Homelessness in BC

In anticipation of tomorrow’s provincial budget in British Columbia (BC), I’ve written a blog post about the state of homelessness in that province.

Points raised in the blog post include the following:

-Public operating spending by BC’s provincial government has decreased over the past 20 years.

-Even after controlling for inflation, average rent levels across the province increased by 24% between 1990 and 2016.

-Over the past several decades, various reforms to BC’s social assistance system have made it harder to qualify for benefits and have resulted in lower benefit levels to those who are eligible.

-A lack of affordable housing is making it very challenging for front-line practitioners to practice the ‘housing first’ approach (i.e., providing a homeless person with immediate access to affordable housing).

-BC’s new NDP government has undertaken important initiatives that may have the effect of reducing homelessness.

The full blog post can be found at this link.