LIVING IN FEAR

Once a quiet home for seniors and the disabled, Steeves Manor near
Jericho Park has become a bedbug infested den of drug use and
violence, according to tenants. They blame a government decision to
move addicts and dual-diagnosed mentally ill into the facility.

Walking down a long hallway on the main floor of Steeves Manor,
located on Wallace Street near Jericho Park, the stale stench of
marijuana and cigarette smoke is overwhelming.

Also noticeable is a trail of brown spots on the tiled floor that
begins in the lobby and ends in a pool in the elevator. It appears
someone spilled their coffee. "No, it's probably blood," surmises a
resident playing tour guide that October day.

Blood splatter has become such a common occurrence at the 190-unit,
three-storey housing complex that the 50-year-old disabled resident
simply steps around the stains. Life has changed for the residents of
Steeves, which until several years ago provided safe subsidized
independent housing for seniors and adults with physical disabilities.
Rent at Steeves is based on 30 per cent of a tenant's monthly income.

The blood is just one of a litany of complaints the seniors have
against some of the newer tenants.

Several years ago, the provincial Ministry of Housing began moving the
homeless, and drug and alcohol addicts, many with mental health
issues, into the housing complex to live alongside frail seniors and
disabled residents.

With the exception of a resource worker, who the ministry says is
onsite three days a week, there is no staff on duty the remaining four
days or in the evenings. The seniors interviewed for this story wonder
why single room accommodation hotels in the Downtown Eastside have
24-hour staff to help with its hard-to-house residents, but Steeves
Manor does not.

The seniors now fear for their safety, which is why they didn't want
their names published in the paper, and avoid the hallways and
elevators when alone.

Nighttime can be a living hell, they say. Several residents mentioned
one regular disturbance involving a man who pulls the fire alarm and
races up and down the hallways knocking on doors screaming, "Fire." At
first, some wheelchair-confined residents struggled to leave their
beds and suites, but now simply lie there, say their friends. This
same man apparently also knocks on doors and turns doorknobs to see if
he can gain access to other resident suites.

What used to be the common room, where residents gathered to socialize
and watch TV, is often used as a party room where the new tenants
gather to drink and smoke marijuana with their non-resident friends.
It's a party paid for by taxpayers, the seniors claim.

Other concerns include the new residents regularly inviting "their
binner friends" in to spend the night, with their grocery carts, which
is where the recent bedbug infestation is believed to have originated.
Loaning security swipe cards out to non-residents to gain 24-hour
access to the building is also common, and for the first time in the
complex's 34-year history, mice and rats are a major problem.

Equally problematic, according to residents, are the male tenants who
suffer from substance abuse and bring home women to party, which often
ends in drunken, screaming brawls. Alcohol-fueled brawls between the
men are also routine, the tenants say, which probably explains the
blood splatter.

Four days prior to the Courier visiting Steeves, a male resident and a
female friend began to argue in the middle of the night. The woman
screamed loudly before smashing a beer bottle over his head. Police
and an ambulance attended that incident--and more.

Between January and August of this year, the Vancouver Police
Department attended Steeves Manor 120 times, up from 85 for all of
2009. In the past three years, Vancouver Fire and Rescue responded to
328 complaints. For privacy reasons, neither the VPD or Fire and
Rescue could expand on the incidents, but both admitted nuisance calls
are common. The police denied the Courier interview requests with the
community policing officer who, according to the residents, visits
Steeves Manor almost weekly to listen to their complaints and offer
safety advice and is well-liked by the longer-term tenants. Why these
seniors need safety tips inside their building went unanswered.

"This has nothing to do with us," VPD media spokesperson Const. Jana
McGuinness told the Courier.

According to B.C. Housing's media department, the VPD says 120 police
visits in eight months is not out of the norm. "The Community Policing
Constable has advised B.C. Housing that the Vancouver Police
Department does not consider Steeves Manor to have a particular
problem with alleged criminal or violent activities," the ministry
noted in an email. According to Vancouver Fire and Rescue spokesperson
Steve Laleune, however, 325 visits in three years by that department
"is more than most."

Meanwhile, a Steeves resident told the Courier a woman died of a drug
overdose in a hallway Oct. 12. Regional coroner Owen Court confirmed
there was a suspicious death at Steeves that same day, but had not
determined the cause.

Former Steeves Manor tenant Teresa Larson moved out of the complex in
September.

The 47-year-old moved into the West Side complex in 2003 after health
problems forced her into a wheelchair and after being on a wait list
for more than a year for an apartment at Steeves.

She says in the past several years, what initially started out as her
dream home eventually descended into "hell in a handbasket."

"I don't scare easily, but it was getting ridiculous," says
Larson.

She says a man convicted in a 2003 murder moved into a suite with a
female resident after being released from prison. Larson says when she
heard the man being referred to by his street name, she checked with
the community policing officer, who confirmed the man was a convicted
killer. Larson is unsure if the man is still at Steeves today, but
says he was still hanging around the building when she moved out in
September. The Courier contacted the VPD to verify Larson's
allegations, but was told there was a privacy issue and could not
confirm or deny the man's identity.

Larson adds many of the formerly homeless living in Steeves panhandle
inside the building, hitting up 80-year-old women for money. Larson
says while she was living at Steeves one man the residents
particularly feared would go from door to door asking for money or
food. She believes he was recently evicted, but not until his
apartment was treated for bed bugs numerous times. That same man, she
says, raised his arm and threatened to punch her in the face while she
was sitting in her wheelchair in the downstairs lobby. That incident
took place at 9:30 a.m. and the man was severely intoxicated, she
recalls. Larson called police, who attended and gave the man a warning.

According to Steeves residents, simple warnings are typical punishment
for abusive or out-of control behaviour.

A current disabled tenant, who also did not want to be identified for
fear of reprisals, says that same man recently grabbed her in the
hallway. One of her neighbours had to step in and help. The woman says
police also responded to that incident. The woman is now too
frightened to walk down the hallway or enter an elevator unless it's
empty.

"We've had some people move into Steeves from a shelter who were just
lovely," says Larson. "But these other guys shouldn't be living in the
same home as seniors. Two dumpster divers moved in and they managed to
destroy an entire suite in five months."

It was Jericho Beach Block Watch captain Chris Mallalue who
highlighted the problems at Steeves Manor. Besides her role with Block
Watch, Mallalue frequently visits friends living at Steeves.

She's certain at least two drug dealers and two prostitutes now live
and work out of Steeves. Other residents confirmed this and one tenant
said one of the dealers had offered to "hook her up" with whatever she
needs. Mallalue says Steeves is also frequently visited by dial-a-dope
drug dealers. Mallalue has witnessed vehicles pulling up to the
entrance, with tenants and drivers making not-so-subtle exchanges of
cash for small packages.

She calls the mix of frail seniors and the disabled with people
suffering from addictions and mental health issues "ridiculous." Many
of the mentally ill living at Steeves are out during the day when
their health care workers visit and bring with them their clients'
medication.

"For years Steeves had a tenants' association funded by B.C. Housing
that used to organize events and look after things," says Mallalue.
"But B.C. Housing cut their funding and the association was
disbanded." (A tenant still living at Steeves, who used to sit on the
association's board, confirmed the association was disbanded by B.C.
Housing.)

Two years ago B.C. Housing told Mallalue it hasn't made any policy
changes regarding who qualifies to live at Steeves. But what the
ministry has done, says Mallalue, is broaden the meaning of
"disability" in relation to housing.

"Over the years, the government has eroded its original mandate,"
Mallalue wrote in a letter to B.C. Housing. "Seniors turned into
handicapped, turned into individuals who are considered 'people with
disabilities.' What do disabilities mean? It appears that disabilities
now means dual diagnosis mentally ill and drug addicted. Hard to house."

Despite repeated interview requests, B.C. Housing Minister Rich
Coleman refused to comment on Steeves Manor or divulge whose idea it
was to integrate the hard to house with seniors all across the
province, including Sunset Manor in the West End. (As reported in the
Courier this summer, longtime Sunset Manor tenants have similar
complaints as the Steeves' residents. Many believe it was a government
push to rid the streets of the homeless prior to the 2010 Olympic
Games, which the government has denied.)

While Coleman refused an interview, including whether he'd place his
mother or father in Steeves Manor, the ministry's media department
responded to questions via email only.

According to the ministry, staff resources at Steeves are in line with
other similar developments operated by B.C. Housing, which includes
available on-call staff six evenings a week and an after-hours
emergency contact. The ministry acknowledges there are bed bugs at
Steeves, but noted, "Unfortunately, bed bugs are a problem in
Vancouver and in most major urban centres in B.C. and Canada."

When a suite is identified as having bed bugs, a pest control company
is called to treat the unit and adjacent ones at no cost to the
residents, the ministry said.

Steeves is undergoing a $17.74 million building renovation, which will
eventually include fire alarms and security upgrades, such as new
cameras. The renovation announcement was made in Oct. 2009 at a press
conference at Steeves attended by Premier Gordon Campbell and MP for
Okanagan-Coquihalla Stockwell Day. The province is spending $177
million to renovate and retrofit Steeves Manor and 100 other "social
housing" buildings across the province by the end of 2011. Once
complete, Steeves will be considered a Crime Prevention through
Environmental Design property. CPTED includes using design to "reduce
incidence and fear of crime and improve quality of life through use of
space and landscaping," which includes the use of low bushes and
adequate lighting.

Joy Farden recently moved her elderly mother out of Steeves, where she
had lived for 24 years.

"She was happy initially, but in the past few years she was scared,"
says Farden. "It got to the point where I told her to never open her
door if someone was knocking on it. I told her to call me first."

Farden says the final straw was when her meticulously tidy mother
contracted bedbugs--twice in as many months. That, combined with her
fear, was enough to convince her once fiercely independent mother to
move in with her. Steeves Manor is listed several times on Vancouver
Coastal Health's bed bug registry.

Farden confirms many of the residents have become shut-ins because
they're too fearful to venture from their rooms alone.

"So many of them are suffering, it's just not right," says Farden.