Vancouver: pacific paradise or metropolitan nightmare?

Vancouver, British Columbia, is the third largest city per capita and the most densely populated municipal region of Canada. Often considered the Hollywood of the North, Vancouver attracts attention from not only major film production studios south of the border, but also tourists from all over the world. As one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse regions of Canada, Vancouver attracts most of the country’s East Asian immigrants to its shores; roughly 30% of the City’s inhabitants are of Chinese descent.

Well known as an urban centre surrounded by nature, Vancouver is consistently named as one of the top five worldwide cities for livability and quality of life. Ongoing Green Initiatives by the municipal and provincial governments are attracting more attention from International entities and causing rapid economic expansion for the entire city. Port Metro Vancouver is the third largest port of the Americas, surpassing even New York in recent years, and is responsible for most of the country’s exports. New federal initiatives of the Canadian government will only continue to enrich Vancouver and its surrounding suburbs as efforts are increased on the west coast to attract markets from China.

And yet, this city, the ideal of Canadian living by day, has a very different reality by night. An executive working in the City’s financial district walking to her car at the end of the day will be passed by an ambulance, conveying a teen overdosing on heroine to the nearest hospital. She will walk past several homeless people, asking for money to buy food and cigarettes. Finally, she will reach her car, parked in the private garage across the street— only to find that the driver’s window has become shards of glass lying on the front seat, the few coins in her cupholder now missing.

What is it about this city, venerated by so many as Canada’s most livable, that leads to the highest rates of homelessness, overdosing, and petty crimes such as money laundering? How can a city that monopolizes an entire country’s economic growth potential also be the capital of its social problems?

The number of homeless people in Vancouver in 2019 is at an all time high. Despite efforts to create new, affordable housing within the city limits, hundreds of people are being left without roofs over their heads every night. On June 12, 2019 preliminary data was released which shows that the homeless count rose by 2 percent from last year. This data is considered to underestimate the true extent of Vancouver’s housing crisis, where low rental vacancy rates and rising property values drive redevelopment of older buildings and displace renters who then are unable to find homes for the same amount of monthly rent. According to the data, in Vancouver, the vacancy rate for private rental units available for less than $750 a month is zero, for units priced between $1250  and $1999 a month only 0.8% are available. Most rental properties are raising their prices, putting a greater squeeze on low-income households. Its worth noting that owning property in Vancouver is no better than renting; the average price for a condo in Vancouver is $657 000 and a detached home costs upwards of $1.58 million. Housing in Vancouver is the most expensive in all of Canada, and in fact, Vancouver is the only city where it is legal for citizens to sleep in their cars during the night.

In the past month, British Columbia has taken a hard stance on the rise of housing costs in Vancouver. But what does the provincial government blame for the most recent housing crisis? B.C. Finance Minister Carole James has stated publicly that money laundering has distorted the province’s economy, fuelled the overdose crisis and driven up housing prices. An estimated $5.3 billion worth of real estate transactions in B.C.—mostly in Vancouver— last year were the result of money laundering, according to a new report. This shows that housing, rather than providing shelter for those in need, has become a vehicle for crime in the region. Other large purchases in the city, such as those of luxury cars, have also come under scrutiny.

Unfortunately for the region, money laundering is not the only crime that they have to contend with. Petty crimes in general are on the rise, more houses are being broken into this year than ever before. It is a common belief that the reason behind this increase lies in Vancouver’s unrelenting drug overdose crisis. More citizens of Vancouver are abusing drugs than in the past, and overdoses are rising commensurately. In 2018, drug overdoses in Vancouver averaged more than one a day, quadrupling the national average. Vancouver was declared the epicentre of the public health emergency in 2016, and remains in this position to this day. This year the city has renewed its promise to overcome this crisis by implementing new life-saving efforts and appeals are being made to the provincial and federal government for their support. But as more mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, friends and loved ones succumb to this addiction, citizens of Vancouver begin to lose hope that a solution will eventually be found.

As the housing, petty crime and overdosing crises continue to rise in Vancouver, there is one overwhelming complaint from city officials : requests for support, financial or otherwise, from Ottawa fall on deaf ears. This is not an uncommon issue in Canada, where the population is spread so far apart that it is impossible to distribute ressources perfectly. However, many Canadians are left with the question as to why so much support should be allocated to Vancouver, as the financial capital of British Columbia, the only province in the country to have opted out of paying federal sales tax. Why, indeed, should other provinces be exclusively responsible for solving Vancouver’s own mess? Especially when the majority of Canadian industry is seeking to move west.

Further reading :

Number of homeless people in Vancouver at new high

Overdose crisis continues to devastate lives in Vancouver

B.C.’s dirty money strategy to be highlighted at meeting of ministers

Money laundering funded $5.3B in B.C. real estate purchases in 2018, report reveals