Joao Moraes
ELD 092 - 001
Poverty in Downtown Eastside Vancouver.
Have you ever walked by Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and noticed how this area has become a refuge for homeless people? In modern Canadian society, this area is full of poverty and homelessness. The mild climate, the ratio of housing prices and mental illness are the leading causes of poverty found in this mentioned area.
Firstly, Vancouver is a coastal seaport city, its weather is classified as Oceanic, and has one of the warmest climates across the country which all of these result in an increasing number of homeless populace living on the street. To illustrate, Born's article says that there are cities in Canada where the temperature drops to around -30 and -35 over the winter time; as a consequence, this led to ninety five deaths across the country in 2011. For those who are able, many homeless people usually choose Vancouver to live due to its mild climate.
Secondly, even though the Council has committed to creating more reasonably priced housing by 2015, the lack of affordable housing is still a significant cause of poverty in Vancouver; specifically, the gap of the ratio between household income and housing prices is extremely high. For example, a survey done by Demographia last January discovered that the Vancouver's median housing price is about 10.3 times higher than its median household income; furthermore, any score above 5.1 is considered "a severe unaffordable market" by Demographia, so the Vancouver's score is two times higher than the normal and acceptable one. Therefore, this extremely high ratio keeps people from buying their own houses, and unable to rent, they end up living on the streets due to lack of housing options.
Finally, Luk's article says that there are approximately 1,300 people in British Columbia who...