Get used to it. Everyone is going to be writing about us ad nauseam for the next year. Here’s just one sample of how we look to the outside world, from today’s Financial Times: homelessness, drug addiction, gang violence all chipping away at our beautiful image.

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Vision Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson got to deliver HIS speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade today, right after Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts’ speech to her board yesterday. Like Dianne, he promised lots of things to stimulate developers and construction: speeded up processes, some vague stuff on fee concessions that I couldn’t get a tight [...]

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Word is about to come down that the city and province will put money in to keeping the new, as they’re called, “Gregor shelters” open for a few more months, while more permanent housing is brought on board. That’s the result of intensive meetings Friday, Saturday and Sunday with Mayor Gregor Robertson, Housing Minister Rich [...]

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This illuminating email exchange went is making the rounds today in the city, with two very different approaches to finding solutions to homelessness. Hello Michael, Would you publically, along with HEAT, Streets to Home, BCS, Gregory Henriquez and Housing Providers, have a press conference and say to the province and feds that we need them [...]

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B.C.’s auditor-general issued a definite C- report card today on how the provincial government is dealing with homelessness, saying not only does it not have a clear plan for reducing it but it doesn’t even have good information on what the homelessness problem is. You can read the whole report here.

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Oops, forgot to post my story from the Globe today earlier than this. But here it is. A look at what’s going on, as the city and province try to figure out where all those 500 people now camping out at First United and a warehouse near Great Northern and in city buildings under the [...]

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The rumbling started this morning about the announcement that Housing Minister Rich Coleman was going to become the Downtown Eastside czar. As it turns out, it’s a little more than that. He’s actually being put in charge of figuring out what all is going on with homelessness, mental health and addiction in five different communities, [...]

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It’s hard to get a read on Vancouver’s homeless situation through either direct observation or statistics. Few of us monitor the streets at night to do a count and what we see in the daytime can often be deceiving. Lots of people who have homes are still out on the streets during the day. Even [...]

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Another fun morning in another unheated brick building being renovated, with the housing crowd in the province as everyone gathered at the St. Helen’s hotel on Granville Street. That was to hear the premier and Housing Minister Rich Coleman announced they had bought 601 new units around the province in 15 buildings, all as part [...]

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Off to the 9:30 press conference this morning, where the premier and Housing Minister Rich Coleman are about to announce another big end-of-year buy of residential hotels and older apartment buildings for the third year in a row. All part of the plan to secure this private stock so it can be used for housing [...]

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