VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) - The Province has
announced it will fund shelter space in Vancouver this winter, but a city councillor says the province is just re-announcing funding already in place.
Coun.
Kerry Jang says last year the Province funded additional space that included much more accessible, low-barrier shelters. He says today's announcement only perpetuates an annual song and dance between the city and province, and does nothing to create a long-term strategy.
"The type of shelters that are being funded this year are not easy for homeless people to get into," he says. "They are high-barrier, in the sense that they don't allow pets quite often.
"They're in places where homeless people may not be, and of course Minister [
Rich] Coleman's solution in the past is simply to try to force them into shelter, which we know does not work."
Jang wants low-barrier shelters - open 24/7, four months in a row - making them very predictable.
"What we've found is that these types of shelters actually entice street-entrenched homeless to come inside for the first time, where we can give them medical care and psychiatric care," he says.
Jang will table a motion at next week's city council meeting asking the Clark government for regular funding for low-barrier shelters, so the city doesn't have to fight the same fight every year.