As Currents recently reported, homelessness is not just “an American thing,” or “a big-city thing,” or even “a Vancouver Island thing.” Homelessness is also here on Cortes, where a recent survey found that about 50 people rated their housing situation as “unstable,” and 11 were living rough (with no permanent shelter, in tents or other makeshift accommodation).
Although “housing” might sound like a single issue, it has has knock-on effects throughout our community.
Homelessness contributes significantly to the “derelict boat” problem haunting Cortes’ harbours and other waterfronts. Lack of affordable housing contributes significantly to the difficulty island businesses face in hiring adequate staff. Lack of affordable housing contributes to a shortage of the basic support services that many of Cortes’ older and more secure residents need as they age in place: firewood, gardening, gutter and roof cleaning, etc. Lack of affordable housing closes off options, leaving some women unable to leave abusive domestic situations. Though a relatively small number of Cortes residents are housing-insecure, the phenomenon of housing insecurity affects us all.
In Campbell River, homelessness increasingly impacts the downtown area, troubling shoppers and frustrating business owners. Some homeless people suffer from mental health issues, substance abuse issues, and/or PTSD. Their behaviour can be erratic and sometimes alarming. They are, on the other hand, also uniquely vulnerable to theft, harassment and violence — as in the recent, scandalous incidents in which Campbell River teens attacked homeless people.
Throughout BC, municipalities are struggling with “the homeless problem.”
So far, Campbell River’s approach has been “management” of the problem, sometimes with an emphasis on containment or control. A couple of years ago, the city proposed to spend $200,000 on a high-tech public toilet that would be “homeless-proof.” There have been repeated calls for more police to patrol the downtown area, and even for forcible removal of the homeless to “somewhere else.”
Long time city councillor, ex-Mayor, and mayoral candidate Charlie Cornfield said during the most recent electoral season that “Spending the night in jail is compassionate. They are safe, and warm even if for a short time.” But this old-school, punitive approach is beginning to be recognised as futile.
In other cities — both internationally and locally — a different approach has been tried. In Finland, for example, there was a serious “homelessness problem” in the capital city of Helsinki. Traditional tools like policing, soup kitchens, and hostels or night shelters were not working In 2019, the Finnish government decided to try the Housing First principle — after a group consisting of a doctor, a social scientist, a bishop and a politician authored a game-changing report to the government.
The authors suggested that the “staircase of good conduct” model Finland had used in the past was simply not working. In that model, the homeless person is offered temporary accommodation and meals over a series of “self-improvement” stages, with permanent housing as the eventual reward for good behaviour. The authors turned the problem on its head and asked whether the lack of a secure, private home to call one’s own was the root problem making it so hard for people to turn their lives around.
They proposed a new approach: first, provide the homeless person with a home. Then work with them to increase their independence and ability to support themselves. Finland converted shelters into apartments, purchased some apartment blocks outright, and hired staff to manage the properties and support the newly-housed tenants.
The project was expensive. But a recent review and appraisal shows that the savings in emergency medical care, social service emergencies, and police/court time totals as much as $15,000 Euro per year per person in supported housing. The spectacular success of the Finnish experiment has encouraged other European governments to question their approach to homelessness. Projects inspired by Finland’s success are popping up worldwide.
Three Vancouver Island mayors have embarked on a similarly visionary solution to their respective homeless problems. Victoria, Duncan, and Port Alberni have built, or are building, “tiny villages” — clusters of tiny homes — with a view to transitioning “street people” into permanent housing.
In Victoria and Duncan, city authorities purchased shipping containers for conversion into secure, warm one-person tiny homes. Victoria spent $500,000 to make 30 inhabitable homes; Duncan built 35. In each case, the “tiny village” clusters around shared laundry and washroom facilities, social spaces and gardens. Each village has round-the-clock staffing to offer residents help with anything from meals to counselling and support in job-seeking.
In Duncan, almost 80 percent of tiny-village residents are now engaged in employment programmes. Not surprisingly, it is easier to find and hold down a job if one has a secure place to sleep, eat, do laundry and take a shower.
The tiny villages faced the inevitable push-back from local citizens afraid of homeless people. In Duncan, a petition with 600 signatures was submitted opposing the project; but four months later, even the opponents admit that it seems to be working. There have been some issues for immediate neighbours, but so far they seem to involve unhoused people, not those already sheltered.
Port Alberni, facing its own homelessness problem, took a look at what was happening in Victoria and Duncan; encouraged by the successes there, Mayor Sharie Minions has embarked on a project to provide 30 “sleeping pods” and full-time on-site support to homeless people and prior residents of a badly-run-down trailer park.
Each of the three mayors reported that senior levels of government were uninterested in funding their projects because of their small scale and requirement for full-time support staff. They seem expensive on the surface; but all three mayors agree with FInland’s analysis — getting people off the street and into secure homes is a money-saver over all.
Campbell River already spends $10M per year on its policing contract with RCMP. The average salary for an officer is around $100K/year. And as a recent computer gaming experiment suggests, there’s no evidence that introducing more and heavier policing does anything but cost municipalities more money, without solving the problem.
On Cortes, the notion of a “tiny village” has been proposed more than once as a possible solution to our own local homelessness problem and our chronic shortage of affordable housing. The rise of AirBnB, absentee ownership, and a BC real estate bubble have combined to reduce the affordable rental market on the island to nearly nil. Home ownership is an unrealistic dream for most younger people, and even finding a room for rent is a challenge. Providing secure, year-round housing at an affordable rent — perhaps with option to purchase or lease long-term — would greatly benefit not only local businesses, but the whole community.
Cortes has a steady supply of construction-grade wood from the Community Forest partnership, and plenty of local know-how in the form of carpenters, builders, and tiny house designers. However, the enthusiasm for building “tiny villages” has so far been stymied by two things: the general failure of planning departments to come to terms with the tiny house as a concept, and our out-of-date (now 20 years old) zoning bylaw.
Tiny houses, often built to be transportable, do not fit neatly into building code categories. They are not RVs (which must comply with a raft of regulations of a vehicular flavour), nor are they permanent structures or mobile homes as legally defined. A tiny-house village can’t qualify as an RV park, and yet it is not a subdivision or a condo complex either. Tiny houses are in zoning limbo.
Perhaps Cortes Island can benefit from the experience of Duncan, Victoria, and Port Alberni; they found ways to modify or expand their zoning bylaws to enable the creation of “tiny villages” to shelter previously unhoused people.
Although in recent years the relationship between Cortes and the SRD Board has been strained, Noba Anderson said in her exit interview with Currents that she felt this might change with some new faces at that table and a new Regional Director for our Area. “I think Mark [Vonesch] will have a better time of it,” she said. “If he can finish the update of the zoning bylaw, that would be mammoth… I know he’s really passionate about housing, he’s been involved with the Housing Society.”
(Currents attempted to contact Mark Vonesch for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.)