With the months-long turmoil of tent city still fresh in local memories, homelessness is appearing in a different form. This time it is parked by the side of the road.
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps and Coun. Chris Coleman, in a report to council, say more and more people are being ticketed for sleeping in their vehicles on city streets because even some working people can’t find a place to live.
They suggest creating an exemption to the city’s streets and traffic bylaw so that tickets will not be issued to people who are sleeping in cars parked on the street when the vacancy rate falls below three per cent.
Victoria’s vacancy rate is 0.5 per cent and hasn’t been above four per cent for about 20 years, Coleman said. Despite efforts by the city and the province to create more housing spaces, low-income people are squeezed out.
For some, the squeeze has left them sleeping in their cars or vans. Eighty tickets were issued in 2014, 62 in 2015 and 176 in 2016, according to figures compiled by Helps and Coleman.
In the face of those rising numbers, the two suggest allowing sleeping between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m., just as is done already with camping in parks.
The misery of the homeless has not gone away because the government bought a couple of care homes and a hotel. Although several hundred people now have warm beds, others are still out in the cold. Allowing some to park on city streets overnight is not a huge burden.
At the same time, almost every city street is lined with homes. Except in a few areas, the vehicles would be parked in front of someone’s house. Those residents are hardly likely to welcome their instant neighbours.
The campers need more than a parking spot. They need somewhere to wash, somewhere to use the toilet, somewhere to dump their garbage. City streets don’t offer such facilities. Giving the campers a permission to park is likely to create more problems than it solves.
Does this situation require a legislated answer, or can it be resolved with empathy and a light touch? The police are not handing out tickets to people who can’t pay. They know the campers who are in need.
Coleman has wondered about opening one floor of a city parkade for overnight parking, although he said he was not sure whether that should be considered.
Seattle, where an estimated one-third of the homeless were living in vehicles, has created safe-parking zones, often in partnership with faith-based groups. Case workers were provided to help guide the campers toward stable housing. The city tried improving on that program by renting parking lots to open sites with more facilities.
Within a couple of months of opening the first lot, the city put off plans for the second because it was costing $35,000 US per month for 20 vehicles, which meant the per-vehicle cost worked out to more than the median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city.
Only a few people were able to move on to better housing.
In Seattle, as in Victoria, any proposed solution seems to come with its own set of unwanted consequences, both foreseen and unforeseen.
Helps and Coleman are trying to deal with a reality that no one wants, but that we cannot ignore. Yet their suggestion will create more tension around an issue that needs co-operation, not antagonism.
They have identified a problem, but it is a symptom of a much greater issue. Instead of sniping at their solution, let’s try to improve it, and deal with what is behind the symptom.
