Frances Bula header image 2
← →

Vancouver could go over $400 million in spending for housing the next four years

March 5th, 2015 · 12 Comments

One of the things I don’t think the public really gets about the Vision Vancouver administration is how much money is going into housing efforts. I won’t get into, the moment, whether they’re effective or whether they’re targeted to the right people, but they are spending a lot.

I asked staff to compile the spending numbers for me last fall, because I was hearing grumbling from various people about the amount of money coming out of the city’s famous property endowment fund for housing.

I got the note that I attach below.

This week, I dedicated a little time to highlighting the amounts likely to go into housing over the next four years. There’s $125 million approved in the capital budget, with $61 million of it allocated for this year. If the PEF withdrawals continue at the same rate, that would be $40 million over this term (since it appears to be $10 million a year in the past). If the amount of housing secured through rezonings remains constant, that should approach $200 million. And then money does get spent from operating, which doesn’t seem to be included here, on various things like improvements to leased buildings that are being used for transitional housing (the Biltmore, the Quality Inn).

My Globe story is here, with some of these numbers, and an explanation from staff and councillors about what the housing plan is for the next four years: 2,550 units, with as-yet unknown rates of subsidization. Public consultations done in the past, plus election results, seem to indicate this is what people want. Or does it? I’m not sure most people even know what is going on.

This data outlines expenditure using different fiscal tools for the delivery of housing including social housing, permanent supportive housing, interim supportive housing and land purchases for the latter. Of note, at year end 2008 and 2009,  the PEF had a substantial negative fund balance which related to the situation in the Olympic Village. Pending resolution of the financial risk of the City related to the Village, spending to enable affordable housing  was therefore decreased significantly from the PEF and other opportunities were pursued through the capital budget, rezonings, capital grants and DCL exemptions. The spend is totaled for each council term.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING LEVERAGED BY COUNCIL TERM OVER 10 YEARS

Council Terms

 PEF Capital Fund Secured Hsg thru’ Rezoning Grants DCL Exemptions Total
Capital  
2003-2005 $27.6 $4.8 Not Available Not available $1.3 $33.7
2006-2008 $31.5 $15.2 $1.0 $4.8 $6.4 $59.0
2009-2011 $4.7 $54.7 $29.0 $2.8 $7.1 $98.3
2012-2014 $31.2 $87.9 $148.0 $3.9 $4.5 $275.5

 

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Salvaich

    No management audits, no guidelines, no value-for-money audits.
    What are our elected representatives up to ? Not much, it seems.
    -30-

  • Kirk

    Wow. $400,000,000 for 2550 units. That’s $156,000 per place, and they’re tiny with low end finishes. For a 300sqft SRO, that’s $520/sqft. Who would pay that much to buy in a DTES building surrounded by neighbours with mental health issues? I’m not saying they’re bad people. I’m saying that the market rate just isn’t that high. Sounds like social housing development is a good business to be in.

    And, only in Vancouver would an income of $80,000/yr still qualify you for government assistance. Since median income is just $60,000/yr here, more than half of us will get to move into social housing! Call dibs now people!

  • Dan Cooper

    I was just telling my son that as much as I disagree with how Vision tends to operate, I give them full props around their efforts in addressing homelessness to the degree possible based on the city’s authority. I got to thinking about it based on yesterday’s Courier article about street homelessness obviously NOT having been eliminated as Robertson promised some time back, and then being downtown and indeed – as always – seeing people sleeping on the streets. I also commented that to me, not having actually achieved the goal 100% is not a failure; promising to eliminate homelessness is never going to be like promising to land a man on the moon, but rather an ongoing process. I don’t even blame Robertson for the way he expressed it; sometimes, when speaking in a political/social goal mode, you have to put the goals out there as absolutes to show seriousness. And indeed, going back to the beginning, I think they have been serious around this.

  • jenables

    Well.. Look at someone like Stephen Lippman, who has been directly responsible for renovicting people in SROs, the last refuge for many. He was/is a repeat donor to VIsion. What changed to make this an acceptable practice for him to do? It seems we no longer have concrete definitions for social housing, welfare housing, and especially low-income housing, with the only requirements being that they would be affordable to families making less than $80,000 per year. Who was responsible for changing the definitions of words to suit their purposes, rather than the other way around? It is considered “ambitious” to do four community plans at a time, and in one planners words to me “what would be built would likely not be suitable for the current residents”. That is displacement, which can lead to homelessness. Rezoning and tearing down affordable housing (such as marine gardens, considered by Brian Jackson to be renting at rates that were too low) is entirely at odds with ending street homelessness, and one shouldn’t have to be part of the system to find a place to live.

  • jenables

    Yep yep yep. Apply the slightest scrutiny and the sheen wears off very quickly.

  • Lysenko’s Nemesis

    Unfinished luxury condos are being built downtown for under $300 sq’.

  • Tiktaalik

    “The city doesn’t have a comprehensive inventory,” said Mr. Meggs, adding that it would be a Herculean task to create one.

    If you’re spending $400 million it’s got to be worth diverting a few million to fund a team to solve this problem so that you’re not completely throwing money into the dark.

    The City doesn’t even understand what the scope of the problem they’re trying to solve is but they’re tackling it with gusto anyway. That’s not a good sign.

  • A Taxpayer

    The delivery of social services is a Provincial responsibility and social housing is just one aspect along with income support, and drug and mental health services. Accordingly, it is not only foolhardy but irresponsible for the City to assume responsibility for “ending homelessness” when they should be in a support role to the Province and contribute no more (per capita) than other Metro Vancouver cities.
    And the City has no business in looking to subsidize housing for people that may be in the $80,000 a year bracket. More often than not when government intervenes to fix a perceived problem in the marketplace, the unintended consequences result in different problems.
    Perhaps people would pay more attention if instead of saying “the City is spending money on…” we should say the taxpayers of Vancouver are spending the money. Or when someone says the Province should pay for some service, we should report it as they want all their fellow taxpayers in British Columbia to pay for the service. Governments have no money of their own.

  • Internet made me obsolete

    Mayors and Councillors spend so much time begging for campaign financing from developers that, after a while, they start to think of themselves as developers. That’s OK if you do it right, but what has been the City’s record in this regard? The Olympic Village fiasco and the resulting massive debt obligations.
    Property development, whether of condos, commercial or social housing, is a risky business. Other jurisdictions have had problems when mega-projects turn out to entail elaborate kick-back and bribery schemes (examples are too numerous to mention, but recall MUHC or really any construction- or “communications firm”-related contracts in Quebec).
    Not one member of the current Council has any relevant experience in the industry and their past decisions guarantee that they’ll pay a premium on any borrowing they have to do to carry out their plan, PEF or no.
    Do we really want to let geoff Meggs and Ray Louie play with a half a billion of our tax dollars? After they fired the very people whose advice they will need to succeed in any of this? All the while they’re out there telling you that taxes are good as long as they don’t nave their fingerprints on them.
    It puts new meaning into the phrase “being taken for a ride”.

  • Brilliant

    Money down the drain. The more units you build the more homeless will be attracted to the city. The NDP found this out with welfare rates in the 90’s. We should have a deportation clause in the Constitution that allows us to send these people back to their province of origin.

    It’s obvious the rise in drug culture has fuelled this boom in unemployables. Numerous studies have shown pot can trigger schizophrenia yet our city turns a blind eye to it.

  • peakie

    On affordable homeOWNERSHIP programs and case studies, one might consider this B.C. Housing comparative report.
    at
    http://www.bchousing.org/resources/About%20BC%20Housing/Research_Reports/International-Examples-Affordable-Homeownership.pdf

    International Examples of Affordable Homeownership ( February 2015 ) Prepared by: Margie Carlson

    …”The question is, what happens in countries and markets where government already plays a guiding role in supporting differing programs or supports that encourage or retain homeownership?
    …”The 10 case studies operate in different markets and contexts with differing supports”. [ 35 pages ]

    1. Shared Ownership Plus (UK)
    2. Support for Mortgage Interest (UK)
    3. Rent to Buy (UK)
    4. Key Start (Australia)
    5. Home Start Finance (Australia)
    6. HomeBuild Access (Australia)
    7. Framework® (US)
    8. Cornerstone Homeownership Innovation Program (US)
    9. Homewise (US)
    10. Champlain Housing Trust (US)

  • AlexB

    I’m sorry but I don’t buy this. The proof is in the pudding. Developers run the city, developers plan the housing, and developers ONLY care about their profit margin! As long as city is in bed with developers, nothing will improve and we will never have any affordable housing!