DUNBAR NIABYS WAY OFF BASE

It is time we ran a little reality check on my neighbours who are
freaked out at the possibility of supportive housing for
dual-diagnosed people being built at West 16th Avenue and Dunbar.

Last night, a group of East Side residents held the first meeting of a
community advisory committee set up to deal with a similar facility
for people with mental issues and drug addictions now under
construction on Fraser Street.

When the Fraser Street project was first announced in 2004, there was
a firestorm of protest from the neighbourhood. In the end though there
was an accord.

During the debate the city confirmed that as part of its drug
strategy, treatment centres should be spread around the city.
Dual-diagnosed people, after all, live everywhere and are in every
walk of life.

Vancouver Coastal Health figured the city needed four to six more
facilities. Since then, the city and the health authority have been
working on a report to assess all the supportive housing needs for
Vancouver. This includes everything from seniors' housing to those
projects modelled after Fraser Street.

But a bomb went off on the West Side last year, shortly after the city
purchased the property at Dunbar and 16th Avenue and the city's senior
housing planner Rob Whitlock spoke with some of the local residents
about possible options.

This week, as the protest gathered steam, a website appeared at
NIABY.com: Not In Anybody's Back Yard. None of the backers' names are
included.

The newsletter the group produced claims "dual diagnosis patients are
the most likely population for this site." Nobody knows that for sure
but they would prefer seniors' housing.

The newsletter then goes on to make a number of points about
dual-diagnosed people, which are debatable if not downright incorrect.

Most notably they claim that "there are currently no effective
treatment options." Michele Sutherland, who runs Vancouver Coastal
Health's dual diagnosis program, said, "I'm appalled by that." She
adds that "treatment options are extremely effective."

Her program, which has been operating since 1991, handles 250 clients
and includes an addiction doctor and two psychiatrists. Residents in
the Fraser Street residence will likely be clients of that program.

The newsletter also states "dual diagnosis patients also have high
rates of violent and acquisitive crime."

Mark Smith, whose organization Triage will run the Fraser Street
project, said they are more often the victims of violent crime than
the perpetrators. Sutherland said not everyone is psychotic. Their
mental illness would not necessarily involve any violence at all and
includes depression, anxiety attacks or agoraphobia.

The newsletter correctly points out the facility on Fraser Street will
have a low staffing level. But virtually all the treatment will take
place off site at programs like the one that Sutherland runs.

And while the Fraser Street facility will be "dry"-"relapses will be
permitted." Actually, Smith says "lapses"-a beer or a joint-will be
tolerated, but only once.

The client will be expected to deal with it. "Relapses" usually means
the client "disappears."

As far as the statement that "even trained experts cannot detect when
a recovering addict begins to use drugs again about 50 per cent of the
time," Smith says that may be true if the addict is visiting a
counsellor once a week but in a round-the-clock model like Fraser
Street the problem is almost immediately obvious.

Everyone agrees this West Side protest over the potential new site
will have more money and power behind it than Fraser Street.

If there was ever a time for city councillors and the mayor to douse
the flames NIABY.com is fanning and support this kind of facility, it
is now.