City councillor calling for more to be done to build social housing
Posted September 11, 2015 4:37 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The province must bring forward more money to build social housing to remedy deplorable conditions in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, according to a city councillor.
This follows the release of a UBC study released yesterday which indicates those living in single room occupancies there are eight times more likely to die than than the national average.
The lack of social housing construction is a big factor in this situation, says city councillor Kerry Jang, who wants the province to do more.
“The real problem of course is with BC Housing,” says Jang. “They’re not investing in social housing at all. They have a 10,000 person waiting list across the province, and that list is only growing.”
Jang says the City of Vancouver spent $60-million on building social housing last year, despite the fact housing is a provincial responsibility.
“Like everyone, I was just gobsmacked when I saw those results,” says Jang. “Eight times more likely to die than anybody else in this country is just unacceptable.”
He says even in the worst-off parts of the United States, people were at the most four times more likely to die than the average person in that country.
