In Our View: Homeless Need Facilities

As city officials grapple with long-term solutions for Vancouver’s growing homeless crisis, they must remain cognizant of the immediate needs for those who find themselves living on the street.

Many of our fellow citizens are in need of toilet, shower and laundry facilities — as well as a place to store their belongings. While this will not reduce the problem — in fact, it might exacerbate the issue — it will reflect a shared humanity and provide some dignity for the city’s homeless population.

This is not said lightly. It is understood that providing additional services for the homeless will act as an invitation for more destitute people to congregate around those services. It also is understood that the city, particularly near the downtown core, is facing a large homeless population that is burdensome to local residents and business owners. Having a large number of people sleeping in parks or pushing shopping carts containing the totality of their belongings is unsightly and uninviting to visitors and customers.

Residents in areas where homeless congregate cannot be faulted for lamenting the growing homeless situation and taking a not-in-my-backyard stance regarding services for the homeless. Many of them have spent time cleaning up garbage and human waste and used needles around their neighborhoods.

And yet, we are driven by compassion for those in need, for those who have few options for washing themselves or their clothes. Few people are homeless by choice, and the city’s short-term goal should be to help them maintain some sense of propriety. Share House, a men’s shelter near downtown, has stopped allowing nonresidents to use bathroom facilities outside of meal times; Friends of the Carpenter, which operates a day center, cannot accommodate showers or laundry facilities. For too many citizens, the alternative is going to the bathroom outside and wearing unwashed clothes day after day.

Certainly, none of this represents more than a Band-Aid to a situation that requires surgery. “Today, sitting up here I had a huge moment of deflation,” city Councilor Alishia Topper said, noting that officials have been discussing the issue since 2014. “Yet, we’re currently chasing people around town with their carts and their belongings.”

Among the latest items being considered is to decriminalize camping on public property. It currently is illegal to camp in Vancouver from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., meaning, for example, that people cannot set up a tent in Esther Short Park for the day. Officials are considering reducing the penalty for violating that ordinance from a misdemeanor to a civil infraction, meaning it would be punishable by a fine. Because homeless people typically would be unable to pay a fine, councilors are discussing options such as requiring community service as a penalty.

In the long run, reducing the homeless population will require an increase of affordable housing and available shelters. Development of those will be time-consuming and costly for the city, which is receiving a boost from an affordable-housing tax levy approved by voters last year. And yet the issue remains frustratingly complex. In truth, there is no solution to a problem that is national in scope, only piecemeal efforts that can mitigate the situation.

While city officials can — and should — continue to work toward an elegant, all-encompassing approach to homelessness, they first must focus upon the immediate needs of their citizens. Establishing showers, laundries and storage facilities for those who require them would be a dignified response from Vancouver’s residents and their leaders.