City Motion to Pause Supportive Housing: The intersection between housing and food security
City of Vancouver Councilors voted 6 - 3 yesterday to approve a Ken Sims ABC motion to pause all new supportive housing building in the DTES. 97 individuals, including members of the Vancouver Food Justice Coalition, many with lived experience, urban planning academics and service providers spoke to council on this draconian motion. The vast majority were alarmed by this cruel and dangerous motion that will slow down much needed housing for individuals with dire mental health, physical and social needs - and at worse lead to increased death for those living on the DTES streets. Several thousand are on waitlists for this housing.
Supportive housing is a form of social housing that provides on-site supports for single adults, seniors and people with disabilities at risk of or experiencing homelessness. Generally, a range of on-site, non-clinical supports such as: life skills training, connections to health care, mental health or substance-use services and meals are available. Staff are on-site 24/7 to provide support.
ABC claims that this pause is needed for several reasons. This includes primarily the need to address deteriorating SRO’s first and the need to spread out supportive housing further across the region where supposedly other municipalities are not building their share of supportive housing. ABC also says the status quo has not and is not working but fails to properly place this responsibility on government inaction and systemic neglect for decades.
For more background on this issue, check out the Coordinated Community Response Network (CCRN) open letter.
This ABC motion is perhaps best understood within a broader DTES revitalization plan. Couched in progressive sounding language, a similar City Council motion for “Uplifting the DTES”, now being considered, could open up the core of the DTES, currently a special zone in which you can’t build profit-making housing unless 60% of the building is non-profit social housing to for profit housing. This zoning prevents condos, the most expensive type of housing from being built. This unique zoning keeps land values from skyrocketing. Revitalization in this context is code for gentrification and dislocation of the low income community.
Both supported housing and affordable rental stock is a key issue for DTES residents and repeatedly identified in community consultations as essential to a sense of security, safety and belonging as well as positive health outcomes. Whose voices are calling for a pause?
Food justice as a key social determinant of health. Without appropriate supportive housing, the most vulnerable community members are far more likely to experience food insecurity, including outcomes in the form of diet related illness, higher rates of morbidity and mortality and massive costs to our health care systems.
Survey and interview results from DTES residents found that although access to food is generally not a barrier given the large number of food providers in the area, housing or lack thereof can have an effect on food access. Providing food in‐house reduces the need to go outside of the building to access food and improves food security as well as mental and physical health.
Supportive housing often includes various food supports including onsite communal kitchens, individual kitchens, onsite cafeteria or meal delivery program, in‐room cooking facilities and food programming such as community kitchens.
Conversely, lack of access to cooking and food storage means that homeless individuals are more dependent upon outside food providers. During bouts of homelessness or marginally housed individuals reported that their drug use increased in order to deal with the discomforts of living on the street or in shelters. This, in turn, which further decreased their food intake.
Studies too have shown that individuals going through recovery who received 3 meals a day at their residence, reported that these meals were an important factor in restoring their health.
Staff in supported housing have noticed that there is reduced anxiety about accessing food, improvement in behaviour, including increased attention span and reduced aggression. On‐site food provision may be especially important for women as going out for food can be dangerous if they get caught up in street activities and if they are fed in‐house.
A fully supported housing model in community where people live with dignity should be our first priority in building care and community well-being.
