Province says it has not delayed social housing in Vancouver

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Don’t blame the province! That’s the message from the minister responsible for housing in BC, in response to Vancouver’s latest volley in the fight to end street homelessness.

Rich Coleman is disputing claims that there have been delays in building some much-needed projects.

There are 14 sites where BC Housing agreed to put social housing in, and the City says construction delays have put more than 600 units behind schedule.

Coleman says the only thing that holds up construction is not being able to get permits in a timely manner from City Hall and having to do the construction properly.

“There’s one particular site that the City’s actually asked us to delay on Expo Boulevard because they want to have another look at it,” he tells us.

Coleman adds there have been no delays from the province, and the other sites are set to be finished soon.

“The City sometimes wants to criticize us. I don’t know why, because they’re the beneficiary of probably the most aggressive housing strategy in Canadian history and certainly the beneficiary, financially, of well in excess of half a billion dollars,” he says.

The City says it’s expecting the number of people on the streets to go up, and one of the reasons is delays in getting those social housing projects done.

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