Hey Jerry, How About Sharing?
Hey Jerry, how about sharing?
Winter is coming.
And while Metro Vancouver struggles with homelessness, seniors are losing their homes, shelters are turning people away, and people are being asked to survive in housing that many of us would consider completely unacceptable, the people running our public institutions are being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.
So let's ask some hard questions.
Do you think it's right that people can be turned away from shelters while a top Metro Vancouver executive is making more than half a million dollars a year?
Do you think it's right that people are expected to survive in disgusting SROs that aren't fit for rats—while we continue to spend enormous amounts of public money on administration?
And here's another question:
What happens to an elderly person when the system decides they are no longer sick enough for a hospital, but there is nowhere safe and appropriate for them to go?
Look at what happened to 78-year-old Elizabeth Davis.
Davis spent 30 years working in social work, including with unhoused people and women fleeing abuse. She worked until she was 74.
Then her health deteriorated.
She spent much of the past three months in hospital and lost her apartment while she was there. Her family was given just 48 hours to clear out her belongings.
When she was finally medically cleared for discharge, her family hoped she would be placed somewhere appropriate—perhaps assisted living or long-term care.
Instead, she was discharged to a shelter in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Her family says they weren't even told where she had been sent.
That night, Davis sent her family a frightened message asking for help.
By the next morning, her shoes and phone charger had reportedly been stolen, and she had been readmitted to hospital.
This isn't some abstract statistic.
This is a 78-year-old woman who spent her working life helping vulnerable people.
And now she is one of them.
Davis herself gave a balanced account of the shelter, saying the people there were kind and the facility was clean. She wasn't attacking the shelter workers.
Her problem was something much bigger:
A shelter isn't a home.
She wants somewhere that feels more like home, with her own room, meals, some independence and access to regular medical care.
Is that really too much to ask of a society as wealthy as ours?
Apparently, it can be.
According to B.C.'s Seniors Advocate, seniors now make up 22% of Metro Vancouver's unhoused population, and about 45% of people experiencing homelessness for the first time are over 55.
Think about that.
People who worked their entire lives can reach old age and still end up without a home.
And the problem is growing.
So here's another hard question:
How did we build a system where an elderly person can be medically discharged from a hospital before there is an appropriate home for them to go to?
And another:
Why are seniors being handed lists of private long-term-care facilities that they cannot possibly afford?
And another:
Why are people expected to become homeless before they qualify for the help they desperately need?
We hear constantly about "efficiency."
We hear about budgets.
We hear about fiscal responsibility.
But where is the same urgency when it comes to preventing homelessness in the first place?
Because homelessness is expensive too.
Emergency rooms are expensive.
Police interventions are expensive.
Ambulances are expensive.
Shelters are expensive.
Temporary housing is expensive.
And human suffering has a cost that doesn't appear neatly on a spreadsheet.
Now let's return to Jerry.
Reportedly, Dobrovolny received $567,338 in total remuneration in 2025.
I'm not saying his salary alone could solve homelessness.
It couldn't.
But let's do the math anyway.
If we use $1,000 a month as a rough figure for very modest living costs in parts of Mexico, six months would cost $6,000.
$567,338 divided by $6,000 equals approximately 94 people for six months.
I'm not suggesting we ship homeless people to Mexico.
That's not the answer.
I'm asking something much more uncomfortable:
What could we accomplish if we measured public spending by the number of human lives we could improve?
One executive.
More than half a million dollars.
Ninety-four people could theoretically receive six months of $1,000-a-month support.
Meanwhile, an elderly woman who spent 30 years serving vulnerable people can lose her apartment, leave hospital, and end up in a shelter.
Does that seem like a system that is working?
Does it seem right?
Does it seem compassionate?
Does it seem fiscally responsible?
And perhaps the hardest question of all:
If this happened to your mother, your grandmother, your sister—or you—would you consider this acceptable?
I wouldn't.
And I don't think we should accept it for Elizabeth Davis either.
We shouldn't accept it for the senior sleeping in their car.
We shouldn't accept it for the person turned away from a shelter.
We shouldn't accept it for the person trapped in an unsafe SRO.
We shouldn't accept it for anyone.
Hey Jerry, how about sharing?
Not necessarily your paycheque.
Share the responsibility.
Share the resources.
Share the urgency.
Because the people who are most vulnerable in our society shouldn't have to wait until they are completely broken before we decide they deserve somewhere safe to live.
Winter is coming.
What are we going to do about it?
#MetroVancouver
#JerryDobrovolny
#Homelessness
#HousingCrisis
#SeniorHomelessness
#AffordableHousing
#SeniorsHousing
#HousingJustice
#PublicAccountability
#Va
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