Sparks fly over Vancouver's homeless shelter funding

B.C.'s Housing Minister is firing back at Vancouver's mayor and council for criticizing provincial funding of the city's emergency homeless shelters.

On Thursday Mayor Gregor Robertson said the province needs to step up with more cashor else 500 people would be forced back out on to the streets.

But Minister Rich Coleman says the council always agreed with the province that the emergency shelters would be a temporary measure to get people inside during cold winter weather, and they shouldn't be complaining now that the program has come to an end.

'We're waiting for him to come to the table with money.' VancouverCouncillor Raymond Louie

"This is actually the only community that complains that we're doing a strategy that they agreed to in the first place, and now they want to change," said Coleman.

"They're not supposed to be permanent, and they're not going to be because that's the promise we made to the communities," said Coleman.

Province should pay, says councillor

But Councillor Raymond Louie said closing the shelter will still send people back on the streets and he expects the province to come up with money to prevent that.

"It is their purview to fund this and we would expect them to do that on an ongoing basis," said Louie.

The provincehas paidnearly all of the costs for running the seven temporary sheltersover the winter,but has offered to keep them open if the city could cover 50 per cent of the cost.

But Louie says temporay shelter space likely wouldn't be an issue if the Minister came through with promised funding to build eight permanent social housing projects.

"Those sites are ready and we're waiting for him to come to the table with money for those," said Louie.

But the minister said that's just rhetoric and blamed Louie for simplifying a complex issue.

"They know darn well that there are issues with other things we're doing with the city I think we're a good partner, and we'll continue to be, despite the rhetoric I'm hearing," said Coleman.

On Thursday the city released the results of its March homeless count that suggested there are more than 1700 people without permanent homes in the city of Vancouver.

But the report also found about 74 per cent of those peoplewent tohomeless shelters, but warned 500 of those people would soon be back out on the streets when the temporary shelter shut down at the end of April.

Coleman says as in past years, the province is working to find transition homes for seasonal shelter users, once they close down.

"The reality is that we have some options in regard to transitional housing that we can do for quite a few of them, so we do this every year, we work through it every year and we're going to continue to do it again this year," said Colemen.