{ texts for nothing }

It would be cheaper to provide actual housing and support for BC’s homeless than it is to provide existing non-housing services to the same people:

A new study says providing shelter for the homeless with severe addictions and mental illness throughout British Columbia could save taxpayers millions of dollars.

“Addiction is the most prevalent mental health problem in both the street homeless and at-risk populations, followed by concurrent disorders and, less frequently, mental illness alone,” the Simon Fraser University report says.

The paper — titled Housing and Support for Adults with Severe Addictions and/or Mental Illnesses in British Columbia [warning: 15-page PDF] — says providing non-housing services for such people currently costs the public system more than $55,000 per year per person. It says providing adequate housing and supports could reduce this cost to $37,000 per year….

“The costs of providing supported housing and other health services to this population … is lower than the cost incurred through the use of emergency departments, the corrections system and emergency shelters when they are homeless,” the report says.

(Hat tip: David Eby. If you are at all interested in poverty, homelessness, or the social impact of the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver — and if you live here, you ought to be — I strongly recommend reading Eby’s blog. He works with the Pivot Legal Society, a non-profit that provides legal assistance to people in the Downtown Eastside.)

From the Vancouver Sun:

The B.C. Court of Appeal has backed B.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice Don Brenner’s decision to kill the Canadian Bar Association’s landmark attempt to force governments to provide adequate civil legal aid to poor people.

In a majority ruling Monday, the court agreed with the province’s senior trial court judge and said he was also quite right to assess costs against the CBA. [...]

“Although the action is intended to assist low-income members of the pubic and its spirit is commendable, I do not consider that the altruistic nature of the action should be afforded much weight until at least the [bar association] has established it can meet the minimal test of disclosing a reasonable claim,” [Court of Appeal] Justice Mary Saunders wrote. [...] “Access to legal services is fundamentally important in any free and democratic society. In some cases, it has been found essential to due process and a fair trial. But a review of the constitutional text, the jurisprudence and the history of the concept does not support the respondent’s contention that there is a broad general right to legal counsel as an aspect of, or precondition to, the rule of law.” [...]

For almost two decades, legal aid across Canada has been a growing concern because of government cutbacks.

Provinces have curtailed legal aid services, narrowing the types of cases they cover, raising the eligibility criteria, making it harder to qualify.