Derek Corrigan hurts people in his battles with the provincial government

A fat bank account and the continuing flow of development-related revenues is the only thing that seems to be of any interest to Burnaby Mayor Corrigan these days.

Mayor Corrigan basks in the admiration of his subjects.

He is sitting high with $633 million in the bank, hundreds of millions more in land reserves, and complete control of Council.

Yet with all of this financial capability behind him, Corrigan continues to tell people in his community that affordable housing and homeless shelters are not his responsibility.

Take for example the case of the Lookout Emergency Aid Society, who have just lost their location for a cold and wet emergency shelter.

A few years back, Lookout and Burnaby-based Progressive Housing Society, proposed building a 25-bed emergency shelter next door to 25 beds of transitional housing.

Many Metro Vancouver municipalities have contributed land or forgiven a substantial percentage of the usual development fees.

Burnaby, however, will not go down that path.

First, let me frame the context – according to the Burnaby Task Force on Homelessness, there are about 250 homeless people at any one time in the city.

Corrigan doesn’t believe in the concept of an emergency shelter, because of “the disruption to communities it causes, problems with drugs, drinking and the mess of shopping carts,” but more importantly, “it takes attention away from the real issue which is why are these people on the street in the first place?”

Corrigan blames the provincial government for policies that have cut people of welfare, closed down mental health institutions and maintained an inadequate minimum wage. He also blames the feds for getting out of the social housing game two decades ago. Fair enough.

But the fact is, Corrigan has more than enough money to seek out partnership with senior levels of government, and/or use his land reserves as a bargaining chip, much like the City of Vancouver has done with the Little Mountain development, which required city demolition permits to proceed. The City of Vancouver used that leverage to secure social housing at other sites around the city.

The City of Vancouver’s Short Term Incentives for Rental (STIR) program, approved at the end of June, is on track to produce at least 400 units and perhaps as many as 1,700 by the end of 2010. All of these proposed units would be around for the life of the host building, or 60 years – whichever is longer.

This is what a proactive municipal government intent on increasing affordable housing options in their city can achieve. There is direct communications with senior levels of government, a commitment of land and or money for such projects, and creativity in working with local developers to maximize output.

Here’s Corrigan’s logic, however

“The province does not care one iota for these people. These are the flotsam and the jetsam in their system. And they don’t give a damn about these people except that they might make them look bad while the Olympics are here.”

It is a ridiculous assertion, however, in consideration of what the provincial government has done over the past few years in purchasing rental and social housing stock to preserve it in partnership with their municipal hosts.

I am no fan of this provincial government and their sweetheart deals for friends and their abandonment of social programs in the early part of this decade. They infuriate me.

But to state that they have not shown at least some commitment to affordable housing is a statement completely fraught with partisanship.

Corrigan likes to throw the following statement in different forms around quite often:

“While housing remains a direct responsibility of the federal and provincial governments, we are doing everything in our power to encourage and facilitate affordability.”

I call BS on that assertion. If Corrigan’s proud of “securing 20 units of affordable rental housing in recent years by providing bonus density to developers” and that is the extent of what he considers to be “doing everything” in his power, then there is a huge disconnect between reality and accomplishment, particularly for those Burnaby residents that would really benefit from the city taking a larger role on the file.

It is time to stop bragging about how long you have been in office, Derek, and start to put partisan battles to rest in the name of your community.