Better transit top wish; Vital Signs survey also ranks housing, child care
Vancouver Courier
October 8, 2008
By: Cheryl Rossi

… The organization, which is Canada's largest charitable community foundation, released its third annual Vital Signs report yesterday. It examines the perceptions of Metro Vancouver residents on 12 topics, including the environment, housing and the gap between rich and poor.

The first annual report surveyed only Vancouver residents, who named poverty and homelessness as their greatest concerns. But when the study expanded outside the city in 2007, transportation became the top issue, rising to top place from 38 per cent for 45 per cent of the 854 Metro Vancouver residents who recently responded to a random public opinion poll.

….But 56 per cent said affordable and low-cost housing is their top priority, and 33 per cent said housing for homeless people should be provided first.

Barbara Grantham, director of the Vital Signs project, hopes citizens will use the report to inform themselves and ask politicians questions in the lead up to the federal and municipal elections.

While concerns about transportation and housing are hardly new, statistics on child care were a surprise. The cost of before and after school care for six to 12-year-olds in a licensed family setting has increased nearly 50 per cent in two years, Vital Signs reports, based on stats from the Westcoast Child Care Resource Centre that show the average monthly cost rose from $319 in 2005 to $478 in 2007.

Pam Best, executive director of the resource centre, said the cost of child care for three to five-year-olds in a group setting like a community centre has risen at twice the rate of the cost of living. The average full-time monthly rate in 2006 was $604 and in 2007 it was $675.

"Certainly for the first half of this year, in many economic sectors, we've been experiencing labour shortages," Grantham said. "In the long term, that's projected to continue across the country, and so we need to find ways of keeping women in the labour force, and having affordable child care is one way."….