STREET PROBLEMS BLAMED ON SHORTAGE OF SHELTERS

There's no easy solution to poverty, homelessness and panhandling in
Victoria, but there's no solution at all without more addiction
treatment beds and affordable housing options for at-risk people.

That sums up the reaction of local authorities to a recent outpouring
of criticism levelled at Victoria's street population and the
agencies charged with caring for them.

"We need more resources from the province and the federal government
so we can have more beds and more treatment facilities," said
Victoria Mayor Alan Lowe.

"We have seven (adult) detox beds for the whole Island and we
definitely we need many, many more beds."

The backlash against Victoria's panhandlers, drug addicts, the
mentally ill and other homeless people started with the Fairmont
Empress Hotel's claims that unsavoury street life is scaring
conference business away from the city.

The resignation of Dr. Anthony Barale, the Vancouver Island Health
Authority's clinical director of psychiatric emergency services,
further highlighted the city's struggle to deal with street-related issues.

Barale, the man in charge of the Archie Courtnall Centre for
emergency psychiatric care, accused VIHA management of being
"seriously out of touch with the clinical realities and needs of the
addicted population."

Tensions were further inflamed by the city's approval of a temporary,
six-week homeless shelter at the Church of St. John the Divine on
Balmoral Street.

By week's end, Rev. Al Tysick, the head of Our Place street ministry,
was frustrated by the outpouring of negativity.

"We're in a time of unprecedented wealth and what a mean-spirited
thing to be pointing fingers at the poor," Tysick said following a
CBC Radio forum on the topic held Friday at the downtown library.
"All the shelters are full. Where can they go but the street?

"It's like pointing at the boil and not looking at the cause of that
boil. We've ignored our housing issues for over 20 years."

Forests and Range Minister Rich Coleman, whose portfolio also
includes housing, was unavailable for comment Monday.

NDP MLA Rob Fleming (Victoria-Hillside) accused the Liberal
government of focusing too much on housing for seniors and the
mentally challenged, and not enough on low-income families and
at-risk populations.

"One of the first things they did was get rid of funding for
low-income families," Fleming said, citing a now-defunct program
called Homes BC.

"It certainly was more than symbolic when the government took the
ministry responsible for housing and made it part of forest and
range," Fleming said. "I guess their priority for housing falls
somewhere between dead trees and grasslands."

Following Victoria city council's approval of the St. John the Divine
project, Victoria police Insp. John Ducker said beat cops have
nowhere to take people they pick up for sleeping in downtown doorways.

"The real answer is there needs to be more housing," Ducker said. "We
have to try and create some kind of alternative solution."