There’s an old saying that the best time to plant a tree is 30 years ago. The second best time is now.
This is applicable to the situation around homelessness and supportive housing in Maple Ridge.
When should we have course corrected on providing more low-income and subsidized housing for the ever-increasing number of people losing their homes and finding themselves on the streets?
Definitely before the “temporary” Royal Crescent modular housing complex passed its best-before date.
Before it was built back in 2018, too – the problem of homelessness was well advanced by then, in Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, and around the Lower Mainland.
It would have been nice if former premier John Horgan had made building hundreds of units of new housing across B.C. a major priority the second he entered office in 2017.
Then again, it also would have been great had the provincial Liberal governments under premiers Christy Clark or Gordon Campbell, in office from 2001, done more to stem the tide of the housing crisis.
And since we’re going back a full 30 years, the federal Liberals absolutely should not have eliminated programs that built housing on a national scale in the 1990s.
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This week, we’ve had BC United Party leader Kevin Falcon tearing a strip off NDP Premier David Eby over an unreleased report on Royal Crescent, which has been controversial since the day it was announced.
Falcon correctly pointed out that the mods were not popular with some nearby residents, and that there have been a number of high-profile issues with the site during the last five years.
He does not mention that he was a senior cabinet minister in previous Liberal governments that failed to stop the dramatic rise in homelessness.
Eby, meanwhile, flings blame at the previous Ridge city council for not coming to an agreement sooner to relocate the housing. New supportive housing is under construction now.
Eby did not mention that homelessness has not appreciably declined under two NDP premiers since 2017, or that the province can override local governments when necessary.
Flinging and ducking blame is a fun sport for politicians.
But it doesn’t help build supportive housing, it doesn’t build subsidized housing, and it doesn’t build seniors housing.
The best time to create a sensible long-term plan to increase the housing supply, build more co-ops and low-income units, and open more drug and mental health treatment spaces was 30 years ago.
The second best time is now.