COUNCILLOR QUESTIONS HOUSING SICK ADDICTS IN DANGEROUS ENVIRONMENT

The city and senior governments are building a social housing project for
100 drug-addicted and mentally ill singles in the heart of the city's worst
drug scene.

The planned $13 million complex will provide shelter for singles deemed to
face "multiple challenges." In social services lingo, multiple challenges
means mentally ill with a drug addiction and possibly HIV.

The site, at 57 East Hastings St., is a city-owned car park alongside the
United We Can bottle depot. Directly across the road are the Vancouver Area
Network of Drug Users office and a methadone clinic. The supervised
injection site and the proposed heroin maintenance trial office are one
block away.

Coun. Peter Ladner believes more housing for singles with addictions and
mental illness is needed in the city. However, he has serious reservations
about placing that housing in the Downtown Eastside.

"I don't think it will help the people in the Downtown Eastside or the
people living in the facility," Ladner said. "It will give them a place to
sleep, but if you walk out the door into the hotbed of drug dealers that
are down there and a lot of other people who are struggling with mental
illness, that's not going to help you. It's a circular argument, you put
the services there and the people come there because of the services and
they provide more services and more people come. Ask yourself if that
serves the neighbourhood or whether you should push those places out to
other locations."

Jill Davidson, the city's senior social housing planner, said people
already living in the Downtown Eastside, either in hotel rooms or shelters,
will be the majority of the tenants in the new development.

"These are people who live in the neighbourhood now, they are living in
SROs or cycling through the shelters. There are a variety of reasons they
are there, including affordable accommodation and friends," Davidson said.

The city is donating the land, worth over $1 million, for the project,
while the federal and provincial governments will each chip in $6.4 million
for construction costs. Operating funding will come from B.C. Housing and
the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.

The complex will be staffed around the clock and the health authority will
provide mental health and other services to residents. United We Can will
operate a bottle depot on the ground floor, while another non-profit
society will be selected next year to operate the housing in the site.

Ladner is concerned not enough public consultation over the project has
been held.

"There are groups down there that make a living serving that clientele and
the more of that clientele there is in the neighbourhood, the more of a
living they can make and the more useful they think they are. I want to
ensure other voices in that community get heard," Ladner said.

Davidson said the site has already been rezoned to permit the proposed
facility. However, because the development permit has lapsed since the
initial approval in 2000, public consultation will be held next year.