$80M pledged to target homelessness in B.C.

The B.C. government has announced it will spend $80 million to buy 11 single room occupancy (SRO) hotels in Vancouver and Victoria, and to fund more supportive housing units in the Lower Mainland.

Ten of the hotels are in Vancouver, most of them in the city's troubled Downtown Eastside. Government ownership means tenants of the hotels won't be evicted by developers moving into the hard-pressed neighbourhood.

In making the announcement in Vancouver on Tuesday, Premier Gordon Campbell called it the "largest single acquisition of housing stock" in B.C. history.

"In addition to the single room occupancy hotels, the province will also fund seven other supportive housing developments, four existing properties in Burnaby and Victoria that will be converted to supportive housing and three new supportive housing developments to be built in Vancouver, all on city-owned land," he said.

The seven supportive housing developments will provide 287 units new low-rent housing for the mentally ill and people with addictions.

The announcement means there will be a total of 996 affordable housing units made available to low-income people.

The 2010 Winter Olympics are just threeyears away and the city's homelessness crisis has been the subject of numerous anti-Olympic protests.

But Campbell said his announcement had nothing to do with that, calling itthe government's obligation to provide safe affordable housing for people at risk.

'Wonderful day,' says Vancouver mayor

The City of Vancouver had identified SRO hotels as critical pieces in its housing strategy. So Mayor Sam Sullivan was more than a little delighted with the announcement.

"I think today is the day that we begin to turn the tide on homelessness; this is a wonderful day."

The city had set a goal of buying one SRO hotel a year, and Sullivan said the premier's announcement amounts to 10 years ofwork done in a single day.

Housing advocates in the Downtown Eastsidecall Tuesday's announcement a good start, but add there are many other people living in SRO hotels facing possible evictions, as the 2010 Olympics get closer.