Langley City council advocating to Provincial Ministers on behalf of community at UBCM

The Union of BC Municipalities Annual Conference is occurring this week at the Vancouver Convention Centre. At the conference, people involved with local government learn about issues that are impacting communities throughout our province, including potential solutions. They also debate and pass resolutions which get forwarded to the provincial government to consider. One of the other key things that occurs at the UBCM conference is meetings with provincial cabinet ministers.

Each local government submits a request for the ministers they’d like to meet with, and wait to hear back on who accepted the meeting requests. For many local governments (especially outside of the South Coast), this is the only opportunity they get to meet in person with several provincial cabinet minsters.

Langley City was able to secure meetings with four ministers. Members of our council, including myself, have been meeting with these minsters throughout the conference.

Building more affordable housing with a focus on affordable housing for seniors and supportive housing for people who are currently living on the street, is a major concern in our community. We met with the Honourable Shane Simpson who is the Minister of Social Development & Poverty Reduction to outline how we think the provincial government could help in Langley City. We talked about funding affordable and supportive housing, and increasing the rent supplement for low-income individuals and households.

We also met with the Honourable Rob Fleming who is the Minister of Education. As I posted about a few years ago, Langley City has serious concerns about the School Site Acquisition Charge. This is currently charged on new development projects in Langley City even though there will be no new school sites acquired for students in our community for the foreseeable future. We talked about the need to reevaluate the charge to allow more flexibility for established communities.

Later today, we will be meeting with the Honourable Adrian Dix who is the Minister of Health. The number of medical calls that our fire department responds to has been rapidly increasing year-over-year. This is due to decreased response time of the ambulance service. This places a strain on our first responders and the City’s budget. Langley City has been calling for the provincial government to develop a fair cost recovery model to help local governments pay for this downloading of first-response services.

We will also be meeting with the Honourable Carole James who is the Minister of Finance. We will be advocating for the provincial government to create two residential tax rates. As I’ve posted about previously, the current single rate doesn’t allow local governments to set tax rates that reflect the actual cost of service delivery for the various forms of housing.

With a new provincial government, I am eager to see how they will engage in supporting our community.

Final Homelessness Count Numbers Releases: 30% increase in Metro Vancouver, 124% in Langley

Every three years, a count of the number of people who are experiencing homelessness is completed in Metro Vancouver. Earlier this year, the Metro Vancouver Regional District released a preliminary count of the number of people who are experiencing homelessness. The final report has been recently released. 3,605 people in our region were found to be experiencing homelessness. 2,573 people were sheltered, staying in shelters, transition housing, safe houses, hospitals, jails, and detox facilities. The remaining 1,032 people were living outside or couch surfing.

This number isn’t exact as some people could be missed in the count including people who are couch surfing. This is a point-in-time count, so the number of people could fluctuate over the years.

The following infographic shows the state of homelessness in our region.

2017 Homeless Count in Metro Vancouver Infographic: Count and Demographics. Select image to enlarge.

2017 Homeless Count in Metro Vancouver Infographic: Barriers. Select image to enlarge.

There has been a 30% increase in homelessness in our region. There is a large number of youth and seniors who are experiencing homelessness as well.

Total Sheltered and Unsheltered Respondents (2005 to 2017) - Trends

With the increase in homelessness, some people think that the majority of people are coming to their community from other places. Of people who are unsheltered, 85% have lived in the municipality where they were counted for over a year. 67% have lived in the same municipality for more than five years.

The following table shows where people who are experiencing homelessness were located at the time of the survey.

Total Respondents by Municipal Sub-Region (2017)

Langley, which includes both the City and the Township, has the third highest population of people who are experiencing homelessness.

As shown in the following table, the increase in people who are experiencing homelessness has hit some communities harder than others. For example, homelessness has increase 124% in Langley. Interestingly, homelessness has decreased in the North Shore by 16%.

Total Number of People who are Homeless by Municipal Sub-Region (2005 to 2017) - Trends

As I posted about previously, reducing homelessness in our region will take a coordinated approach by local governments, the province, and the federal government.

Affordable Housing: What can municipalities really do?

Why isn’t Langley City providing more affordable housing in the community?

This is a question that I hear people ask from time-to-time. While municipalities have a role to play in supporting affordable housing, the provincial government through BC Housing and federal government have the authority and resources to ensure that affordable housing options are available for all Canadians.

There are different types of housing required for people depending on their needs. This is referred to as the Housing Continuum which goes from emergency shelters to home ownership. The following graphic from BC Housing shows the Housing Continuum including the number of households using government-assisted housing in 2015-16.

Housing continuum diagram which also shows BC Housing's annual contribution across the housing spectrum.

The tools available to municipalities to support affordable housing outside of the City of Vancouver include:

• Providing city-owned land if available.
• Supporting rezoning for all housing options along the continuum.
• Providing property tax exemptions for some affordable housing projects.
• Reducing Developer Cost Charges for affordable housing projects.
• Providing zoning that supports a variety of housing types and sizes.
• Allowing “bonus density” which enables a developer to build more units of housing than otherwise permitted in a zone if the developer agrees to build or provide funding for a certain number of affordable housing units.
• Requiring “inclusionary zoning” where a developer must build or provide funding for a certain number of affordable housing units as part of a rezoning application in combination with “housing agreements” to ensure that the units remain affordable over time.

Referring back to the housing continuum graphic, how can each order of government support affordable housing?

Emergency Shelter & Housing for the Homeless
Provincial and federal government provide funding to build or expand shelters, plus provide on-going operating support usually in partnership with a non-profit organization. Municipalities provide zoning approval for shelters, property tax exemption, reduced developer cost charges, plus could provide land if available.

Transitional Supportive & Assisted Living
Provincial and federal government provide funding to build or expand facilities, plus provide on-going operating support usually in partnership with a non-profit organization. Municipalities provide zoning approval for facilities, property tax exemption, reduced developer cost charges, plus could provide land if available.

Independent Social Housing
Provincial and federal government provide funding to build or expand housing, plus provide on-going operating support usually in partnership with a non-profit organization or co-op. Municipalities provide zoning approval for housing, property tax exemption, reduced developer cost charges, plus could provide land if available.

Rental Assistance in the Private Market
Provincial government provides on-going assistance to households and individuals.

Private Market Rentals and Homeownerships
Municipalities use bonus density and inclusionary zoning to build affordable housing units, plus have zoning that supports various housing types and sizes.

While municipalities have tools to support affordable housing for people with moderate to higher incomes, the provincial and federal governments have the resources and the mandate to provide affordable housing for people no matter their income or health needs.

Crime Prevention Task Group: Promoting crime prevention programs including stolen bicycle recovery program, and discarded needle reduction pilot program

On Thursday night, the Langley City Crime Prevention Task Group met. One of the initiatives of the task group is to promote both the Block Watch and Business Link crime prevention programs. Earlier this month, City council authorized municipal resources to help promote these programs.

The task group heard from Dianne Robinson and Florence Fowler who are Crime Prevention Coordinators for the Langley detachment of the RCMP. They provided more detailed information on the aforementioned crime prevention programs. Task group members and City staff will be working toward a big push to promote these programs in our community during Crime Prevention Week which takes place between November 1st and 7th.

Committee members will also be working with City staff to promote crime prevention programs through the City’s official social media and advertising channels throughout the year.

Engaging the business community on crime prevention and reduction is also in the works. A new document will be included with City-issued business licenses that will provide information on free services available to businesses included CPTED reviews.

These programs are effective in reducing crime. A research paper call “The Effectiveness of Neighborhood Watch” delves into the effectiveness of Block Watch programs.

Bike theft occurs in Langley City. Recovering stolen bikes can be difficult because there is generally no way to match a bike to its owner. Task group members learned about 529 Garage. This is a program that uses the power of crowdsourcing and the Internet to help recover stolen bikes. This program is available in Langley, and you can signup online. In-person signup events are also being planned throughout the community.

One of the goals of the task group is to send a signal that our community is safe by using the broken windows theory. Litter, tagging, and inappropriately discarded needles send negative signals. The task group passed a motion asking council to consider piloting the installation of needle disposal bins in problem areas, along with a public education component. In other communities, this has proven to be effective in reducing inappropriately discarded needles.