The rumbling started this morning about the announcement that Housing Minister Rich Coleman was going to become Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside czar. As it turns out, it’s a little more than that.
He’s actually being put in charge of figuring out what all is going on with homelessness, mental health and addiction in five different communities, as you can read on the government news release here.
I just had a talk with the minister who said he knows that this is going to be a challenge, because organizations will want to protect their turf, but his new position will give him the mandate to collect the information from everyone involved with those social issues and figure out who is actually producing results.
(From what he said, I gather his team will even be able to see what different services individual people are using.)
This all follows, of course, on the call from Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu for some kind of integrated accounting system, which echoes what many others have asked for over the years. But what Chief Chu wants, he seems to get.
Frances Bula publishes the State of Vancouver blog where this first appeared, and writes for the Globe and Mail, Vancouver Magazine and others.
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frances
3 years ago
April fool?
Mr Coleman's title should be " Minister of Homelessness", he's responsible for the Little Mountain housing fiasco, hundreds of boarded up apartments. Perfectly habitable if he hadn't made sure to run them into the ground first. He's one of the worst of a very bad lot in prov govt & I can't think of anyone there less suited for this position.
pkelly
3 years ago
It's a good idea, but...
Can you trust a conservative BC Liberal on homelessness and other social ills that plague the DES? NO!
This government, until last month, insisted that BC would avoid the recession that's affected every other place on this planet and would deliver a budget surplus.
This government denies that there's even a problem with homelessness; denied that there was a link to their cuts to social spending over the last 8 years and the dramatic expansion of homeless.
This is purely politics. Creating this office is to blunt criticism by activists in this area, but we all know what happens after the election - cuts.
...if they win.
sunshine coast girl
3 years ago
Isn't it ironic..
that the Minister with the smallest, nastiest, meanest heart is put in charge of dealing with the most vulnerable people in our society? What could be worse?
NorthVanKeith
3 years ago
coincidence? I think not
Do you suppose the naming of the new homelessnes Czar has anything to do with the impending Auditor General's report on government programs in relation to homelessness? Nah.
Janie Jones
3 years ago
Here's the definition of czar
Apparently Obama’s team is also using the word czar to describe people that are being selected to oversee sweeeping changes in the country.
In case anyone is interested here is the definition of the word czar from www.answers.com :
1. also tsar or tzar (zär, tsär) A male monarch or emperor, especially one of the emperors who ruled Russia until the revolution of 1917.
2. A person having great power; an autocrat: “the square-jawed, ruddy complacency of Jack Farrell, the czar of the Fifteenth Street police station” (Ernest Hemingway).
3. Informal. An appointed official having special powers to regulate or supervise an activity: a racetrack czar; an energy czar.
[Russian tsar', from Old Russian tsĭsarĭ, emperor, king, from Old Church Slavonic tsěsarĭ, from Gothic kaisar, from Greek, from Latin Caesar, emperor. See caesar.]
Many countries have had kings and emperors, monarchs and tyrants, dictators and autocrats. But only Russia has had a real czar.
DPL
3 years ago
God help the homeless with
God help the homeless with the ex cop running things. He made a mess out of forestry , removed a lot of land from a TFL with not a dime back for the citizens of BC. His actions as top cop didn't solve much of anything. and they because he is a minister have to call him Honourable
morechatter
3 years ago
Hair of the Dog?
He is the Creator of the Problem and its a life not fit for a Dog on the Streets at the best as Coldmen is more like the man that destroys lifes not than one to help rebuild them as his Ministry readily puts women and children, seniors, sick, dying, etc.. to Vancouver's Streets. Coleman's looking for Cold Hard Cash from the Feds to do it his way and he is a home wrecker not a home fixer so sure hope it dosen't make it towards his pockets beause it will just be more of the same old same old as the cash dries up before the plans materilize except even worse as problems escalate. Got good news though as construction workers leave town as work dries up so does the supply of Crack and Coke making the streets that much more safe, sorta.
morechatter
3 years ago
Its Must Be So Confusing For the Minister
Of Housing and Minister of Social Services yet most of the people that are homeless is one of the Ministry clients or was a client or didn't qualify. And FACT: Affordable Housing has been making suites that were affordable and raising them to Market Value as they come up? More Confusion for sure just like what is that big hunk of thing growing off the Minister's face as we enter the Twilight Zone where Coleman gets his Alien friends to gather up the homeless and plant them on the moon. Now that more believable that putting him in charge of anything remotely human.
DJT
3 years ago
Unbelievable...
Omg, the whole DTES will be up for sale to the highest bidder before you know it!
MichaelT
3 years ago
wow unbelievable Coleman -
wow unbelievable Coleman - is that a poke in the eye?