MAYOR AWOL ON REHAB HOUSE

What we have here, with the turmoil over the proposed housing project
for dual diagnosed patients at 39th and Fraser, is a failure to
communicate-and an alarming lack of political leadership from Mayor
Larry Campbell.

It is easy enough to blame a few ring leaders in the neighbourhood and
Liberal MLA Patrick Wong for whipping up the crowds that turned out
first at the meeting at John Oliver school Oct. 4, which I didn't
attend, and again at the school this past Monday, which I did get to.
There is to be sure an amazing level of irrational fear over what will
happen when 39 mentally ill recovering addicts, all in treatment, move
into the building with a zero-tolerance drug policy.

This is not to say the fear is not sincerely felt, particularly by the
young woman who was in tears as she explained how she would no longer
be able to safely walk the streets in that neighbourhood.

But when police Insp. Kash Heed told folks their neighbourhood had the
lowest crime rate in all of District 3, which runs from Ontario Street
east to Boundary Road and from Great Northern Way to the Fraser River,
the crowd simply refused to believe him.

You really have to wonder how it came to this. Let's start with the
failure to communicate. This project should be seen as a part of the
city's drug strategy, the Four Pillar approach, the one that Philip
Owen championed and that swept Campbell into office.

In fact, the strategy is an awkwardly constructed joint deal involving
the city drug-policy team, the cops, the Vancouver Coastal Health
Authority and, to some degree, Ottawa.

The most noticeable piece of the strategy is the supervised-injection
site, but there were also four other care facilities put in at the
same time the site was being built, all in the Downtown Eastside.
Since then several other project have been moving forward throughout
the city based on the notion that stuffing all treatment centres in
the Downtown Eastside was neither fair nor effective.

The problem with the Fraser Street project is one that affects the
whole plan. There is no communications strategy, nothing to inform the
neighbourhood well in advance about what it was becoming part of, no
plan to explain Four Pillars and how it will be beneficial.

Instead of the city's drug-policy team being central to the planning,
the housing department was put in charge. Fraser Street was treated
like any rezoning application and a stand-alone development at that.
The minimum of notices were sent out to neighbours and the timing was
terrible. By the time the neighbourhood exploded, city and health
board staff were on the defensive.

And local politicians, except for Coun. Anne Roberts and a cameo
appearance by Coun. Peter Ladner, were nowhere to be found.

Most notably missing was the mayor, the guy who made such a big deal
of carrying on where Owen left off. He got the injection site opened
and then vanished. You want to hear him talk about Four Pillars,
you'll have to go to drug conferences in Australia. There are no
frequent flier points to Fraser and 39th.

When an East Side group home for women addicts near the Fraser Street
project was closed down by the city last week, Campbell was mute. He
has made no public statements about Fraser Street, even though he was
once on the board of Triage, the organization that hopes to run it.

The crusading coroner Vancouver elected has turned into a celebrity
chef. Catch him on CTV with the weather girl. That is, when he's not
blowing his cork at a transit meeting.

Give him an airline ticket or promise him a good time and he'll follow
you anywhere. But present him with clear evidence that the drug
strategy he was elected to promote is in trouble and nobody's home.
It's more fun to hang with the boys on the set of DaVinci's Inquest.