Victoria mayor floats plan to billet homeless to ease housing crisis

VICTORIA (NEWS 1130) – Victoria’s mayor wants people to open their homes to people sleeping in parks and their cars because they can’t afford accommodation.

Lisa Helps says people in the city opened their homes to homeless workers during the Second World War and people should considering doing it again for the hundreds of people who can’t find a place to stay.

Social advocacy and housing groups say the mayor’s plan is well-meaning in a time of crisis, but all levels of government must do more to provide housing in a city with sky-high rents and a vacancy rate of 0.5 per cent.

City council considered a moratorium today on apartment building demolitions to ease the tight rental market.

Victoria’s Together Against Poverty Society says it assisted more than 6,450 people with housing issues last year, and many of them were renters evicted from renovated properties that were later offered at higher rents.

Council recently considered repealing a bylaw that prevents people from sleeping in vehicles but left enforcement to police officers who say they use discretion when it comes to ticketing people in vehicles.

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