DID IH DROP BALL ON RESIDENTIAL CARE?

Interior Health shut down five residential facilities for the mentally
ill in 2004 and now claims there's a gap in service, say mental-health
advocates.

Early last year, the health authority closed about 65 beds in four of
the five homes in the Central Okanagan that provided round-the-clock
care for people with mental illnesses.

Now, officials are trying to fill the gap by pushing for an apartment
block on St. Paul Street that offers similar services to both drug
addicts and the mentally ill, said Lona Manning, former assistant to
the executive director of the Canadian Mental Health Association for
the Kelowna area.

"It was a colossal mistake to close those residential facilities,"
Manning said Sunday. "Why did they close all those beds two years ago,
and now they tell us there's a crisis?"

Opposition by business leaders to the $4.5-million, 30-apartment
building on St. Paul has pushed it onto the city-council agenda today.
Council will decide whether to proceed with the proposal, put it on
hold or look for other sites.

Alena Merhaut owned and operated Parkside Residence in Rutland before
her contract with IH ended in March 2004. She's still angry that
mental-health officials forced out her clients. Some moved into group
homes, others went to live with families, while others ended up on the
street.

"They were closing facilities prior to making a proper plan. Now, they
recognize there are no transition beds for people with mental
illness," Merhaut said.

She recalls volunteering at the Come & C Restaurant on Leon Avenue a
year ago and counting 17 mentally ill people who had previously lived
in homes now closed. They were having breakfast with homeless people
and complaining about the system, she said.

"These facilities were running for years. The clients were happy. It
was a success story. Now, there is a mess," Merhaut said.

IH closed the institutional beds and opted instead for the group-home
model, said Cam Wieser, manager of adult services at the Kelowna
Mental Health Centre. About 30 clients now live in five shared homes
with a mental-health worker who gives support for seven hours a day;
23 others live in family-care homes.

"The changes we made were to reduce the number of larger, more
institutionalized types of mental-health facilities and to create more
family-oriented group homes and care homes," Wieser said.

When the move to group homes was announced, IH said the cost of an
assisted-living bed was $32 a day while the cost of a
residential-facility bed was more than $100.

Manning says numerous clients failed to get the help they
needed.

"How many people from Oak Lodge and Parkside ended up on the street
because they couldn't handle being in a group home?" she wondered.

Verna White had to sell Oak Lodge, an 18-bed facility on Pandosy
Street for people with mental illness, after IH ended her contract. No
one from IH asked for her input on what should happen to her clients,
she said.

"They told us they closed us down because 'we can do this much more
cost-effectively.'"

Four of White's 18 beds were set aside for people with addiction
problems. Even with supervision, those clients were "constantly"
smuggling drugs through windows, breaking windows and cutting the
netting outside so suppliers could reach them.

"Security will be a big, big problem (at the St. Paul apartments),"
she said. "There's temptation right at their door. If they're right
downtown, it will be easy for anyone to seek them out and keep them on
their drugs."

Manning admits her husband is project manager for a luxury condo
development a block away from the proposed apartments on St. Paul, but
she's a strong supporter of more housing for the homeless, people at
risk of being homeless and those with drug and alcohol problems --
especially those who just got out of hospital.

"My issue is accountability. Some people who said 'close down these
residential facilities' are the ones saying we have a crisis and we
need a new facility. . . . if it were the private sector, a manager
would get into trouble."

Wieser says the clients his staff work with today are different from
two years ago. Back then, their clients had mental-health problems and
the Ministry for Children and Family Development was responsible for
alcoholics and drug addicts. The two client types were later
amalgamated.

"I don't believe we had the same model before," Wieser said. "Now, we
have mental health and addictions. There haven't been adequate housing
resources for the addicted population in the past."

Ira Roness, senior manager for alcohol and drug services in the
Okanagan, was unavailable for comment Sunday.