Victoria homeless camp a symptom of B.C.'s broken housing market
Posted: Jun 28, 2016 3:13 PM PT
'It's horrendous, the conditions people are living in,' says neighbour
The dramatic leap in housing prices in British Columbia has pumped hundreds of millions of unexpected tax dollars into provincial coffers, but Bert Woldring wonders why so little of it has been shared with the province's poorest residents.
Woldring is among a hundred or so campers who have turned the area behind Victoria's provincial courthouse into a makeshift tent city.
"We want homes. We haven't been able to get them in the system, so we have done what we can where we are," Woldring told CBC News as he walked on paths between the tents and tarp structures, just a few blocks from the city's picturesque inner harbour.
Woldring says he almost lost his arm in a workplace accident a decade ago and hasn't been able to work since. He once lived in a tent city in Maple Ridge, B.C., but moved to Victoria this past spring.
His construction skills have come in handy, as he's helped people here build frames, floors and roofs for their homes with donated wood.
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Link:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/homeless-victoria-bc-housing-market-1.3656193?cmp=rss