://www.mayorsamsullivan.ca/pdf/project-civil-city.pdf)
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/westcoastnews/story.html?id=ef7e...)
Sounds all good, but how about we properly support our service providers and give them real money to work with instead of taking it away? This is something Sullivan should have done a long time ago, along with supporting funding towards these programs that do good work. I smell an election…
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The homeless in Vancouver are very seldom persons who were actually born or raised here.
I'd bet you that about 85 percent or more came here from someplace else, like Ontario, or
the flatlands of the prairies, or even the Maritimes. They do that because it's a well-known fact that we have the mildest climate in Canada, and we're also suckers for a sad story.
If I sound a little bitter, it's because my van was burglarized one night downtown by a bunch of those homeless bastards looking for something for nothing, and it cost me a set of tools and a mountain bike worth several hundred dollars. All that took place not five blocks from the Main Street Police Station, but there wasn't a cop in sight anywhere, in spite of those homeless types raising hell down the block for about an hour and a half before they decided to rip off my van.
Before we can solve our homeless problems, we need the co-operation of all the other jurisdictions in the country who are contributing their former residents to our problem here, and we need some federal assistance with the ongoing expenses of policing and shelter. This isn't the kind of problem that can be easily solved by bleeding hearts throwing money at it. We need to do some research on where these people came from, why, and why they can't be sent back to wherever that was. We wouldn't have nearly the problems we do if we weren't trying to look after most of the homeless in the nation, who come here because it's less harsh than Horsebuns, Alberta, or Skunk's Hollow, Ontario, or Blarney, Nova Scotia.... and there's no reason those places can't contribute to the solution instead of to the problem.
exactly, it is a social problem- this is exactly what i am gettingat. if the feds didn't roll back the welfare state we would have HOUSIG in ALL provinces.
And just because they come here poor and without resources doesn't mean we can't do everything we can to support them.
By the way, Ray, My car got broken into 2 weeks ago too. I was furious too. but when you think about it these are not youth doing dumb things. these are people down and out, can't do anything better because now even a bachelor degree at a university guarantees you a job. this is an economic problem too when our economy doens't provide living wages for people who do shit jobs, or even living wages for people who don't do shit jobs.
Do yo really think that if they had alternatives they would still be breaking into your car? These are systemic problems. Nobody wants to resort to crime to get by but society has gotten SO bad at taking care of our least able/.most at risk that they don't know what else to do. They have no options.
I that that there are some people who WANT to get put into jail and thus want to get caught especially during winter time because at least they have jail cel to sleep in for one night.
These are people down and out to the nth degree. One instance of a car getting broken into makes me mad personally, but socially we have to wonder WHY petti crime such as break ins happen.
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