To the editor:
Re: “‘Disgusting’ SRO mired in red tape,” May 16.
It’s small wonder little traction is made on the SRO improvement front if convoluted proposals for rectifying the situation such as that proffered by Councillor Kerry Jang set the standard.
He believes the $375 per month welfare shelter component should be raised rather than the support portion that people receive monthly to survive on. This has been done in past years and only results in the former ceiling becoming the new floor.
Landlords automatically grab the new money with no commitment on what if any of it will go into new improvements to living standards of the poor residents housed within. That amount counts as a welfare increase according to government analysis yet the recipient never sees a dime of it.
Seniors on pension get one cheque a month with which they attain some flexibility in searching out accomodations. Their choice may then be subsidized through a Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters (SAFER) grant which is attached to the premises they find, thereby making landlords compete amongst themselves in some manner to make those premises attractive to a prospective tenant.
If it’s true that 150 SRO’s stand empty maybe the city, with the $91 million it just pocketed on the Olympic Village re-development could do some serious shopping for some of these vulnerable sites like the Clifton Hotel so that they could offer more than crocodile despair to that 45 numbered now among the homeless and many more like them sure to follow elsewhere in the near future.
