Ending Homelessness in Vancouver: It Takes a Boardroom
On the hottest day of the summer – perhaps the decade, with temperature records falling across the province – there’s one place in Vancouver where worsted wool suits remain de rigueur. A stream of women in heels and nylons and men with ties cinched tight parts around the flower beds outside the Wall Centre, regroups, then pulses in knots through the revolving doors and rejoins in a confluence coursing down the escalator to a cavernous underground ballroom. At the table of honour sit Mayor Gregor Robertson and city manager Penny Ballem; flanking them are former premier Mike Harcourt, Premier Gordon Campbell’s former adviser Ken Dobell, former attorney general Geoff Plant and Alberta Minister of Housing Yvonne Fritz.
The draw? Philip Mangano, former executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness – or less formally, former president George W. Bush’s housing czar – has come to tell Vancouver’s business community how they can end homelessness.
In carefully modulated tones – dipping at times to the humble cadence of a simple country boy, at others soaring to fire-and-brimstone admonitions – he tells the rapt audience that it’s as simple as Economics 101: supply and demand. You ask the customer what he wants, then you give it to him.
Mangano tells how he visited the now infamous HEAT shelter (which has since closed down) on Howe Street a few nights earlier and asked one of its temporary residents what he wanted most. A home, was the answer. So the solution is simple, Mangano says: you count how many people need homes, you count the number of homes available, then you draw up a business plan aimed at filling the gap between the two. The concept has caught fire south of the border; 65 cities, spanning the continent from Boston to San Diego, have drawn up detailed business plans for ending homelessness, complete with budgets, benchmarks and end dates.
And now Vancouver can be added to the list. Following the gospel of Mangano, the non-profit Streetohome Foundation has drawn up an ambitious plan that promises to end homelessness in Vancouver by 2019. The plan includes 19 specific action items based on strategies Streetohome has identified as essential to ending homelessness. For example, one action might be to invest in creating 200 housing units for a particular at-risk population, such as young addicted aboriginal mothers.
The Vancouver Foundation got Streetohome off the ground by providing $500,000 in seed funding, and the City of Vancouver and the province each kicked in a matching amount. Streetohome has amassed an impressive coalition in recent months, with heavy hitters from government and business sharing space around the board table and including the support of front-line social-service providers. On the corporate side, board members include mining magnate Frank Giustra, Intrawest LLC founder Joe Houssian and BC Hydro president and CEO Bob Elton, while BC Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay represents the province and Penny Ballem speaks for the city. Influential former politicians and bureaucrats round out the board, including Harcourt, Plant and former Vancouver Coastal Health CEO Ida Goodreau.
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