Developing a DTES Community Plan to end homelessness
By Jean Swanson
February 2023
If you were the king or a person with a lot of power, what would you do to deal with the homeless situation in the DTES??
Right now we have at least about 500 unhoused people in the city who are literally living on the street and another 1500 minimum (another homeless count is happening in March) who use shelters. There is virtually no housing available that they can afford.
Some new social housing is being built, by my count, about 1071 units have been proposed just for the DTES. BUT only about 383 will be at shelter rate. UNLESS WE CAN CHANGE THAT! And it will take years for them all to be built.
More new social housing is in the works outside the DTES: 700 -800 units, but even less of that is at shelter rate, maybe 250 units.
So even if we look 4-5 years down the road, we don't have enough housing in the works to house folks who are homeless now, let alone anyone new who becomes homeless. And this doesn't count for the shelter rate units we lose, like the 46 units of modular housing that we lost at Little Mountain, the 71 units at Winters that burned down, and all the SRO units that are lost because landlords evict tenants so they can charge higher rents.
What can we do about this in the short term? Do we want better tent cities or tiny home villages? If so, what kind of management should they have? Or would this become acceptable and reduce the pressure for getting good housing? What can we do about the SRO's? Are there any good SRO's? How can we, as a DTES community, build pressure for the proper, dignified housing that everyone deserves?
At City Hall everyone talks about "wrap around services". Do we need more "services" and if so what kind?
And what about that $375 welfare and disability shelter rate? UGH!!!
Over the next few months I'm going to be working on behalf of the Carnegie Community Centre Association Board to try to develop a plan that hopefully we can all get behind, with short and long term goals, to end homelessness in the DTES. I'll be reporting to the Board through the Community Relations Committee that meets monthly. I hope to talk to folks living in the tents and doorways about what they want and need, and to folks in lots of the community-based groups to get their ideas too. Hopefully we can have a town hall meeting when we get some ideas and decide together what we want to push our governments to do.
If you have ideas on ending homelessness and want to get in touch with me, you can,
1. Email me at jean.swanson@gmail.com. Put "ending homelessness" in the subject line; or
2. Leave a note for me under the door of the Carnegie Association office on the second floor of Carnegie (just to the left of the stairs)
Thanks everyone. I hope we can work on this together and get a plan that governments can't resist or at least a plan that we all want to fight for.
