Protecting existing rental stock and working with senior levels of governments are among the ways mayoral candidates in New Westminster plan to address homelessness.
New Westminster city council recently supported a new homelessness action strategy, which is a five-year vision and plan to address homelessness and related issues in the city. It includes 46 proposed actions that the city will pursue in an effort to reduce the number people in the city who have no homes.
According to a city report, the number of unhoused people in New West grew by 53 per cent between 2008 and 2014. The number of homeless people in New Westminster also increased since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Staff attribute the increase in homelessness – which reversed some previous gains in addressing the unsheltered population – has been due to a variety of issues, such as a housing affordability crisis, an opioid epidemic, the COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather events.
At a recent meeting hosted by the Quayside Community Board and the Downtown New West Business Improvement Society, the city’s three mayoral candidates were asked how they would respond to homelessness.
Chuck Puchmayr
Independent mayoral candidate Chuck Puchmayr said he’s a volunteer director with Lookout Housing and Health Society, which provides shelter to about 1,700 people a day. With housing being a crisis in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island, he said he’ll continue advocating that all communities support people who are homeless.
“Abbotsford, remember, they once put chicken manure on a homeless camp so that the homeless wouldn't return. Abbotsford is now becoming a champion and dealing with the issue. My organization purchased land out in Chilliwack. Chilliwack has embraced us; we're looking at developing shelters,” he said. “We need other communities to pick up their fair share. We can't be the only ones that are providing resources and services for homeless. We find that 90 per cent of the homeless in those regions are people that are homeless from those regions. Those governments need to be there; they need to welcome senior levels of government, provincial and federal.”
Puchmayr said most of the people who are homeless in New West and other cities were formerly housed in those communities.
“(They) aren't coming from Alberta; they aren't coming from Toronto. Some are, but it's such a small percentage,” he said. “They need to understand that the homeless people in their community are usually people that are homeless from the community.”
Puchmayr said some of the people who are homeless have mental health and addiction issues. Others have jobs but have lost their homes, including a woman who was working fulltime and living in her vehicle.
Puchmayr said there’s a need to build a range of housing, including homes for seniors and families needing below-market rents
He said it’s important to get homeless people off the streets as they’re vulnerable and are sometimes victimized by other people.
Ken Armstrong
Ken Armstrong, mayoral candidate for the New West Progressives, said unhoused people need to be treated with respect.
“No one grows up with the ambition of being unhoused. We know that the unhoused are suffering with mental health problems, with substance abuse problems and with mental health problems caused by substance abuse problems,” he said. “And I acknowledge that we have and need to be empathetic, and we need to provide support to these residents. We need to have new creative solutions to address homelessness and that mental health and substance abuse issues that have many unhoused residents have.”
Armstrong said he supports pre-approvals for fast-tracking permitting and reducing red tape for non-profit housing projects that are consistent with the official community plan.
“We will ensure that we be the city that works with the province and the federal government to provide funding for the establishment of the necessary temporary and appropriately placed shelter spaces for identified residents,” he said. “We want to switch from a 'housing first model' to the 'not just housing model' to more of a wrap-around that includes support services.”
Armstrong said the city needs to make sure the federal and provincial governments are doing their jobs, rather than letting them download their services and their responsibilities onto the city. He noted that fellow mayoral candidate (and current city councillor) Patrick Johnstone has blogged about this issue.
“You acknowledged our city is increasing its expenses because we are being forced to do the work than other jurisdictions are, and we really need to lean on federal provincial governments to do their share of the lifting,” he said.
Patrick Johnstone
Johnstone, the Community First New West mayoral candidate, said there are two issues – and they’re being mistakenly conflated.
“Homelessness is a different issue than mental health and opioid impacts in our communities. They are overlapping issues for many people. They are different issues,” he said. “The most common path into homelessness in New Westminster is being discharged from a hospital without a home to go to. So it's not just people who are suffering from mental health and addiction problems who are ending up homeless on our streets.”
Johnstone said that's why one of the most important parts of addressing homelessness is making sure that people can stay in their homes. He said he’s proud of the work of the city has done to stop renovictions and demovictions in New West, and to encourage the construction of new rental units.
“The first step of homelessness is keeping people in their secure, affordable housing that they have,” he said.
Johnstone said the city has embraced opportunities to create housing in New West.
“I'm also proud to say that every penny of BC Housing and federal government supportive housing money that's come into this community, we have approved and is getting built,” he said. “New Westminster has not said no to new supports for housing. And it's not just in downtown. We have approved in uptown. We have supportive housing in Sapperton. We have supportive housing in Queensborough. … Every neighbourhood deserves to have a place where people can afford to live with dignity and affordability.”
Projects approved in New Westminster in the recent years include: a 96-unit apartment building at 823 to 841 Sixth St. that will provide affordable, multigenerational and multicultural homes for members of the urban Indigenous and Swahili communities; a six-unit project at 43 Hastings St. for people with disabilities and low-income families; and a 44-unit modular apartment building at 838 Ewen Ave. for women and children. Council has also approved BC Housing-funded initiatives including an nightly shelter at 502 Columbia St. and a 52-unit housing (with support services) project at 68 Sixth St. for adults at-risk of or experiencing homelessness.
Johnstone said the city needs to make sure it’s working with the federal and provincial governments to address homelessness.
“I'm always challenged when I hear people talk about ‘staying in our lane’ and municipalities not getting involved in provincial and federal governments. We need to get involved in that,” he said. “We need to be proactive and we need to build the relationships, and we need to be both pressing on them to give us the supports we need and we also need to be communicating with them so that when funding becomes available for housing, we already have relationships.”
Follow Theresa McManus on Twitter @TheresaMcManus
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