Vancouver's supportive housing pause may be unconstitutional, legal scholars say

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It is problematic from a constitutional law perspective, Young said, that council’s direction provides “housing for those who might have some public support” — such as seniors and women with children — while excluding “those who are the most vilified of an already disadvantaged group” — meaning other homeless people who may have other serious health problems.

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“It’s a problem that the government generally is not doing enough on housing for everyone. But talking specifically about this motion, having those exemptions is a sharp problem for constitutional law,” Young said.

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“The fact that they’ve got a piece of legislation that excludes the most vulnerable, the least politically palatable, let’s say, of individuals who are homeless, is deeply problematic and deeply discriminatory.”

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PHS, the organization that requested the UBC legal experts’ opinion, is not currently planning on mounting a court challenge against the city’s supportive housing pause, said CEO Micheal Vonn. They would prefer not to see taxpayer dollars fighting to preserve this policy, she said, and instead “hope council will take this information on board, and reconsider.”

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Vancouver residents may continue to hear more about this debate between now and the October municipal election.

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Bligh was ejected from the ABC caucus in February 2025 a few weeks after criticizing the mayor’s proposed housing pause, and now plans to run for mayor against Sim, with a new party called Vote Vancouver. Earlier this month, Bligh brought the debate back into the public, introducing a motion aiming to reverse the supportive housing freeze approved 14 months earlier.

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At the meeting, Bligh argued Sim’s motion has had “a significant chilling effect” making other Metro municipalities less likely to build supportive housing, producing the opposite of the stated effect and making the regional crisis worse.

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After a sometimes-heated and contentious meeting April 1, Bligh’s proposal to reverse Sim’s motion failed by a narrow 5-4 vote.

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On Monday, former Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell, who is currently working as the province’s special adviser on the challenges in the Downtown Eastside, commented to CBC Radio host Stephen Quinn that he doesn’t disagree with Sim that B.C.’s poorest neighbourhood does not need more supportive housing.

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“We have more supportive housing here than anywhere else in B.C., way above what our population is,” Campbell told Quinn, speaking in an alley near Main and Hastings. “I don’t know that we need to build more, so much as we need to take what we have and see how it’s being used.”

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On Tuesday, the most recent data on Vancouver’s homeless population, from the point-in-time count conducted in March 2025, was presented to council.

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The most recent tally found 2,715 homeless people in Vancouver. Of those, 1,952 were considered “sheltered” (including those in emergency shelters, hospitals, police facilities, detox centres, and other temporary locations), and 763 were unsheltered.

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Those numbers are all record highs. Vancouver’s sheltered homeless population has grown by 20 per cent since 2017, and the unsheltered numbers are up by 40 per cent since that time. Vancouver’s newest total homeless count represents a 12 per cent increase over the previous tally conducted in 2023.

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City councillors across party lines described the numbers presented Tuesday as “sobering.”

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