Three island mayors from diverse communities – Victoria, Port Alberni and Duncan – shared stories of their successes in setting up transitional housing for those experiencing homelessness.
Mayor Lisa Helps from the City of Victoria reviewed how the City worked with organizations including Aryze Development, the Greater Victoria Coalition to End Homelessness, and the North Park Community Association to establish sea container-based housing in a city parking lot. Mayor Helps said they “wanted the TTV to feel like it had a sense of place, a sense of home” while recognizing it was not a permanent solution. After initially finding something transitional like this hard to get their heads around, BC Housing did come on board, and Island Health and others provided outreach support.
Care was taken to make the outside friendly and beautiful to help with neighbourhood integration. The North Park Neighbourhood Association embraced the people who were moving in, and this sent important messages about who was welcome in the community. 580 residents donated to make TTV a reality until 2023 when it will be dismantled.
Mayor Shari Minions said the City of Port Alberni’s project was at a much earlier stage. The situation they tackled was an illegal trailer park, a place that made her feel sad to drive by, and ‘where those who don’t have anywhere else to be ended up living in horrible conditions at risk from crime, violence and fire”.
When the property next door to the trailer park became available, the City purchased the property and invited local first nations to join an emergency task force. Together, they “made a request for funding to the government they couldn’t say no to”. The site has been cleaned up, and the City is ready to construct the housing pods and move the residents from the property next door. “We are very optimistic that before winter we’ll be able to have people living in a much better environment,” said Mayor Minions.
Finally, Mayor Michelle Staples from the City of Duncan explained how “The Village” in Duncan was created. Again, it was up to the local government to provide the property for housing. “We went to the province and were denied.”
Initially, there was a great deal of opposition to The Village through a petition with over 600 signatures. The City went ahead with setting up 36 individual purpose-built units with communal bathrooms and shared community space and vegetable gardens. There are 2 shelter resource workers on site from 8 am to 12 am who support residents with day-to-day needs, case planning and goals, and work with other service providers to support the residents. There are also two security guards on site.
The Mayor shared a few statistics – disturbances have decreased by about 50%, 79% of residents are engaged in employment and pre-employment, and there is an 100% reported improvement in resident health. “This is not the solution but is definitely a transition solution that will take us to where we need to go to take care of vulnerable people in our community.”