Housing First Delegates Say P.G. Not Starting from Scratch

Thursday, October 16, 2008 11:18 AM

Prince George, B.C.- Back from Portland Oregon, delegates who travelled to the U.S.City to examine it's Housing First strategy to end homelessness have come home with positive ideas and momentum.

Some of the components used in Portland that may be particularly useful in Prince George include:

A full spectrum of housing services from emergency shelters to affordable market housing
Multi sectoral cooperation and collaboration
A downtown clean and safe program

“It will take partnerships” says City of Prince George Social Policy facilitator Chris Bone. She says the business community in Portland supports the program in that City pumping lots of money into it. On this side of the border, funding may be required by the business community but there would also be funding from the City, Provincial and Federal Governments.

Five years into it’s ten year plan, the city of Portland has already succeeded in getting 1500 people off the streets under the Housing First program. The strategy is, find housing first, then deal with the other problems.

City councillor Murry Krause was one of the delegates to take the trip “Too often we try to get the person clean or sober first, when what they really need is a roof over their heads before they can deal with the other issues” says Krause.

Portland has a distinct advantage in that is had a lot of buildings which could be converted to housing, that is not the case here although the City does own quite a bit of raw land.

Krause says the next step will be to invite delegates from Victoria, which is developing its own housing first strategy, to come to Prince George and talk with agencies here. There is good news says Krause “We learned that many of the programs and services offered in Portland are already operating here, so we won’t be starting from scratch.”

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Posted on Thursday, October 16, 2008 11:18 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: gus on October 16 2008 1:16 PM

One has to ask themselves why the obvious eludes us so often. Fix their addiction problem first and then find a roof over their head. Sort of like telling those who are up at Baldy Hughes ... fix your addiction problem and then come and live with us to learn how to become a productive member of society once more.

We have one approach right at our doorsteps. Are we using that resource plus the many others we have?

Hopefully the City will scour the community to find existing housing that is underutilized or buildings that can be converted into housing and only build new housing if there is none.

Posted by: RRrabbitt on October 16 2008 1:17 PM

Okay, sounds like a good trip.

What hard data is there to illustrate the subsequent success measurements of the 1500 sheltered folks ??? Have these people become productive, tax paying citizens ??

From what the courts have said, Victoria has already solved their problems by making it legal for folks to camp in the City's public parklands. Which, by extension, invites every "nice weather seeking" homeless person in Canada to head for Victoria this winter !!!

There should be plenty of empty buildings downtown in PG to serve the need ... and now that the needle exchange is giving out free crack pipes along with the free needles in the misguided pursuit of "harm reduction", everyone should be very comfy and snug... with the exception of those who head for Victoria's hospitality. :-)

V.

Posted by: YamaDooPolCat on October 16 2008 3:48 PM

They even put areas of the city aside for graffiti. In essence, why fight it. Just allow parts of the city to slide into a pile of dumdum. There is enough riff-raff with government money or drug money so the landlords can keep paying their taxes, so why not?

Canada has always been a land that is managed for the lowest common denominator. We can lower our expectations and pee on what our ancestors built. It's history. Has this happened in history before? And is there something from our past that says what the future will usually be?

And that folks, is why history repeats.

Posted by: gus on October 16 2008 7:13 PM

Has it happened in history before? - All over the place throughout time. Some more famous than others. What to you think the "untouchables" are in India? Debtors prisons in England. Then there were those who rebelled and wanted bread to eat and were told they could eat cake. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Slavery has been gone for less than 150 years in North America and has not left the world yet. American are are still seeing the remnants. There is continuing disdain for those who have less than others think they should have and it is the poor and social outcasts who are at fault. Nothing has changed other than the absolute severity of the outcome. The relative severity is still the same.

Posted by: Bridge on October 17 2008 9:25 AM

Good analogy Gus. We seem to be able to fix one problem and then create another. That is we have affluence for some but do not care about others.

Cheers