Mr. Speaker, last week the Social Planning and Research Council released the homeless count for metro Vancouver.
To say that the results were devastating is an understatement. Across the Lower Mainland, homelessness increased by 19% over the last three years, in New Westminster, 53%, in the tri-cities, a whopping 157%.
There is something fundamentally wrong with this picture. The numbers have increased in B.C. since 2001 and continue to rise. Not since the Great Depression have we seen a crisis like this.
The Conservative government is failing its people. There was a lot of back-slapping in Ottawa over the announcement of $148,000 for a homelessness strategy. Yet the reality for ordinary folks in B.C. is that this money is less than one-quarter of the cost of a family home in Coquitlam.
We do not need more strategies. We need housing. The government is failing, and we see the results of that failure under every bridge and on every street corner in metro Vancouver.