"GVRD doubled its estimate of the homeless population across Greater Vancouver. From a 1,200-person count in 2002, the current estimate has now doubled to 2,400, GVRD planner Verna Semotuk reports. "Service providers and shelters are all saying that their numbers have spiked," Semotuk says in a phone interview, explaining the dramatic increase in the homeless count. "We're now seeing some of the results of [social-assistance] cuts made two years ago."
Such widespread and rapid growth is almost unprecedented in postSecond World War Canadian history. Other centres like Toronto and Calgary have, to some degree, anticipated the boom in homelessness, although both have had mixed success. And with a B.C. provincial government that spends most of its housing dollars on "supportive" housing that offers little relief to the destitute, and a federal government that has yet to champion a national plan on homelessness, Greater Vancouver is proving itself surprisingly vulnerable.
What really scares everyone, homeless and outreach workers alike, is the new eligibility rules for provincial income assistance that are expected to take effect as early as the end of March. Based on limits that restrict recipients to only two years of benefits in a five-year period, the new rules are expected to cull tens of thousands of people from B.C.'s welfare rolls. (Leaked government documents from last October estimated 29,000 people might be cut off across B.C., and 6,300 in Vancouver alone.) Municipal politicians estimate that the welfare cuts could deliver anywhere from 600 to 2,000 new homeless to the streets of the GVRD. If that maximum figure happens, it would represent an enormous increase in homelessness within two years.
So what does this mean for Vancouver?
"Absolute disaster," says Mayor Larry Campbell, noting that 2004 began with a cold snap that filled shelters to capacity. "I mean, 200 I might be able to handle, but 2,000, I mean, it just can't happen."
The plain fact is this: with human overflow from outer municipalities, and with some of those districts clearly ill-equipped to manage existing social problems, downtown Vancouver could see an influx of the destitute from across the region and the province, and possibly end up rivalling Toronto as the homeless capital of Canada. "I would like to not believe that the [Liberal] government would put that much stress, any more stress on the system," Campbell says, struggling to comprehend the possibilities. "It simply can't handle it; it just cannot handle it."