On June 27, 2024, I participated in a pitch competition offered by the Institute of Public Administration Canada (IPAC). The topic of the pitch competition was Housing and Homelessness: Community Solutions. We only had 3 minutes to speak and we could use a single slide (here’s an image of mine below).
I’ve created a movie that gives more context than I could give in the presentation and there’s also a PDF of the slides within the movie that contains links to all the things I mention in the movie.
I’ve reproduced the text of my talk below and it is also available as a PDF.
Housing is the solution to homelessness – but homes that most of us can afford are not being built in Victoria at anywhere near the speed that is needed.
Instead of talking about housing tonight I am going to speak about how to better support unhoused people during their long debilitating wait for a home.
Options for where to live in Victoria if you are unhoused are steadily decreasing.
In just over a month, Irving Park and Vic West Park will close to overnight sheltering, leaving only 3 parks available where this is permitted in the city.
A campaign of bylaw sweeps displaces people frequently and causes immense suffering and harm. Where are unhoused people supposed to go?
Housed people would probably respond they could go to shelters but these facilities are often the last resort for many unhoused people- they are often full to capacity, unsafe for women and gender diverse people, lacking in privacy and cleanliness, places where violence and theft are disturbingly common, and some even require you to vacate the premises during the day.
Additionally, often neighborhoods where such shelters and other homeless serving facilities are located are those that are less affluent and have a higher proportion of households that rent and residents who identify as a visible minority. This breaks the rule of neighbourhood development from Chuck Marohn of strong towns which I have up here on the slide. It’s inequitable and unfair and not surprisingly can cause a lot of resentment and people who are living in or using the services of such facilities feel unwelcome.
The Housing in a hurry initiative addresses these problems by creating micro scale clusters of no more than 5 sheds on available land, whether it be vacant or city owned, in multiple neighbourhoods. These sheds are about the same size as the units at Caledonia Place though at $1,500 each they are much less expensive and quicker to erect. Sanitation and power can be quickly and inexpensively deployed using ready made and locally sourced solutions that will also be climate friendly.
The next step for this initiative would be to run it by people with lived and living experience of homelessness and ask for their feedback and comments.
I acknowledge that this initiative is a departure from the usual top-down large-scale approach and in that I believe lies both its challenges – it will be a lot of work – and its potential to create a truly community-led, person-centric intervention that can create a durable solution to the challenge of keeping unhoused people safe and well while they wait for housing and also creating a more positive experience for the housed neighbours around them.
Neighbourhood Solidarity with Unhoused Neighbours 