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Your B.C. Government

Homelessness and Affordable Housing

Your B.C. Government is providing record investment in housing and rental subsidies to ensure that low income British Columbians have access to affordable housing.

What your B.C. Government is doing for Homelessness and Affordable Housing:

  • Housing achievements undertaken by the provincial government in the past eight years totalled $2 billion in housing and support programs. This year, the provincial allocation is $469 million, more than four times what was spent in 2001.
  • Since 2001, your B.C. Government has committed to creating more than 16,500 new units of housing.  This includes a commitment under the Provincial Homelessness Initiative to more than 4,000 new and upgraded supportive housing units and shelter beds as a result of the on-going work of the Premier's Task Force on Homelessness, Mental Illness and Addictions.
  • The Province's Homeless Outreach Program provides services in 49 communities, connecting visibly homeless people to housing, income assistance, employment counselling, and medical services.
  • More than 6,000 people have obtained housing through our Homeless Outreach Program and approximately 80 per cent remain housed today.
  • Your B.C. Government is keeping emergency shelters open 24/7, providing a place to stay throughout the day, linking people to community services and housing.
  • The B.C. Government has more than doubled the number of shelter beds across the province from just 700 in 2001 to 1,500 today, and provided funding so shelters can provide ongoing support services, connecting people with community supports like housing, addictions services and medical care.
  • Doubled Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters (SAFER) rent subsidy program for seniors, which provides average an annual rental subsidy of $1,800 to over 15,700 seniors - 3,700 more than in 2001.
  • Increased the home owner grant by $100 and eliminated the threshold for low-income seniors, veterans and the disabled.
  • The Province provides more than $30 million annually to subsidize over 6,800 units of social and supportive housing in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver.
  • The Province has invested $130 million to purchase 45 single room occupancy and affordable housing buildings, protecting approximately 2,000 units as affordable housing. B.C. is spending an additional $60 million to upgrade and renovate those units.
  • Investing in 471 long-term supportive housing units on five sites owned by the City of Vancouver in the Downtown Eastside.
  • Introduced the Rental Assistance Program in 2006, providing rent payment assistance to more than 8,200 low-income, working families with children whose combined income is less than $35,000. The average monthly rental assistance provided to these families is about $350.
  • Funding 10 permanent emergency shelters supporting 441 beds in the Downtown Eastside and 70 temporary beds operated by the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre.
  • Nine homeless outreach workers based just in the Downtown Eastside have helped house more than 1,200 people.
  • More than $10 million annually is provided to subsidize over 2,600 emergency shelter and housing units for homeless individuals in the Downtown Eastside.

For more information:
Premier's Task Force on Homelessness
B.C. Housing