Category Archives: Poverty

A homeless camp in a Vancouver suburb

July 15, 2015 By in Housing, Real Estate and Property Taxes, Maple Ridge, Poverty Tags: , 3 Comments

2015 homeless camp 1 reduced

Nicole Read, the mayor in my home city of Maple Ridge, won election as a political newcomer in November 2014. The local election campaign was marked by concern over downtown property crime, linked by some to the presence of homeless people in vacant spaces nearby. The homeless have been a prominent feature of the town centre for more than a decade, but the incumbent mayor and council were blamed and Read  got the political benefit.

Weeks after the mayor’s swearing-in, a colourful row of tents sprang up on a residential street 200 metres from my home. In the 2014 Metro Vancouver homeless count, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows together were said to have 39 unsheltered homeless people. By July 2015, the estimated population of the Cliff Avenue camp was about 60. Continue reading →

Child poverty in Metro Vancouver

February 15, 2015 By in Metro Vancouver, Poverty, Urban Life and Local Government Tags: , Leave a comment
A detail from the 2014 Child Poverty Report Card. Areas of highest concentration (over 40 per cent) include a set of communities east of Vancouver's downtown, Squamish territory at the north end of the Lions Gate Bridge, and Metrotown in Burnaby.

A detail from the 2014 Child Poverty Report Card. Areas of highest concentration (over 40 per cent) include a set of communities east of Vancouver’s downtown, Squamish territory at the north end of the Lions Gate Bridge, and Metrotown in Burnaby.

Some Canadians are much healthier than others. Poor health outcomes are more likely among: children and families living in poverty; the working poor; the unemployed/underemployed; those with limited education and/or low literacy; Aboriginal and remote populations; newcomers; persons suffering from social exclusion; the homeless; and those who have difficulty securing affordable housing. — Final Report of the Senate Subcommittee on Population Health, 2009

In late 2014, the BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition issued a Child Poverty Report Card organized into 10 fact sheets, including a fact sheet on Metro Vancouver.

For this website, the takeaway is that poverty thrives in all parts of Metro Vancouver, though it may not show up at street level.  Besides the often-documented Downtown Eastside, there are zones where poverty is common in Richmond, Burnaby (including Edmonds, discussed in our February 2 post), Surrey, Langley — and in fact, in almost any urban centre. Continue reading →