But, there is an in-between. Other cities across Canada have implemented a “housing first” approach that partners social services with private landlords, and that has had some success. (See this article for some sense of it: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/housing-first-landlords-1.4371933)

Of course, it’s not perfect and there were hiccups especially at the beginning but a body of best practices has started to take shape that we could certainly learn from for Vancouver’s issues.

It’s not fair to say that because OP and others like them had some struggles that they must conform to the current system and available options. We can advocate for other options to be created in the system.