Modular/Homeless Housing in Expensive Neighborhoods?
 

Anyone noticed that the trend is to house our homeless or build services for them in the most expensive neighborhoods? Most cities I've seen seem to build their homeless areas & support services on the cheapest real estate possible. Instead we're seeing a large chunk of downtown, Olympic Village, areas of central Vancouver, housing areas in Marpole, etc. used. Pieces of real estate that we could have sold for a high enough price that we could have bought double the amount of housing in East Van (and likely 4x in Abbotsford). We're building modular housing in places where we could have had million dollar condos, areas that are considered "luxury".

If they were building this housing by support services or transit I might understand the extra expense, but it appears that were just building it in random highly visible areas across Vancouver.

I have this nasty suspicion that we are building it in highly visible areas so that the government can show it off as propaganda rather than get the most bang for our buck.

It's being built in all neighbourhoods because building it in the cheapest locations only causes ghettos.

This is most definitely a good thing.

It's my understanding these are City-owned lands already.

The idea is to retain the land for affordable or social housing uses. They will have support services in-house, and are usually in not always located near amenities/services/transit, as a part of their criteria.

Southeast False Creek is not and was never intended to be a dominantly rich neighbourhood and has a mix of housing types in it already and is a part of the community guidelines.
4480 Kaslo St is in a regular East Van 'hood adjacent transit.
1131 Franklin St is in the DTES.

I'm definietly not sure you'd want to sell (or even manage) public lands for expensive strata developments in place of social housing. Also not sure why you'd develop social housing in Abbostford instead of even the DTES, which the City and private sector does a lot, where there is better access to services and jobs in the central Vancouver area.

Is the proper intent to sell public lands at the cited and much talked about issue of inflated land prices (central land that most likely can be rezoned or is zoned for higher density and height) and then to buy less expensive land in the East End, rezone it, have less height and density... but get more units?

As per "social housing downtown" are you refering to for example the new development at 58 W Hastings?

I asked this in another thread.

I agree that concentration can create ghettos. Is there actually evidence that the opposite is true?

Does it actually help the homeless to be in an high income neighbourhood? Does it lead to higher recovery rates? Does it lead to more positive results in general?

It seems that all it does in Vancouver is spread needles and garbage to a wider area of town instead of DTES.

Speaking as someone involved in this I can cite several examples of social housing unloading its burdens on the buildings around them, especially the social housing in Downtown and East Van. The residents of one of my buildings told me that the social housing nearby used to be a women's shelter and they were happy to support that, it then got filled with drug users and psychos. You get constant people shooting up/sleeping at the buildings, you can them constantly using the dumpster/back as a dumping ground, constant noise complaints, etc. One distinct example is when one complex across the alley switched from a central bin to having each unit have their own pullout (their bin constantly had a junk pile around it). Instead they now go across the alley and use our bin as a dumping ground as none of them are willing to use the pullout system. Complaints fell on deaf ears as they housing organization takes no responsibility and as they are province rather than city run you can't even call 311.

To me it makes sense to have one centrally located place where we build the housing, support services, etc. on a cheap piece of real estate no one wants. Why spread it out to make it everyone else's problem? The 650 West 57th building near 3 schools did not win any friends and lets be honest, the safety and security of the people who have screwed their lives up is second to those who are in school and still developing.

Anyway this wasn't meant to be a flame thread, its meant to discuss why the city took the plan it did. How did downtown and other wealthy areas end up being homeless central and why do we put most homeless there?

This is a bunch of hate filled B.S. Most of the homeless were born and raised in Canada, true Canadian citizens like the rest of us, they can be, and will be, in any neighbourhood in the city. THERE IS NO LESSER CITIZEN IN THIS COUNTRY.

It's called CANADIAN VALUES.

Get that??? Understand???

There is a country across the Pacific.ocean that sometimes houses their homeless in cages. You might like living there.

I think I can understand the line of your questioning of the City and province from an economics POV. It is indeed more multifaceted than that, for better and/or worse at times.

But noted not all social housing is the same, nor is it all run the same. I think it appears the issues you cited (and I can agree on certain projects) is those who run it. Public and private entities run it differently and some SROs can be difficult.


Social housing can have those with additction issues, recovering from addicition, recently homeless, homeless for years, singles, families, seniors. It's definitely complicated.

Very off topic here but there are definitely lesser citizens in our country. According to this article https://globalnews.ca/news/4334063/b...tion-projects/ certain segments of our population have hiring priority. The same goes for your ethnicity when you apply for university (certain ethnicities make it much easier to get in), your gender when applying for scholarships (more for females), etc. Children have more legal protections then adults, adults have more legal independence, women have more social services, youth have more clinic options, etc. Foreigners and non-citizens have a lot less rights than Canadians. Refugees have more rights and protections than average Canadians. In the end the caucasian male is the lesser citizen in our country.

I will be the one who says that I definitely prioritize the safety of children who have a future rather than those who will likely never recover from their drug addictions/mental illness.

To put your words where your mouth is, go rent a place by main & hastings, then move your wife and kids into it. Have your kids walk by main &hastings everyday to school. Then I will give you kudos for sticking to your guns as I call child services and I'll see if child services agrees with your views on how to raise your children :tup: Seriously, I dare you to respond to this thread saying that your ok with this because this is what you just asked we impose on everyone else. If you do not then it shows that you are a hypocrite because you just asked everyone else to do this.


PS: If your referring to China I've been told that they provide housing to homeless (around 6 bunks a room) from friends but I cannot confirm this. Its not the best system but they do provide something. I've also been told its very embarrassing in Chinese culture to beg so most will do their best to find work somewhere or live with their family, usually its only the crippled or disabled on the street. In comparison our great country closed down all the mental hospitals and pushed them all out onto the street....so lets not get onto any high horses here, in general we're no better than others.

The same statement for moving "better off children and families to Main and Hastings (a concentration of homelessness) as being an issue can be applied to families that either are or would be living in social housing at that same intersection and walk to their basic needs every day. Many would argue that those families that live in social housing, or those that are not drug addicts, would be better off for society in the long run and for their well-being to live in a different area than the intersection of Main and Hastings.


I believe you're conflating housing (all 3 definitions of social housing and singles an families), mental health, addiction, and cronic homelessness.

I'd recommend this reading for 4480 Kaslo St:

https://vancouver.ca/people-programs...pdSection48576

https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/kaslo...n-20180311.pdf


We are currently in the process of rezoning for one 100% social housing building that is (as the City requires) a mix of 3 BC Housing determined rates in the DTES, and another one that has a portion of social housing, as determined by the area plan. The second building is strata with a fully integrated social housing component. The social housing is opertated by a non-profit and most of them are for families. Social housing isn't a shoe fits all.

This was all discussed a couple of weeks ago in the General Vancouver thread. These projects are being built on wherever the City currently owns a site big enough to take the buildings that is not needed for a few years. The next site will be 898 Main Street which is on the corner of Main and Union where the viaducts will be coming down. That's also a 50 unit building. Despite some statements suggesting that the City owns a lot of land where housing could be provided, there isn't much that doesn't have an existing building meeting some other need. Most of the vacant sites seem to have been used for these temporary modular buildings. The value of the land, or how it will get developed in a few years time is entirely immaterial.

Many - most - of the people around Hastings and Main aren't homeless. The concentration of SRO and non-market housing in that area, and of people with mental health and substance abuse issues is not a coincidence, and many support services for that population can be found around there as well. Unlike some other Metro Vancouver municipalities, The City of Vancouver has stepped up and offered ten locations for temporary modular housing to help reduce street and shelter homelessness.

Prioritizing people has nothing to do with the homeless, nice try. To me, that's hate talk. This is a country where values mean we equalize benefits for all, we are all the same. No one has more rights than others.

I don't care what China does, and I definitively don't want those values being imposed in our city and country. I will always be against any attempts to do so.

As far as the downtown eastside, these are people that need help, and in our city, we will help. Maybe you should rent down there and get some perspective. I will support the modular housing in the city owned land, wherever that may be. My child was born and grew up in this city, no needles were stepped on.

Plus personal attacks, calling me a hypocrite, is no way to gain support.

There are plenty of successful social housing developments spread out in locations such as Kits/Yaletown/Mt Pleasant/Killarney

Your entirely wrong, First Nations do have more rights than the average Canadian, the poor do have more rights than the rich, children do have more legal protections than adults. Your the one that brought up asia. If your child never stepped on a needle then you definitely don't live near any social housing so stop pushing others to. I've had people from social housing stuff needles in the doorways of buildings so that they would fall on people when they opened the door, I've had them shoot up outside the lobbies of buildings where people come in and out, I've had them wait outside the door for people to let them in so they can vandalize or rob the building, I've had them shit all over the stairwells and elevators, I've had them write crazy rambling poetry on the side of every single bloody stair in the emergency stairwell for three stories. I know one building where the planters are full of needles every day a block away from the police station (but across the street from social housing).

These are just the stories I have. I have stories from others about how one guy went to the top floor of a building's stairwell and opened the fire faucet flooding all 20 stories and causing over a million dollars in water damage, I have seen one building surrounded by homeless lying on the street while police ignore it.

I agree with Gen's point that I am not differentiating the types of people in social housing, I am referring to those with mental or drug related issues rather than those who need temporary help and likely will improve. But in the end, you have your kid get stuck with a needle, step in human shit, etc. Then you can tell others that I'm ok with it and you should be too. Instead of creating a ghetto in one small area we are turning our whole city into a ghetto. By spreading this out in neighborhoods where kids walk the streets (and are used to being safe) we are taking huge risks just to please certain elements of our society who have no experience living beside social housing but think we're exaggerating the experience. I challenge you to find one father with a family living beside social housing (the ones that house drug users) who enjoyed the experience and let their children walk beside it.

Its very easy to say people should be ok with something but its a whole other thing to actually experience it yourself. If your willing to risk your childrens or other peoples childrens lives for this then you are a monster. I hope I've convinced you to reconsider but I suspect I haven't. Perhaps try taking your children for a walk past main and hastings along hastings at 6pm or later then see if your mind may have changed.

What the hell are you talking about? The poor have more rights? And please, bringing first nations in a topic like this is pathetic. First of all, they were repressed for a long time, if you have any clue of the history, you would know that. They do not have more rights. If they do, prove it.

In fact prove it all, since you are so sure about it, links, citations, documents, etc. I'll be waiting.

I have walked many times through Hastings. I've lived near social housing, I know families and people in social housing, you're the monster for berating poor people. I'm a long time resident of this city. You can't put words in my mouth.

The Rickshaw Theatre (that I've been to quite a few times) is just over from Main and Hastings. I've walked there after midnight and while some of the people may look sketchy, I've never had a problem with anyone. Sure it's not the nicest area but it isn't the seven gates of hell either. :rolleyes:

I've been to the Rickshaw many time as well, since the mid 90's. And the Imperial, and many other venues and night spots around Chinatown and Main and Hastings. I agree, I have never had an issue. People there just leave you alone, thy're in another universe ;)

Is there no limit to generosity?

How many chances do you give someone?

Do you not finally take away some freedom if a person is completely unwilling to take responsibility and change but expects endless support?

Its fine and dramatic to say "no lesser citizen in this country" but that's not really true is it?

How can the persons supporting this system of welfare not want to claim some sort of recognition? It is literally the labour and productivity of one group used to shelter and feed another, nothing inherently wrong with this, but its certainly true.

And to make this abundantly clear - I am absolutely not saying we should somehow cut all social support, but there is a difference between a helping hand and lifelong support.