Frances Bula header image 4

Province and city strike last-minute deal to open more shelter beds as young homeless population grows

December 30th, 2015 · 2 Comments

So odd that Vancouver has to go through this push and pull over opening up winter-shelter beds every year. There was some angst behind the scenes as BC Housing, aka Rich Coleman, said Vancouver would get only the same 170 beds that the city got last year, while new Vancouver-type winter shelters (open for the […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

As Metro Vancouver grapples with homelessness everywhere, new-style winter shelters spread to suburbs

October 20th, 2015 · No Comments

Fall. The leaves fall, the days get shorter, the City of Vancouver and Housing Minister Rich Coleman get into a tug of war over how much money for winter shelters for the region’s homeless people. This year, things are a bit different. The minister is spending almost a million dollars to fund the Vancouver-style shelters […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Some residents near Granville Bridge surprised, dismayed by city decision to open shelter, hotel for homeless

October 21st, 2014 · 2 Comments

The city’s swift move to open a shelter at 900 Pacific Street, in advance of any provincial decisions about winter-shelter funding, and to lease the Quality Inn for two years, in the absence of any conversations with the province about support, is a sign of Vision Vancouver ramping things up even further in its aggressive […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Vancouver hurls millions of city money into housing and shelter as deadline approaches

September 26th, 2014 · 45 Comments

Since the first day that Vision Vancouver came into power, Mayor Gregor Robertson has turned up the flame on efforts to create new shelter spaces, interim housing, and permanent housing in the city. But this week, as the election and a Dec. 31 deadline for “solving street homelessness” approaches, the city has started doing something […]

[Read more →]

Tags: 2014 Vancouver Civic Election

Imminent opening of Biltmore transitional housing in Mount Pleasant prompts community debate, promises to choose tenants ‘carefully’

November 27th, 2013 · 13 Comments

There was an announcement earlier this year that the Biltmore (or, what used to be the Biltmore at 12th and Kingsway and has until recently been a Howard Johnson’s) was going to be transformed into “transitional” housing for Vancouver’s homeless. At the time, the only queries I got on Twitter were whether that would affect […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Retired from city hall but not gone: The woman who made all us of see the homeless as people

May 31st, 2013 · 12 Comments

Vancouver’s official advocate for the homeless had her last day at city hall Thursday, along with her birthday. My story about her in the Globe is here but I wanted to add a few words. I started covering city hall for the Vancouver Sun in the fall of 1994 (when I was a toddler, of […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

A federal experiment proves that providing housing and services helps the most marginalized of the homeless stay housed. Now what?

March 1st, 2013 · 13 Comments

The Bosman Hotel has, for the last three years, essentially provided a mini-Riverview ward for those who need it in the middle of the downtown. It worked so well that even downtown business groups are worried about what will happen if it is simply shut down with no reasonable alternative for the most troubled of […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Vancouver about to kick off a rent bank to reduce homelessness

March 21st, 2012 · 8 Comments

Like Surrey, Prince George and Toronto, Vancouver is about to start a small rent bank, kicking in $150,000 of the total cost, with $350,000 coming from Streetohome, the private-sector group working on homelessness, and others. The bank is aimed at helping prevent homelessness by providing small loans to people to help them get or retain […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

News today: Foreclosure on Millennium’s West Van development; shelter opens; the other Robertson blasts park board

November 26th, 2010 · 71 Comments

Quick links to news today. – The lenders for Millennium Development’s Evelyn Drive project have gone to court to start foreclosure proceedings, according to the CBC. A real blow for Millennium, even more than the village receivership in a way. It came the morning after Bob Rennie praised them for all the work they’d done […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized

Coleman says Vancouver needs to pay half the cost of operating Gregor shelters

March 25th, 2010 · 32 Comments

The city had its day in the media sun Tuesday, with a homeless count that seemed to be proving that having more shelters is keeping people off the street. The housing minister got his day today, with his Colemanesque gentle ultimatum that, if Vancouver wants to open more shelters than the province currently funds, it […]

[Read more →]

Tags: Uncategorized