Thursday, May 8, 2025





 BC Housing: An Insiders View


In 2016 after 5 years of dedicated service as Resident Caretaker, I was sent a letter by the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD), my employer, just before Christmas. It informed me that my services as caretaker in Crippen Park on Bowen Island were no longer needed. Further it stated I was to vacate the cottage I had been renting from GVRD  by December 31. Merry Christmas!


Shocked and dismayed , recently having received a terminal disease diagnosis, I challenged the ‘without cause’ dismissal and eviction, eventually receiving a monetary settlement from GVRD. I then turned to the BC Housing Registry and made an application for disability housing. 


Having called in every 6 months as required to keep my housing application current, I patiently waited and waited for years. As I waited I reviewed the apartments operated by BC Housing and recognized my grandparents former building! Sunnyside Manor, in West Vancouver, built solidly in concrete, this place held many happy memories of dinners at our Babushka’s while our single mom pursued  graduate studies at night after her day of teaching high school on the Northshore. 


I decided to stop by and have a look at how the old place was doing. Covid was past it’s peak and people were starting to move about. At Sunnyside this was not evident. There were outdated warning signs and incorrect health protocol instructions posted by BC Housing on the windows and doors. Furniture in the lobby was upturned to prevent use and yellow caution tape was wrapped haphazardly between upside-down chairs and couches. Interestingly I noticed the intercom directory was missing many unit numbers and names. It appeared to be about 18 units short. I was curious as to why in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a housing crisis, there appeared to be unoccupied units.



I took a picture of the directory and looked up some of the names on canada 411. I called several of the numbers and talked with the people who were currently living in the building. I asked them general questions about the quality of building management and overall conditions. I learned the longtime resident caretaker had left and had not been replaced. I learned that lightbulbs were often burnout for extended periods, one was out for over 2 years! I also made a friend and was invited into the building to have tea with her. She has lived in the building for 23 years and had recently had hip replacement surgery after tripping on her worn out and lumpy carpet which had been in her place for over 23 years!! 




She told me there were quite a few empty apartments and said the one immediately beside her has been empty for over 1 year. I contacted the BC Housing manager asking how many empty units and he told me there were a ‘few’  that were reserved for tenants who would be disrupted by upcoming renovations. Upcoming turned out to be over 2 years.  More on this later. When he wouldn’t tell me the actual number I did a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to BC Housing. They denied my request under some bizarre claim of protecting personal information. How empty apartments could expose personal information is beyond me. 


This would delay the request for years as the backlog is considerable with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. As It turned out their denial of my request gave me the incentive to look for other sources of information. I made FOI’s to the fire department for the last 10 years of annual inspections, (9 failures in 10 years) , I made an FOI to the district of west van for building permits, there were none in the winter of 2021. I was told by the building department that any permit would take at least 6 months from application to issuance. Nothing was currently going on. When I requested a list of the proposed scope of work at Sunnyside BC Housing denied it from me for “ business’ reasons. It was obvious that BC Housing was not a transparent and accountable organization. In fact their actions towards me later on bordered on malfeasanse of public office. Look it up! It’s a thing!


Whenever I was in Vancouver for my healthcare I would bring a sweet treat to my friends place at Sunnyside and have tea and talk about life. She was kind and sympathetic to my pursuit of housing and even wrote the BC Housing CEO Shayne Ramsay, on my behalf. He was dismissed shortly afterwards so there was no followup. 


One day I visited her and because I was early I went for a walk around the property. When I got to the back laneway, two women were talking and getting into their vehicles which were parked in BC Housing Staff stalls. I asked them if they were employees and they hesitated answering me but eventually said I should contact their manager for more information. I had asked them if they were employees because in all my previous visits I had never seen any sign of staff. I returned to my car to wait the 15 minutes left until my tea time when a police car came up behind my parked car and turned it’s lights on. 


A man dressed in civilian clothes came up to my window and asked for my license and registration. I asked him why and he said he was a cop and there was a complaint of criminal harassment against me from BC Housing. Fortunately I had recorded the audio of my recent conversation and there was no way it could be construed as anything but civil and courteous. After detaining me for over 30 minutes he left me alone and I went and had tea. My friend  mentioned seeing the police at my car and I was never invited back. Sad. I do call her occasionally. Shame on you BC Housing for wrecking a budding friendship.



I eventually had a drone fly the outside of the building and discovered over 12 empty apartments. Renovations started 3 years later and are on-going. There are frequent days with little or no activity on site. It’s a slow process.


Eight years after first signing up on the BC Housing Registry, I was interviewed and told a place may become available. Months later I was rented a tiny one room studio and my little dog and I moved in to a building in the DTES of Vancouver. With Provincial clawbacks from my disability pension and my rent, I pay over $1200 for 225sq ft.


 Immediately  there was a huge problem for my damaged lungs as the building is filled with people who smoke an array of combustibles including weed, rock, meth and tobacco. There is no ventilation and many keep their doors ajar filling the common areas with smoke and fumes. I had informed BC Housing I was a non smoker but it appears to have fallen on deaf ears. I’m doing my best to mitigate the toxic air with creative ducting and fan placement as well as running the bathroom exhaust fan continuously. I’ve written letters asking for help, with letters of support from a doctor and a registered nurse who are friends and have witnessed the unhealthy conditions in my home, and I have not heard back anything for months. That’s my experience with BC Housing, what’s yours?




Monday, February 20, 2023

Poverty is State Violence


 


 

 

 

 

 

We didn’t have a chance. From a very young age, as kids growing up in Canada in the 60-70’s, we were constantly surrounded by tobacco/cannabis smoke, diesel exhaust, air pollution and industrial particulates. In airplanes, buses, cars  and trains, smoke, in hospitals, smoke, in restaurants, smoke. My jobs as a teenager and beyond were cooking over charcoal fires at the Keg, running dishwashers at Sewells, tree planting, commercial fishing and working for decades in construction and in shipyards, as well spending several years working as a stone mason.

Disability Assistance Is Not Sufficient

 As I write this, I sit here as a 58 year old with severe lung disease. I can’t breathe. I am not alone. This disease prevents me from participating in most gainful work opportunities, and  as CPP only allows a disabled person to earn $5500 annually I’m further held below the poverty level. I struggle to survive on about $1300 monthly from BC PWD benefits. The worst part is I worked and paid into my CPP pension all my life but the government of BC claws it all back. It’s $700 a month, this would make a huge difference in my current quality of life. $2000 is a big jump from $1300. I say me, but I mean this for everyone struggling to survive under these oppressive conditions.

 Poverty is State Violence.  

 Under-housed, it is hard not to be cynical when you see our MLA’s allocate to themselves $2500+ for their second residence in Victoria and then they only allocate $375 monthly for Disabled Persons in BC for housing. All from public funds. Of course it’s impossible to live off of these dribblings without some help from friends or a little indiscretions like undeclared earnings from bottles and cans or whatever. Or car camping/couch surfing, yes at 58,  Everyone cheats a little some more, some less so people are forced to keep their head down, and not to question the dysfunctional authority ruining everything.

 

 

MAID

Let’s change gears. Let’s use the MAID laws for leverage in negotiations with all concerned parties, citizens and public servants. Should we offer a bulk die in at the Empress Hotel in Victoria in exchange for them picking up the tab as we celebrate our escape from this government imposed doom?

 Or better yet, why not immediately raise the rates to government defined poverty levels, about +-$2500 monthly? Quickly followed by the establishment of a working group comprised of a broad representation of concerned parties from health to housing to legal and financial and residents of our communities in need. Comprehensive and pragmatic. We can do this together. Let’s actually develop a plan with measurable performance points backed by hardy government support.

Next Leaps

Where to next? Clearly as we have seen over the last few years with the introduction of state facilitated euthanasia, too many folks are choosing this one-way path solely due to lack of sufficient fiscal support.  Being disabled should open opportunities for people to experience new challenges while being reasonably supported by our public governments. That’s the social contract.

All people should feel they are  part of their communities, not like bandits hiding in the dark, camping or sleeping in vehicles, couches, and stoops.  

We must do better.

 

 

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Monday, March 23, 2020