During his response to the throne speech yesterday, Housing and Social Development minister Rich Coleman explained to the British Columbia legislature how he's dealt with foreign reporters' questions about homelessness and the housing crisis in Vancouver.

The strategy, as he explained it, is to tell reporters covering the Olympics that things are worse wherever they come from.

Here is Coleman's description of an exchange with one reporter, as recorded in the draft of Hansard:

“One of the reporters said to me: 'What do you do about social housing?'

“And I said: 'Well, I believe that in your city you're presently bulldozing some projects that you built, that you called social housing that became slums because you perpetrated something on the society.'"

And another where he went on aggressive defence with a reporter from an unnamed city of 2-million people:

“I won't name [the city] because it's not fair to the poor reporter. He came to me and said, 'You know, you've got 2,500 to 3,000 homeless people here.'

“I said: 'Yes, that's true. It's about that. We have shelters for them, and we have housing that we're building for them. But when you go to write your story, think about this. You've got, actually, according to your records, 13,500 homeless people in your jurisdiction where you come from.

"'How many integrated supports have you got out there for people with mental health addictions and homelessness? How many shelters do you have?

"'Ask these questions. How many units have you gone out and renovated and taken on to turn around for people? What do you have for a plan to build new? Do you have any outreach workers that go out and connect people to medical services and housing and supports, to deal with their mental illness and issues?

“'What have you got for a plan to build new? Do you have any outreach workers that go out and connect people to medical services and housing and supports, to deal with their mental illness and issues?

“I said, 'Let me try and explain to you the story of British Columbia. You know, in the last few years we've had homeless outreach people in 49 communities across the province of British Columbia — 49 communities. They've connected 8,700 people to supports and housing as of January 2010.

“I said: 'As we did that, these were folks that were homeless or at risk for homelessness that we've actually connected to housing and supports, and 80 percent of those people are still housed today.'"

Coleman said the “neatest part” of the last two weeks was having the “opportunity to educate some jurisdictions around the world about how they should handle their own housing, mental health, addictions and homeless issues.”

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.