News and Features
A Complicated Kindness
By Frances Bula published Feb 5, 2010
Frustrated by bureaucracy and inaction, the city’s elite rolled up
their sleeves to solve homelessness. Two years and $2 million later,
the Streetohome group is no closer to a fix
Housing Minister Rich Coleman is presiding over the opening of yet another homeless shelter. The ritual has become commonplace in the city, the benedictions dispensed by rote: thanks be to the premier for not cutting the housing budget. Thanks be to the St. James Community Services Society for opening this refuge for 26 women. Thanks be to so-and-so; we couldn’t have done this without you. But then, singling out a group of businessmen sitting inconspicuously amid the gathering, he veers off-script.
Carl Vanderspek, Terry Selman, and Colin Smith donated this industrial-storage warehouse, raising the money for its renovations and getting the permits needed for the shelter within weeks. “There are lots of groups that have talked and talked and talked but done nothing,” says Coleman. “I’m meeting with another group this afternoon where I’ll be saying, ‘You guys have been sitting on something for 18 months.’
“These guys moved in seven weeks.”
The public impatience Coleman displays is unusual for the veteran cabinet minister, one of the B.C. Liberals’ dominant players. Normally, he reserves his ex-RCMP tough talk for the backrooms. But then, the targets of his irritation are unusual too. The Streetohome Foundation harnesses some of Vancouver’s most elite business folk. They got together two years ago with the idea that they would show the way to solving the city’s homelessness problems. But it’s turned out that applying business savvy to a complex social problem—while navigating an economic meltdown, debates over who should pay for what, and conflicting ideologies of homelessness—has been more complicated than anyone expected.
The idea of getting the city’s business community to lead the charge against homelessness started almost four years ago. Judy Rogers, then city manager, was convinced we needed to try something different. Rogers hired former deputy premier Ken Dobell and consultant Don Fairbairn. Dobell came to believe that nothing would change if homelessness efforts stayed on the same tired track of province, city, and housing groups. There had to be a source of new ideas, new money, and new enthusiasm. The obvious answer: the city’s business leaders. “After a while, folks just tune out the Downtown Eastside groups,” he says. “It’s hard to tune out Frank Giustra.”
Dobell and Fairbairn came up with the idea of a special tax break for homelessness donations and a special foundation made up of businesspeople to help collect and disperse those donations. The tax break went nowhere—they believe Ottawa worried it would open itself to hundreds of other groups arguing the same thing. But the foundation idea kept going. In March 2008, the Streetohome board welcomed an honour roll of the city’s business class. Dobell got Giustra, the mining magnate and philanthropist extraordinaire, as planned. Plus condo-marketing powerhouse Bob Rennie, Intrawest founder Joe Houssian, developer John Mackay, Business Council of B.C. chief Virginia Greene, Vancity CEO Tamara Vrooman—two dozen in all, more people than most organizations allow.
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