RESIDENTS LEAVE REHAB MEETING WITH STILL UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

After the first of two public forums scheduled for a proposed
39-person drug recovery clinic for the mentally ill in South East
Vancouver, many nearby residents believe they don't have enough answers.

"I was trying to get an idea of who the patients were, if they were
committed to getting off drugs and what would happen if they
relapsed," said Allan Wong, Vancouver School Board trustee, who
attended the meeting Monday night at John Oliver secondary. "[Instead]
I walked away with a picture of what some of the members of the
community think."

About 1,000 people showed at the auditorium of John Oliver, one of two
schools within 500 metres of the proposed rehab facility. Some
community group representatives came from as far away as Kingsway to
show their opposition to the project. The forum was hosted by a panel
of representatives from Triage Emergency Services, the Vancouver
Coastal Health Authority, the city and other neighbourhood groups.

The four-storey recovery shelter near 39th Avenue and Fraser Street
would be run by Triage and would serve seriously mentally ill people
in the last stages of drug addiction recovery. Two staff members would
be at the shelter at all times.

Some among the huge turnout felt the panel hosting the forum was
unprepared for their questions.

Parkash Kumar, president of the John Oliver parent advisory council,
said many questions were left unanswered.

"Right now, we don't feel as though we have adequate information to
make a decision," Kumar said.

Representatives of local businesses agreed.

"There weren't a lot of good answers given," said Ken Mason, chair of
the Fraser Street Merchants Association. "We all recognize [the
residents of the shelter] need help, but we're very concerned about
the size and the amount of staff they have and that the location is so
close to the schools."

Some members of the crowd worried about a mob mentality developing.
Kimball Cariou, parent of a John Oliver student, said he was blocked
before entering the gym by a man who told him he had to sign in. But
the "sign-in sheet," Cariou said, turned out to be a petition against
the rehab facility.

"I think we should examine the project more closely before we make up
our minds," said Cariou, who left early when the crowd heckled the
speakers. "I was ashamed to be in the crowd and afraid to show any
support for the project."

Mark Smith, executive director of Triage Emergency Services, said
public fear about the project hampered his ability to explain the
shelter to the community.

"People have this idea that there will be these wildly, psychotic,
drug addicts moving into their community," said Smith.

Although some of the residents will be suffering from bi-polar
disorders and schizophrenia, others will also be suffering from
depression, which is also considered a serious mental illness. Smith
said those people have turned to drugs to cope with their illness and
now want to be free of them.

Smith will bring guests, who are involved in Triage programs in other
parts of the city, to the next meeting on Oct. 18 to show the
community what kind of people will be using the shelter. One of the
potential guests is a substitute teacher, the other is doing her PhD
in criminology, he said.

"It's not as though we're picking these people off the street at Main
and Hastings, dusting them off and dropping them in their
neighbourhood," Smith said.