Shelters could close July 1: mayor

Shelters could close July 1: mayor

Emergency homeless shelters, including two that irked condo owners near the Granville Street Bridge, will close July 1 if the city does not get funding from the province, Mayor Gregor Robertson told a news conference Thursday.

He also said the city will ban drug users and troublemakers from the two shelters that have generated complaints from neighbours.

Robertson said he was pushing the province to provide $26 million over the next five years to pay for the five emergency shelters and interim housing.

The emergency shelters are funded through June 30. It would cost at least $6 million to keep the shelters open through April 2010, he said.

Robertson said he is optimistic the province will provide the money, saying the lack of funding would be a "huge disappointment."

The five so-called "low-barrier" shelters permit shopping carts, pets and drug use, a move designed to lure homeless people reluctant to use shelters, Robertson said.

The city opened the shelters, also called HEAT shelters, for Homeless Emergency Action Team, after a homeless woman who had used candles to keep warm died in December when her belongings caught fire. She hadn't used shelters because none of them allowed her to bring her shopping cart.

The city wasn't required to obtain permits for the emergency shelters, so residents were not consulted.

Two shelters were opened close to the location at Davie Street and Hornby, where the homeless woman lived.

Condo owners nearby have complained the shelters, which house 38 people, brought drug use and crime to the neighbourhood.

"The neighbours have every reason to be upset," Robertson said.

Kailin See, who works at the PHS Community Services Society, said the neighbourhood residents should have been consulted. But she said the other three shelters probably have the same problems, though no one complains because they are in the Downtown Eastside.

Robertson said that in addition to banning problematic shelter users, the city also will more closely supervise the homeless who stay at the shelters.

He said he is working with the province to keep the shelters open 24 hours a day so residents would not be forced on the streets during the day.

He said the shopping carts and pets haven't been a problem and would still be permitted in all five emergency shelters. He said the other three emergency shelters have been calm and would remain low-barrier shelters.

Robertson said it is "deplorable" that more than 1,500 people sleep on the streets each night, but that shelters are a temporary solution. He repeated his determination to find a long-term solution -- housing the homeless -- and said he's still on target to end homelessness in Vancouver by 2015. "I don't see the 2015 goal in jeopardy now," he said.

He said Vancouver will be in the spotlight during the Winter Olympics in February.

"If people think that the homelessness problem is an embarrassment now, just wait until February 2010, when the world's media are literally just blocks from the Downtown Eastside and the core of this challenge," Robertson said.

The city said in a news release that the province has committed to permanent social housing, including the purchase of 23 single-room occupancy hotels, social housing on 14 city sites and redeveloping the Little Mountain site. But the province's units won't be ready for three to five years, Robertson said.