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VPD social spending report not very useful: mayor

Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 09 Nov, 2022 04:21 PM
  • VPD social spending report not very useful: mayor

VANCOUVER - Mayor Ken Sim has joined criticism of a report commissioned by the Vancouver Police Department that concludes $5 billion a year is being spent on the city's "social safety net."

The $142,000 report by Alberta-based HelpSeeker Technologies says the spending includes $1 million a day in the Downtown Eastside.

It lands on the sum of $5 billion after including items like the Vancouver police and fire budgets, federal supports such as pensions for all residents of the city, and the budgets of some non-profits and charities that provide services to the entire province.

Sim says he doesn't think the report is very useful and it's difficult to source some of the figures used in the document, which he says raises more questions than answers.

Coun. Pete Fry also criticizes the report's methodology and says he worries the report will be used to justify cuts to services, and that it's "stigmatizing" the Downtown Eastside.

Police Chief Adam Palmer denies the report's numbers are misleading or inflated and suggests spending is actually higher than $5 billion.

He is using the report to call for a centralized entity, led by a provincial minister or deputy minister, to oversee and co-ordinate services in the Downtown Eastside, where he says a "piecemeal" approach isn't working.

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