Are promise and commitment synonyms?

In a March 7th Vancouver Sun story, Frances Bula writes about the 24 recommendations tabled by the Vancouver Olympics' housing roundtable, a group comprised of representatives of social agencies, developers and government officials. So far, I haven't come across a copy of all of the recommendations online, but to boil it down to its main points, I'll be quoting from Bula's article:

"The city requires in its three inner city neighbourhoods of the Downtown Eastside, downtown south and Mount Pleasant:

*3,000 housing units, 80 per cent of them to be new construction, for low-income residents.
*250 housing units for temporary Games workers, to be converted to social housing afterwards.
*300 shelter beds for young people likely to flock to the city during the Games.
*An increase in the subsidy for the 250 social-housing units at the Olympic Village so more low-income people can live in them.

I think the recommendations sound great on paper, but what of implementing them? The suggested cost to meet the above goals has been estimated at $1 billion. And, as Bula writes, "VANOC (Vancouver Organizing Committee) has no financial ability to pay for that kind of goal and no legal power to force governments to meet it."

Adding insult to injury, the folks at Relentlessly Progressive Economics have pointed out that the recent recommendations are strikingly similar to those proposed in the BC Solutions Budget for 2004 after Vancouver won its Olympics bid, and we all know how readily these weren't implemented.

Vancouver is the first city to put an "inner-city inclusivity" promise in its Bid and the language used in the promise makes it sound like a commitment.

The Vancouver Olympics' housing roundtable suggested that a large chunk of the money for social-housing will have to come from private partnerships.

Ken Dobell, special advisor to Gordon Campbell, just issued a report that analyzes what these partnerships might look like. Vancouver city council will be addressing the report on Tuesday.

According to another Vancouver Sun story, Dobell was paid $300,000 to compile the report. The Sun seems to think this could be money well spent.

About the partnerships, the Sun writes, " The Vancouver Homelessness Limited Partnership, which would raise $60 million in equity and subordinated debt to help develop supportive housing; and the Vancouver Homelessness Foundation, a charitable organization that would acquire properties donated by the city to lease back to the partnership.

If it all goes according to plan, Vancouver will have a stock of 3,000 units of supportive housing in a decade, which might not make homelessness disappear entirely, but would be a vast improvement over the existing situation."

The photo above was taken by MJ Milloy.