Clifford Labrée, aged eighty-three, has lived at the refuge of the Surrey urban mission for a year and a half.
He has no other options and fears to be on the street.
“Where am I going to go, there is nothing,” Labree told Global News. “Here, I get help. Here, I receive an ambulance if I need it. ”
The support accommodation would be more suitable for the senior, but there is no affordable opening available.
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“We are trying to get him into a higher level of care, which is clearly what he needs,” said Surrey Urban Mission spokesperson Janet Brown.
“But in the meantime, he stays with us at the refuge because we are not going to take him out, we are not going to make him become homeless.”
Unfortunately, Clifford’s story is not unique.
British Columbia’s elder defender Dan Levitt said that almost 14,000 elderly people asked for subsidized housing spaces, an increase of 59% against five years ago.
Most have been refused.
“About six percent of the people who applied, less than 900 people who applied 14,000 have received a space,” said Levitt.
The British Columbia Ministry of Health says that it was examining the case of Labree and hoped to provide more information soon.
For Labree, the Surrey Urban Mission refuge has become his house, somewhere that he now hopes to stay until the end.
“When I die, they can realize me,” he said. “But not until this.”
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