What’s going on this month: The Assistance to Shelter Act

Bill 14 – No welfare for those with outstanding arrest warrants… again

Update on the Golden Crown mass eviction

Guest access, registration and other restrictions

Assistance to Shelter? – An Interventionist Strategy for ‘Vanishing’ Homelessness

On November 23, DERA held a community meeting to discuss the latest piece of Rich Coleman’s peculiar strategy for combating homelessness – the Assistance to Shelter Act. David Eby from the BC Civil Liberties Association and PIVOT’s Laura Track were on hand to discuss the legislation and answer questions. The BC Liberals have now pushed through the Legislature a law that relies on police presence and the use of force to get people to the door of a shelter. And that’s it. The net effect is to give the police additional authority to move people from one location to another, with the ability to use ‘reasonable force’ if someone is unwilling to pick up and go voluntarily.

The authoritarian and paternalistic nature of Coleman’s interventionist strategy undermines any legitimate priority of protection or of meaningfully addressing homelessness. Coleman uses the emotive issue of a homeless woman’s death to justify the use of coercive force on the most vulnerable. No other jurisdiction in North America has adopted a similar ’strategy’ for addressing homelessness. The government’s own research shows that, consistently across Canada and in the US, people can only be seized from the street under the authority of mental health legislation. Except in BC.

Bill 18 – the Assistance to Shelter Act – passed third reading in the Legislature the same day as Bill 14, which further restricts access to income assistance for people who may be at risk of homelessness by prohibiting the payment of income assistance to people for whom an outstanding arrest warrant has been issued.

One of the three strategic priority actions that the City of Vancouver has identified as having the most impact on reducing homelessness is income, and reducing barriers to accessing income assistance. Adequate income is needed to prevent homelessness by ensuring that people can maintain their housing. Pretty intuitive stuff… but here we have Coleman creating barriers to accessing income assistance the very same day the so-called assistance to shelter legislation is passed.

Bill 14: What will it mean for you?

Coleman has indicated that the application for income assistance will be amended to include a question about whether a person has any outstanding arrest warrants. Applicants will be asked to sign a consent form for a criminal record check.

People already receiving social assistance will be asked to sign the consent form for the criminal record check at the time of their annual review. The question about outstanding arrest warrants will be on the annual review application forms.

People on welfare in the ‘expected to work’ category will be asked to check a box regarding outstanding warrants each month as part of their confirmation of eligibility. Cheque stubs will likely be modified to allow for a question about outstanding warrants.

The NDP tried to do this by regulation in 1997. In Grace v British Columbia, Madam Justice Baker of the BC Supreme Court struck down the regulations as contrary to the intent and purpose of social assistance legislation, which is to relieve poverty, suffering and neglect and provide assistance to persons in need.

Not surprisingly, Coleman disagrees with the BC Supreme Court, and thinks excluding people from a social benefits scheme for reasons that have nothing to do with their need for assistance is a good idea.

Update on the Golden Crown mass eviction

In early September, DERA Advocacy Service began assisting tenants who informed us that they were being told to leave their rental units at the Golden Crown Hotel (116 West Hastings Street). Tenants came to us with reports that their landlord was attempting to force them out with less than a week’s notice. The landlord had circulated makeshift ‘mutual end of tenancy’ agreements, and was attempting to get as many tenants as possible to waive their rights under the Residential Tenancy Act.

DERA Executive Director Kim Kerr spoke out publicly against the landlord’s attempt to empty the hotel. We advocated for the City to issue the necessary orders for the landlord to clean up the hotel, and rid it of pests, without the need for the hotel to displace residents from their housing.

Throughout the month of October, the landlord used inducments to convince as many tenants as possible to leave the hotel. Tenants came to us concerned that the landlord would change the locks on their rooms and that they would lose all of their personal belongings. This has now come to pass. The hotel is completely boarded up, and tenants have been left in the lurch. We are not the only ones drawing connections between the erosion of low-income housing and the approaching Olympics.

Units of low-income housing lost: 28

For more details see media reports in: Megaphone Magazine and CBC News

Guest access, registration and other restrictions

Guest rules and access restrictions is another issue affecting downtown eastside residents. Non-profit housing providers in the downtown eastside continue in their attempts to enforce rules regarding guest access and registration that have no basis in the Residential Tenancy Act. Tenants in a number of hotels have come to us with reports of restrictions on overnight guests, requirements that guests produce government-issued ID as a condition of entry and other rules regarding guest access. DERA Advocacy Service has assisted tenants in successfully challenging these rules in a number of hearings before the Residential Tenancy Branch. However, more work is needed in order to ensure that landlords comply with the Act and tenants’ legal rights are respected.