The recommendations presented to Victoria city council last week by the mayor’s task force on affordable housing represent an important step toward ending homelessness in Greater Victoria.
The focus of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness has been those experiencing chronic homelessness. Because so much public attention on this issue is focused on matters of mental health or substance use, there is a tendency to underestimate the impact of the broader issue of housing affordability and the connection to emergency-shelter use.
People experiencing homelessness are not a distinct population. There is fluidity between those experiencing homelessness and those who are housed. One of the most significant contributors to homelessness is a critical shortage of housing that is affordable, safe and stable.
This is particularly important for those living in need of core housing (spending more than 30 per cent of their income on housing). This means that for those with lower incomes, any kind of crisis can tip them temporarily into homelessness. The net result in Greater Victoria is that nearly 85 per cent of those who frequent an emergency shelter do so only temporarily.
The affordability issue that drives this is significant. Currently, the vacancy rates for units deemed “affordable” according the housing income limits set by B.C. Housing are between zero and one per cent. We have estimated that at any one time, there are fewer than 60 vacant units that rent for $700 or less in Greater Victoria. Hundreds of individuals are seeking those units. Unfortunately, the trend is worsening due to increasing rental rates across all unit types.
This shortage affects families. It affects students. It affects seniors. It affects individuals and it affects employers looking for workers. It also affects initiatives to address homelessness. Many successful “housing first” programs use rent supplements to house those experiencing chronic homelessness in the market sector. The lack of affordable housing greatly reduces access and creates a need for more expensive rental supplements.
That brings us back to the importance of the recommendations from the mayor’s task force. In identifying these actions, they recognized there was no one magic solution. They realized that although the city doesn’t have the same capital resources as senior governments, it does have a wide variety of levers it can use to promote affordable housing. They range from permissive tax exemptions to streamlined approval processes.
The key is that they considered these options as a whole. They have prepared a comprehensive, aggressive and innovative series of recommendations that the city of Victoria has now accepted.
This was a truly collaborative process. Just to name a few, it included private developers, landlords, housing providers, the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness and those who have experienced homelessness. The result is a suite of recommendations that are grounded in realistic, impactful and achievable action items with clear targets.
Victoria is to be commended for this approach and we encourage and support them to continue its pursuit of these recommendations.
Andrew Wynn-Williams is the executive director of the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness.
