Advocates and city councillors are calling for stronger support for Vancouver’s unhoused population ahead of the FIFA World Cup this summer.
The current Human Rights Action Plan draft states that the city will continue to provide its homelessness services and programs throughout the World Cup — but some say that doesn’t go far enough.
Last week, Couns. Pete Fry and Lucy Maloney brought forward a motion which they say would “strengthen” the current action plan, but the motion was defeated by the ABC-led majority on council.
“We do have to provide thoughtful solutions. The challenge with this draft human rights plan is that it doesn’t get ahead of the reality of moving folks, and how does that look like, how we are supporting them to be somewhere else,” Fry said.
The motion argued that the draft plan lacks clear metrics and that meaningful human rights protections require ongoing, transparent reporting.
“If we’re asking people to disperse, we need to have places for them to store their stuff — places to go like daytime shelters which we currently don’t afford,” Fry added.
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These concerns are shared by people living and working in the Downtown Eastside (DTES).
“This is where everybody is because this is where our resources are, this is where they have been for so long,” Kyli Murphy, a DTES resident and volunteer outreach worker, told CityNews.
“It’s not like everybody dreams of ending up like this; it’s just what it is. It’s just a lot of displacement and gentrification, and it’s not really fair.”
Murphy is not only concerned about the plan, but about the way she feels vulnerable community members are being treated in the lead-up to the global sporting event.
“The whole thing they have called it is ‘beautification’ as they have outright called us ugly,” she said.
The current action plan draft does not require approval until May.
Calvin Domarchuk-White, a member of the FIFA community response coalition, is calling for resources that last beyond the tournament.
“The draft plan as it stands is just the status quo of services for unhoused, the opportunity should bolster these existing facilities and services for unsheltered people, who we already know are overburdened as it stands today, so that they are better resources when FIFA leaves, that would be a win for everybody,” said Domarchuk-White.
CityNews has reached out to the City of Vancouver for comment and information about changes that could be expected in the final action plan.