Questions, Questions

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with various outreach/housing workers in town. Overwhelmingly, the message that I am receiving is that the housing directory/guide/binder was a fine exercise, but it rarely gets used. There are some common reasons for this.

First, it’s cumbersome. Let’s face it; pulling out a 4” binder to flip through isn’t exactly an efficient use of your time. It’s not very portable and it can be very difficult to search through.

Second, consider the probability of finding a vacancy in a ‘guide’ that may have been created six or more months ago. Is it up to date? Will any of these landlords accept your client? Why should they?

You can see the difficulty in having a hard copy. Would it be any better if it were delivered electronically? I know that outreach workers and others that work directly with our clients have precious little time to check their email, let alone some other (perceived) marginally useful tool. That’s why the binder never gets looked at. Something needs to happen. It may be that the very idea of this type of guide is moot if in fact there just isn’t the stock to place people. The most user-friendly, cross-referencable web guide in the world will not produce more housing.

The process that takes place in order to develop a resource such as this may, in fact, be the most valuable piece. It is through this process that we may find resources that before now we thought were inaccessible. Any engagement of interested parties will be at least as valuable as not engaging the process.

Can the information collected through this process be used to advocate for more stock? This remains to be seen. There appears to be plenty of evidence (CMHC, BC Housing) to support the need for more stock. The question remains on how to obtain it. Perhaps this is beyond the scope of this discussion and this project for that matter. The key, I think, is for the community – service providers, landlords, tenants and others to compile their voices and provide an integrated message that can garner positive, creative solutions to affordable housing