I appreciate that Chief Manak and the Police Service have leaned in and increased attention on the criminal element present on Pandora Avenue and Ellice Street.
As the City of Victoria creates its new comprehensive Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan, we are addressing immediate needs with actions that may be temporary, or may be extended or adjusted within that Plan in the long term.
This Police action complements that larger plan.
I also appreciate, and reiterate, the Chief’s acknowledgement that we are treating symptoms of system gaps that local government and police can only fill temporarily.
We know these gaps are breakdowns or insufficiencies in available supportive and affordable housing and complex comprehensive health care.
While the Province works to supply more housing and health services, local governments, emergency responders and service providers continue to step up.
I’ll take this opportunity to remind my colleagues in other municipalities that they can and should be part of the solution to these social crises. For example, 1,456 BC Housing supportive housing units exist in the Capital Region. Of these units, 1,267 are in the City of Victoria, representing 87 per cent of the supportive housing in the region.
We are housing and caring for your municipalities’ people, too. I’m sure many would prefer to have the option to stay home, if services, shelters and housing were available there.
I renew my calls on my local government colleagues to do their share in response to social service gaps.
I also appreciate local service providers’ cooperation and support for this work. Every agency is serving every individual as best they can with the resources at hand.
Providing homes and supportive services to our most vulnerable is no one agency’s responsibility.
We must work together to do this right.
The City, Police, emergency responders, local service providers and others are on the ground every day, responding to the needs of vulnerable people whose lives are overwhelmed by large system breakdowns in our social services.
We can only sustain this work for so long. We welcome the comprehensive health, housing and social service system changes that only provincial (and federal) resources and action can create, that will care for our most vulnerable people, improving their lives and the quality of life for every Victorian.