July 29, 2008

Coleman on Homelessness

One of the misleading claims Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman made when he appeared on Voice of BC, was in a response to a softball question from Jock Finlayson about how much the province is putting into housing programs. Coleman answered that the housing budget was $120 million in 2005 and over $400 million today. Palmer remarked that means it has almost tripled.

BC Housing's Annual Report and website are the best sources to check for verification of Coleman's claim. It's Annual Report for 2007/2008 includes a table (page 34) which shows that for fiscal year 2004-2005, the province contributed $158 million out of a total revenue for BC Housing of $284 million; the budget for 2008-2009 indicates $328 million from the province out of total expected revenues of $505 million. It is true that provincial contributions for housing tripled, but not between 2005 and 2008, rather over a ten year period between 1998 and 2008. BC Housing's Annual Report states:

"BC Housing received total revenues of $540 million in 2007/08, an increase of 8 per cent over the prior year. The chart on page 36 shows the change in revenue over the last ten years. Provincial contributions have almost tripled over this period which is mostly attributable to the construction of an average of almost 1,500 new affordable housing units each year. Federal contributions have almost doubled over the last ten years largely because of the devolution of federal social housing administration, building envelope repair costs and the impact of inflation on operating costs."

Although Coleman confused a three year period with a ten year period, it is still not too shabby for provincial support for housing to triple over a decade, and more than double between 2005 and 2008. A key question is what portion of that increase is reorganization, shifts from various provincial ministries to BC Housing, and transfers from the federal government, and what portion is new money.

According to the 2007-2008 Annual Report, the target was to add 941 new units in 2007-2008, but 2,437 units were added. According to the report, the increase included 425 units and 277 rent supplements under Independent Living BC (ILBC), 1,552 units (including the purchase of single room occupancy hotels) under the Provincial Homeless Initiative (PHI), 103 units under Community Partnerships Initiative (CPI), 10 units created under Aboriginal Housing Initiative (AHI) and 5 units built under the Provincial Housing Program. There were also 65 shelter beds created. That dog's breakfast of acronyms says a lot about the expansion of the housing budget. Housing programs that were once part of other ministries, principally health or welfare, are now consolidated under the administration of BC Housing.

Consider the Aboriginal Housing Initiative where, according to BC Housing's website: "In June 2006, the federal government signed the Canada - BC Social Housing Agreement , which included the transfer of the administration of approximately 2,660 off-reserve Aboriginal housing units." In total the Canada - BC Social Housing Agreement transferred the administration of 51,600 social housing units to the Province of British Columbia.

The full scope of BC Housing can be seen from a key summary paragraph on page 10 of its Annual Report:

"In total, 85,457 households in about 200 communities were assisted through BC Housing in 2007/08. Some 800 housing providers - mostly non-profit societies and housing co-operatives - manage about 57,000 units of subsidized housing and BC Housing manages 7,800 public housing units. An additional 20,370 low-income families and senior households receive portable rent supplements to pay rent in the private market through SAFER and the Rental Assistance Program."

The 2004-2005 Annual Report for BC Housing, noted on page 20 that: "In 2004/05, the existing inventory of subsidized housing helped 55,709 households including those living in public housing, nonprofit and co-op housing, as well as households receiving rent assistance in the private market."

You can see how it is difficult to determine what is old, what is reorganized and what is new when it comes to social housing in BC. In 2007-08, 85,457 households were assisted in one way or another compared to 55,709 households in 2004-2005, an increase of 29,748, but the federal government transferred responsibility for 51,600 units to BC.

Little Mountain Housing in Vancouver is an example of how statistics indicating increases can hide cuts. The oldest public housing project in Vancouver, Little Mountain had 224 units, housing about 570 people. The site is being redeveloped into a balanced mixed-income community with subsidized housing integrated into a larger business and residential community. BC Housing promises that when development is complete: "There will be no reduction in the number of subsidized housing units on the redeveloped Little Mountain site." It will be several years before anyone can determine whether the new project provides social housing for 570 people. In the meantime, 224 units are out of BC Housing's inventory. What is not readily available is a public document that provides BC Housing's full inventory.

It would help if BC Housing would list by program (ILBC, PHI, etc.) and year how many households were assisted, when the program came into existence, what resources were transferred from other areas of the federal and provincial government and what new money was allocated. A simple comparison of annual reports makes it look like the number of households helped has decreased once the federal transfer is subtracted, but that can't be accurate. Unfortunately, the 2007-2008 Annual Report does not include an inventory of housing stock by program area, let alone a comparison by program to previous years.

The 2001-2002 Annual Report for BC Housing said: "In Vancouver there are between 600 to 1,000 homeless people, with increasing numbers living in the surrounding municipalities, such as Surrey and New Westminster." The 2008 Homeless Count found 2592 people across the Metro Vancouver region homeless, an increase of 131% from its 2002 count. During his July 24th interview on Voice of BC, Coleman was asked by Bill Tieleman if he agreed with the estimate that there are 13,000 homeless people in BC. Coleman said: "Every organization throws a different number out there, so I actually have decided some time back that I wasn't going to pick a number." Palmer followed by asking how progress can be measured if you don't know how many people are homeless. Coleman replied: "Oh, that's a difficult thing to measure. It really is. We measure it in the number of people each year." Coleman explained he meant that progress is measured by the number of people who receive help, yet for the reasons discussed here, the government is not transparent with respect to the number of people it is helping. It needs to provide some straight forward statistics that separate what is old, what is reorganized, what is new, what, if any, are the net increases to the social housing stock and the number of people being assisted.