LATE DISTRIBUTION
FOR COUNCIL DECEMBER 10, 1996
RR1(iii)
ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT
Date: December 6, 1996
TO: Vancouver City Council
FROM: General Manager of Community Services
SUBJECT: City Programs in the Provincial Field
INFORMATION
The General Manager of Community Services submits this report for
Council's INFORMATION.
COUNCIL POLICY
There is no Council policy directly applicable to this matter.
PURPOSE
The Chairman of the City Services and Budgets Committee has requested
this report to assist Council in its consideration of the impact of
recently announced cuts in Provincial grants to the City. The report
lists and briefly describes City programs which have received direct
funding from the Province or which could be considered to lie mostly
within the traditional Provincial mandate (i.e., which would normally be
provided by the Province, but have been provided by the City).
The dividing line between what is the City's responsibility and what is
the Province's is, of course, somewhat fuzzy. The City is
constitutionally a creature of the Province, and one could argue that
what is theirs is also ours. However, certain services have
traditionally been provided more by one level of government than the
other, and the nature of our respective tax bases makes it more logical
and efficient to fund and provide certain services at the Provincial
level than at the municipal level. As people are highly mobile among
municipalities, it also generally makes more sense to fund people
services (as opposed to property services) from the Provincial or
Federal governments.
DISCUSSION
1. Programs partially funded by the Province
1.1 CAP-funded programs
Most direct Provincial program funding has occurred through the Canada
Assistance Program (CAP) and has been targeted at social welfare issues,
clearly within the Provincial and Federal mandates. The Federal
Government has ceased providing CAP funding to the Province and now the
Province has eliminated all CAP funding to Vancouver.
Previously CAP-funded programs include:
1.1.1 The Carnegie Centre
The Carnegie Centre is a community centre built to meet the special
needs of the disadvantaged. It is located in the Downtown Eastside, the
poorest neighbourhood in Canada, home to 12,000 residents, most of whom
live in single occupancy rooms, rooming houses or social housing.
Services include a reading room, operated jointly with the Vancouver
Public Library; a variety of information and referral services; large
volunteer and seniors programs; a low-cost, nutritious food service;
music, arts and entertainment programs; First Nations and other cultural
programs; gym and weightroom facilities; an Adult Learning Centre,
operated jointly with the Vancouver School Board; and other community
education programs. A year-round program at Oppenheimer Park is also
run through the Centre. Carnegie is a focal point for community
activity and development and has a strong and active community
association. The Centre is open from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. daily.
The annual operating budget for the Carnegie Centre, including the
reading room and building maintenance, is about $1,800,000. $526,000
had been recovered through CAP, which will not be available in 1997.
1.1.2 The Saller Centre
The Evelyn Saller Centre provides nutrition, health, and recreation
services to disadvantaged residents of the Downtown Eastside. A
cafeteria serves partially subsidized meals; a health centre offers
laundry, bathing, delousing and first aid; and a small games room/lounge
fills some recreation needs. In 1995, there were 383,000 meals served,
22,000 showers taken, 19,000 loads of laundry washed, and over 270
people deloused. A volunteer program provides an opportunity for people
to feel useful and develop skills. Social and lifeskill programs assist
people who are chronically unemployed, experience alcohol and drug
addictions, are emotionally unstable, and suffer from mental and
physical illnesses and disabilities.
The Saller Centre s annual budget is about $2,300,000. About $245,000
has been recovered through CAP, which will not be available in 1997.
Another $245,000 is funded by the City. The remainder is provided from
meal revenue, which has been under pressure due to Provincial welfare
cuts, and through service contracts with the Province. To date, we have
been given no formal indication that the latter are under threat.
1.1.3 Parks and Recreation Youth Programs
The Park Board provides special programs for disadvantaged and troubled
youth in the Downtown Eastside and at the Portside Playground; in
Strathcona; and at the Raycam, Thunderbird, and Trout Lake Centres.
These programs cost in total about $1,200,000 a year. About 206,000 has
been recovered from the now-canceled CAP program.
1.1.4 Community Services Grants
In 1996, City Community Services Grants provided financial support to
eighty-seven non-profit organizations which are working with each other,
with the various levels of government and with local residents to
address social problems and bring about positive change. The grants are
allocated to priority services which include children and youth,
families, seniors, women, ethno-cultural communities and the disabled.
Many of these organizations also receive direct grants from the
Province, which has, in effect, partnered with the City to support these
services. Indications are that the Province may be withdrawing some of
its traditional support.
In 1996 Community Services Grant budget was approximately $2,800,000.
About $465,000 of this was provided through CAP funding.
1.1.5 Social Planning Department Community Services Division
In addition to administering the City s Community Services Grant
program, the Community Services Division of the Social Planning
Department provides the City with assistance in dealing with urgent and
emergent social issues. This occurs through monitoring trends,
anticipating problems, advising on strategies, facilitating citizen
involvement, promoting harmony and understanding among diverse cultures,
and working with other agencies and other governments on solutions that
meet social needs. Results include strategies and programs related to
gambling, drugs, alcohol, racial and ethnic tension, childcare and
family issues, and youth involvement. The participation of the Social
Planning Department also facilitates public and private development
which responds to social needs and is inclusive of social facilities.
The gross budget for Community Services has been a little less than
$1,500,000 a year. Of this, about $380,000 has been CAP-funded.
1.2 Other programs receiving partial Provincial funding
Beyond those programs receiving CAP, other City activities also receive,
or have received, partial Provincial funding. Some community programs
are funded by the City in partnership with the Province. In addition to
providing needed services, partnering has frequently allowed the City to
sit at the decision-making table, thus influencing policy and the
delivery of Provincial services to City residents.
Partial and partnership programs include:
1.2.1 DERA s housing relocator
The City and the Province have shared in funding a relocator employed by
DERA to assist tenants displaced in the Downtown Eastside. Annual costs
have been about $40,000, shared on approximately a 50/50 basis by the
Province and the City. The Province has withdrawn funding for the 96/97
fiscal year, leaving a 1996 shortfall of about $10,000. An accompanying
Council report discusses this situation in more detail.
1.2.2 Vancouver Housing Registry
The costs of this program were also shared 50/50 with the Province. The
registry, run by the YWCA, assists about 3,200 clients a month in
finding rental housing and is particularly useful for tenants for whom
discrimination, illiteracy, or language are barriers to finding housing.
The Registry costs about $260,000 a year to run. The Province has
indicated that it will not provide its one-half share in 1997. A
separate report on Council s agenda provides more detail.
1.2.3 The Gathering Place
The Gathering Place serves the special needs of poor people residing in
the rapidly changing Downtown South area. Its client population
includes homeless, seniors, street youth, the mentally ill, people
infected with HIV, unemployed, social assistance clients, and residents
of SRO hotels and social housing. It provides a low-cost healthy
cafeteria operated largely with volunteers, social and recreational
programs, a learning centre (funded by the Vancouver School Board), a
health centre (showers, laundry, and delousing), and a reading room.
The Gathering Place is open ten hours per day, six days per week.
The annual budget of the Gathering Place is about $1,370,000. It
receives no CAP funding, but gets about $77,500 a year from the Province
for the health centre. At this point, we have received no indication
that this funding will be discontinued.
1.2.4 Grants to major arts, cultural, and educational
organizations and institutions
Vancouver is home and home base to many of British Columbia s most
important art, cultural, and education activities. Organizations, large
and small, provide many unique services to the city, region, and
throughout the province.
From Ballet British Columbia, the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Vancouver
Symphony, and the Vancouver Opera, to Green Thumb Theatre for Young
People and the Vancouver International Children s Festival, and on to
Science World and the Pacific Space Centre, the City invests more than 5
million dollars a year in organizations which serve the citizens of the
province as well as the residents of the city. The City also provides
large-scale civic theatres, though such facilities are commonly provided
in other jurisdictions by regional or provincial governments.
The Province of British Columbia has been a significant partner with the
City in the development and operation of many of these city- and
province-serving organizations. However, the unilateral actions of our
partner may put some of these organizations and their services at great
risk. Through the Ministry of Small Business, Tourism and Culture, the
Province has just announced cuts totaling $4 million from the B.C.
Cultural Services grants budget of $16 million. Cuts of this magnitude
will inevitably hurt the Vancouver-based organizations, who may also be
faced with cuts in their City grants.
1.2.5 Social Housing
In Canada social housing is a federal and provincial responsibility.
However, in Vancouver, the City has played a very big role in
partnership with the other governments and the non-profit sector.
The primary City role has been to buy and lease sites for social
housing. Of the over 18,000 units of social housing in the City at the
end of 1995, a third are on City-owned land. These sites have been
leased at less than freehold market value, with a total write down of
$51.5 million since 1978. In recent years, most of the social housing
in Vancouver has been built on City land.
In addition to lease write downs, the City has provided grants for
projects that need further assistance. Twenty-one projects have
received grants totaling $5.3 million in 1995 dollars. There are also
three sites which the City leased at no cost for social housing. These
had a total value of $6.1 million.
The City also assists the Province in providing social housing by
requiring that major developers make sites available at costs which
program budgets can afford. This is often much less than market value.
The City requires that twenty percent of the units in major residential
projects, such as False Creek and Coal Harbour, be made available for
social housing. This has created a capacity of 2500 potential social
housing units, which the Province can take up.
The City also collects Development Cost Levies (DCLs), a portion of
which goes toward replacing affordable housing that may be lost to
redevelopment. In the Downtown South, forty-five percent of the DCLs
are allocated to replacement affordable housing.
The City s efforts in assisting the Province and non-profits are
coordinated through the Housing Centre. The Centre also provides tenant
assistant services and housing policy advice to Council and other
departments. In 1996, the Centre budget was in excess of $600,000.
Finally the City s Non-market Housing Division directly operates 800
units of social housing under contract with the Province. At this
point, the Province fully covers the cost of this service.
1.2.6 Other
The Province has also contracted with the City to provide other services
within its mandate, for example some limited police services, but the
level of Provincial support in these areas is very, very small relative
to the proportion of costs and responsibility borne by the City.
2. Programs funded wholly by the City even though they are
within the Provincial mandate
To serve the needs of its residents, the City also fully funds a couple
of programs which are clearly Provincial, not municipal,
responsibilities. These include:
2.1 Grants to AIDS organizations
In 1996, the City gave slightly in excess of $200,000 in grants to AIDS
Vancouver, McLaren House, and the B.C. Persons with AIDS Society.
Health is, however, a Provincial responsibility.
2.2 Grants to Childcare organizations
Even though childcare logically falls within the mandate of the new
Ministry of Children and Families and is not a common municipal
responsibility, the City provides financial assistance to almost fifty
non-profit organizations delivering childcare services within Vancouver.
The grants help support existing childcare programs, encourage new
initiatives in high-need areas, and assist the development of a
continuum of childcare services. This year, Council approved almost
$660,000 for childcare grants.
CONCLUSION
The City provides many services which have traditionally been more the
responsibility of the Province. Some of these have received direct and
partial funding from the Province, but much of this funding has now been
withdrawn. Others have been funded mostly by the City, but with the
indirect assistance of general Provincial revenue sharing. Most of this
revenue sharing is now gone.
Many of the services listed here are redistributional in nature; they
assist the less advantaged in our City. Redistribution is best done via
a progressive tax source such as the Provincial income tax. It is much
less efficient when it is funded by a relatively regressive tax such as
the City s property tax.
The services are also essential to the quality of life and econ-
omic health of this city. They are among the things which differentiate
Vancouver from virtually every other North American urban centre. They
help give us our high reputation for livability, safety, and caring; and
they assist in attracting visitors and investors. They also may save us
money in the long term. Money spent on social welfare, housing, and
children today is likely money which will not have to be spent on
policing and health later. The services constitute a public investment
in the future of Vancouver and of British Columbia. Short-sighted
decisions made today in the name of fiscal expediency threaten that
future and will likely lead to even higher costs and reduced revenue
capacity down the road.
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