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Latest poll: 46 per cent approval for Robertson, 40 per cent disapproval, few know who LaPointe is

August 21st, 2014 · 31 Comments

For the poll junkies, the latest poll from Insights West and Mario Canseco on the municipal scene.

While most of the results make sense (particularly the lack of transparency and engagement). one thing that is going to rankle Vision for sure — and does surprise me a little — is the low ratings they get on dealing with homelessness. This council has probably put more money and effort into creating more shelter spaces, providing for transitional housing, and even buying properties, to the point that staff grumble internally about how much is going to that issue.

I’d love to know more about those low ratings, whether it’s that people think the city shouldn’t intervene so much, that they think other policies that promote gentrification and development outweigh the homelessness efforts, whether they’re irate about the promise to end homelessness, or whether they just don’t get what the city is doing. I’m sure you’ll all weigh in and let me know.

 

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Victor

    Maybe Vancouverites recognise that Vision ‘talks the talk but cannot walk the walk’ on Homelessness.

    Vancouverites understand that to get things done the City depends on the Province for funding. The BC government has poured a ton of money into this problem while Vision tinkers around the edges taking credit where it is not entirely their due. They promise, and promise again… while screwing things up by mixing untreated addicted or other disease homeless folks with those people who have mental health issues but are in transition and undergoing treatment.

    The Mayor was warned to stop doing this but he continues in his desperate attempt to bring his promised numbers down. (Check out the disaster happening at the Marguerite Ford House on West 1st.) He and his minions continue to do what works for them best. Not what is best for the mentally ill folks who can quickly recycle back to the street?

    For all their talk, Vision doesn’t seem to give a damn about the people who truly could be helped.

    Hope I am not alone in being fed up with the Vision Vcr BS on this topic.

  • Jenables

    They’ve put plenty of time and effort into accelerating the conditions that cause Homelessness too, so it should not be a surprise. What did they think would happen to all the people who were renovicted from SROs? You can’t solve homelessness while affordability takes a nosedive and low income and welfare rate people are actively losing places to live. Trying to redefine affordability to something much more expensive has no effect on reality for those without the luxury of choice.

  • Jenables

    I’m curious too, as the last poll had Robertson at 59 percent of decided voters, and considering that undecided was 45 percent, that makes Robertson’s share of voters 32 percent. Was this poll strictly based on a yes or no answer? What about the other 14%?

    Also, a shelter is great but it is by no means housing, especially if it is only open in winter.

  • Frances Bula

    @jenables. Yes, all the numbers can get a bit weird. Yes, Robertson got 32 per cent of all voters, 59 per cent of divided. Mario’s numbers are about approval rating. It might be that some people approve of him, but are still undecided. LaPointe only got an approval rating of 20 per cent (mostly because people don’t know who he is), but in the Justason poll 41 per cent said they would vote for him. So approval/vote numbers definitely don’t match.

  • gasp

    Victor and Jenables:

    I agree heartily with both of you.

    This Council has done nothing more on the issue of homelessness than any other Council would have done, despite Gregor’s grandiose pronouncements and promises before he was elected that he really wanted to end homelessness – except that he really only meant street homelessness [in a very small defined area of Downtown Vancouver].

    Hello, people at City Hall: There are homeless people ALL OVER Vancouver, many driven there because housing costs in this City have gotten so high. And why have they gotten so high? In a large part because older structures that provided affordable housing are being torn down at a rapid pace to make way for expensive condos and over-sized McMansions, both of which are unaffordable yet encouraged by this Council’s rezoning and building bylaw changes.

    This penchant for redeveloping the City in Vision’s vision has resulted in much higher property taxes for everyone – businesses and residents. And these higher property taxes eventually result in higher rents, which in turn results in less affordability across the spectrum of housing in this City.

    So then Gregor comes back at Election #2 because he REALLY wants to deal with the issue of affordability. And how does he do that? By subsidizing developers who build MARKET RATE RENTAL housing, which means, again, higher taxes from everyone else to pay for those things the levies on developers (that he’s so generously waiving) are supposed to pay for. Oh – I almost forgot – the other way they solved the affordability problem was by redefining what “affordability” means. As the good psychiatrist Kerry Jang explained to those who questioned this approach “affordability is whatever you can afford”. There. That dealt with that problem.

    Now we’re at the 3rd election and Gregor wants us to vote for him because he REALLY wants to get a subway down Broadway. This is necessary because there is so much traffic on Broadway and the Broadway bus is always full. How did that happen? By City officials deciding to make Broadway the “business district” (in order to make more property available for residential condos downtown), and then by choosing to redirect thousands of cars onto Broadway from other routes (such as Point Grey Road).

    IMO, every problem this Vision crew has addressed has been exacerbated by their actions and has resulted in nothing more than higher taxes and user fees (eg., parking meters) across the board.

  • spartikus

    This Council has done nothing more on the issue of homelessness than any other Council would have done

    Ok.

    What’s the counterfactual? What could have been done within the powers of the City of Vancouver granted by the Vancouver Charter that wasn’t?

    COPE has their proposals. Is that the answer?

  • Chris Keam

    “There is so much traffic on Broadway”

    Except there actually isn’t. It’s nowhere near capacity for 20 hours a day and mildly congested at rush hours. The subway is to alleviate transit crowding. It’s construction is going to sure impact traffic though. Should be good times for all, esp us chronic pedallers who will have to deal with stressed out motorists rat-running adjacent bike routes such as the off-broadway. Link goes to traffic cam.

    http://former.vancouver.ca/engsvcs/streets/roadwork/cambieBroadway.htm

  • Chris Keam

    It’s its… I blame autocorrect

  • Brilliant

    @spartikus-Start by not issuing thousands of demolition permits for old houses, many of which contained truly affordable basement suites?

  • tedeastside

    metro vancouver has no economic base and zero industry …so governments are dependant on real estate for property values so they have no reason to create affordable housing …its too bad vancouvers economy doesnt manufacture anything anymore except lies about real estate

  • spartikus

    many of which contained truly affordable basement suites?

    I see. So people now living in the streets were formerly living in affordable basement suites of old houses.

  • Kirk

    This upcoming election is turning into a “meh” for me.

    The “OMG! IT’S A BIG DEAL!” election issue that’s galvanizing the public is just a handful of vegetable gardens. This is taking over from our normal big first world problem of picking bike lane alignments.

    WRT to homeless, neither party will solve it. It’s a giant black hole of tax dollars. The whole PHS thing is pissing off everyone. Wasn’t there a study that said we’re spending $55,000 per person per year down there?!? And, the success rate is negative.

    For me, neither party has a homeless solution. Neither party has a housing affordability solution. Neither party has a drug addiction solution. Both parties are in bed with developers.

    I know this NPA transparency thing is supposed to be an issue, but I think it’s not. It’s important for reporters, but the general public couldn’t care less what’s going on inside City Hall.

    I can understand why only 30% vote. My guess is that the number will go down this year. I feel like I’m turning into tedeastside.

  • Kirk

    And, how come there’s no reporting of the tent city? The Occupy Vancouver tent city was in the news everyday. My wife didnt even know there was one, and it’s been over a month now. They should camp on the CP Rail line if they want to raise awareness.

  • Jenables

    Well Spartikus it shouldn’t be too hard to believe that the people renovicted from SROs become homeless, right? Living balance?

  • rph

    @Kirk #12. Well stated.

    The only thing that will help solve the homeless problem in Vancouver is for other areas in metro Vancouver to establish more nodes of supportive services so the problem moves along.

  • Bill

    @spartikus #6

    “What could have been done within the powers of the City of Vancouver granted by the Vancouver Charter that wasn’t?”

    Perhaps nothing but that didn’t stop Vision from proclaiming they would end homelessness in their 2008 election campaign. Six years later the Mayor belatedly acknowledges that this is not possible without the senior governments who he has done his best to alienate, the latest example being the application to have the impact on climate change included in the assessment of the Kinder Morgan project.

    To achieve the best results for the City, the Mayor and Council must be non-partisan with respect to the senior governments, just like the Province must be non-partisan in Federal politics. This reason alone would justify a change at City Hall.

  • spartikus

    Well Spartikus it shouldn’t be too hard to believe that the people renovicted from SROs become homeless, right?

    No, it’s not hard to imagine. But new spaces were also opened.

    So why has homelessness seemingly increased? Are these newly homeless from within Vancouver, from other jurisdictions, or has there been no dent at all? Is it a function simply of housing spaces? Welfare rates? Support for the mentally ill? The general economy?

    I don’t think anyone can speak with any confidence on this. Nor do I put much weight in monocausal explanations.

    the Mayor and Council must be non-partisan with respect to the senior governments

    And vice versa. Neither Christy Clark nor Stephen Harper are renowned for being being non-partisan. The opposite, they have well-earned reputation for punishing ridings that had the temerity to vote in the other parties.

  • Jay

    @14 Jenables –

    The 14 new supportive housing projects the City is building (most completed) will add 1200 units for homeless or at risk homeless, plus, since 2007, the province has purchased 24 hotels, protecting more than 1,400 SRO units for low-income earners. So it’s not as if the government is doing nothing. I haven’t seen any figures, but I’m sure some of those being displaced by SRO renovations are finding their way into much nicer and safer accommodations.

    I’m not sure how you could support keeping the DTES in a perpetual state of dysfunction and misery, because that’s what you’re doing by concentrating all the addicts in the DTES. The DTES needs a more diverse population and that’s what the SRO upgrades are doing. Plus they open up the retail space to small businesses that are vital in creating a vibrant, functional neighbourhood.

    From a city building perspective, that stretch of Hastings from Abbott to around Heatley is a treasure trove of character. Same with Pender street and the rest of Chinatown. With an influx of new residents, this area will become Vancouver’s most diverse and interesting neighbourhood. I look forward to it.

  • TKO

    Well, Francis, I think you got your question answered! Despite making unprecedented advances in housing (at the expense of other, worthy objectives), Vision gets only scorn: the left gets hysterical that not enough housing was created (ignoring, as usual the fact that the problem is too big for local government to take on alone, and that no other party would have done this much); the right whines about anything and everything that might stick (demolitions, traffic, SRO eviction) in the hopes they can unseat Vision; and moderates say “meh”!

    I bet Vision in hindsight thinks they made a strategic mistake with housing affordability. They probably wish they picked parks or clean air to run on!

  • Brilliant

    @ Spartikus 19 – gotcha so demolishing affordable housing Ok with you.

    Would that the the vision majority applied themselves a little more to the middle class not being able to find housing in Vancouver.

  • Jenables

    Which 14 new supportive buildings is the city building?
    What are the 24 sites purchased by the province? Are all these renting at welfare rate?

    Can vision take credit for any of that?

    I’m happy you are sure the people being displaced from SROs are finding their way into nicer and safer accommodation, but that is a mean feat when there isn’t anything else they can afford!

  • Jay

    “Which 14 new supportive buildings is the city building?”
    http://vancouver.ca/people-programs/locations-and-development-details.aspx

    “What are the 24 sites purchased by the province?”
    http://www.bchousing.org/Initiatives/Access/SRO/List

    “Are all these renting at welfare rate?

    Yes

    To add to that, the city has bought the Ramada on Hastings and Ramada on Kingsway. And the city has also agreed to spend $1.1 million in renovations on the former Howard Johnson Biltmore Hotel at 395 Kingsway St. B.C. Housing has leased the 100-room hotel for five years and will pay its operating costs, but the city is on the hook for the renos.

    I can’t find any figures on who’s being displaced and where they’re ending up, but I know Cory who hangs around my neighbourhood is in a far better place than he was before. As are the tenants in the 24 SRO hotels that the Province purchased and then renovated.

    “Can vision take credit for any of that?”

    I’m not sure who can take credit for “any of that”. I’ve only really been following city issues for a couple of years now, so I don’t know how unprecedented any of these initiatives are. So you tell me.

  • Jay

    Can’t even do 2 links?

    Welp Jenables, I answered your questions from 21 but awaiting moderation…

  • Jenables

    You could post them separately.

  • Brilliant

    It was Sam Sullivan and the NPA that got the housing deal with the province going. After their 2008 election Vision took the credit.

  • teririch

    @Jay #18:

    Those housing units – the 14 hotels were purchased by Minister Coleman in 2007 and was done more or less on the QT as at that time Townsend (PHS) didn’t even know about it but was happy with the decision.

    Vision has been wrongly been laying claim to the purchases since then. The only thing they have done is shown up for photo ops.

    I know the info is on the City’s website and I would imagine also on the Prov. Government’s, but it does not tell you the number of units lost during the last 8 years or so. Units like Little Mountain which were truly affordable for low income persons.

    Refurbished SRO’s do keep a roof over a person’s head, but little else.

    Complaints about slum landlords like the Sahotas; the state of units; the bugs – bed and cockroach are far from new. When I was volunteering at a shelter in the DTES – the participants would come in chewed up and would tell how they had to suspend food items on clothes lines in order to try to stop the roaches from getting into them.

    A way to solve some of these problems would be to stop housing hard to house addicts with persons that do not fall into that category like the mentally challenged or seniors etc and to quit centralizing all the services in the DTES.

    The so called plan for the DTES that Vision has banged through will make things worse, not better.

    If you happen past Hastings where the United We Can used to live, take a really hard look the area. It looks like a slum. There is so much crap all over the place I can only think the City is spending a huge amount of money in trying to keep it somewhat civil and clean.

    I live in Kits and see more and more people busing to the area to spare change. Yesterday I bought a bag of groceries for a young woman with obvious mental health issues – but she was very polite, asked for help with basic items and sometimes people need a hand up. I will never give money but have no problem buying a meal for someone.

  • Paul

    Goals are important to set in any organization, but when you don’t reach them people are going to hold you accountable….especially when it’s an overly ambitious and absolute promise made during an election. The left didn’t get everything right away and the right are still tripping over homeless people out front of Whole Foods. No one is impressed or inspired.

    Same disappointment will happen with the Broadway Line. You know Surrey will have all that federal and provincial money flowing into their ridings long before it will be allocated for Broadway. “Back of the bus, Vancouver!”

    How about some aggressive but achievable goals the city can reach on their own? Or is the Hall too broken to even deliver?

  • kclear

    We (or the 30% of us that vote) brought in a rookie Mayor who then hired a rookie City Manager (who was known to be persona non grata in Victoria). Only the Province has the budget and bureaucratic structures to make any headway on the housing/health/DTES files. It was Coleman’s bull headed courage in the face of the squabbling in the DTES that made the 14 new sites a reality. The Mayor’s petty politics, rank opportunism and fumbling inexperience explain the mess we find ourselves in now.

  • Chris Keam

    Surprised am I that this news is going unmentioned in the Fabula-stan.

    “TEAM won’t run candidates in Vancouver civic election

    The party also urges people not to vote for either Vision Vancouver or the Non-Partisan Association”

    http://www.vancouversun.com/news/TEAM+candidates+Vancouver+civic+election/10154698/story.html

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    For Bulabloggers that have not seen it, my version of this election is here

    http://wp.me/p1yj4U-m0

    I write about the revolt against ‘Vancouverism’ or the idea—promoted by this Council in absence of anyone else but the developers—that towers ought NOT to be allowed to move out of the Central Business District (downtown) and into the neighbourhoods.

    There are no numbers to support SUCH A MOVE except cash donations from developers to the parties that will support them. That is ‘corruption’ whether soft or otherwise.

    It is an affront to our democracy. If we concentrate all the profits from development into the hands of a few, and we have THOSE few passing decisions on what can and cannot be developed, you get the picture….

    Pretty soon the ‘looser’ will be ‘democracy’. Or put another way, the loser will be ‘me and you’!

    So, how do we turn a corner on this insanity? Simple, we make the making and meaning of place the hot-button issue of this election.

    If you don’t like the way that your neighbourhood is being re-made, vote the bums out.

    If you don’t like the message that ‘towers are OK in the neighbourhoods’ (even if it is not YOUR neighbourhood, NOT yet), then vote the bums out.

    We have only ONE tool in democracy. That is to walk into the polling place and mark the ballot paper.

    Next November, no matter what, decide NOW that you will make your mark known. It is really that simple and that fragile.

    One ballot paper at a time we decide—not them—the shape of our city to come!

  • Chris Keam

    “Are you well-versed in comment etiquette?”

    http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/comment-etiquette/

    “2. Don’t leave a link to your blog. When you leave a comment on a WordPress.com blog post, your name will automatically link to your blog, so there’s no need to include it twice. (This setting can be found under Users → Personal Settings in your dashboard, in the Account Details section.) Blatant self-promotion is generally frowned upon and is likely to be ignored, so be careful not to tarnish your reputation by creating the perception that you’re a spammer.”