RESIDENTS WILL GET SAY ON REHAB CENTRE

Residents living near a proposed drug addiction recovery house at
Fraser and 39th Avenue worried the city had ignored their objections
to the project being built in their neighbourhood will get their say
next month.

Martin Richardson, a resident living near the proposed location of the
centre, which would feature an abstinence-based drug recovery program
for the mentally ill, said rumours have been circulating a public
forum was "blacked out by the city."

This week, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, the city and Triage
Emergency Services-which would run the facility-announced an open
house is tentatively set for Oct. 4 at John Oliver secondary school.

The meeting will be followed by another public session Oct. 18 at
MacKenzie elementary school.

Doug Robinson, project manager for the city, said he expects public
consultations will continue until the end of the year. He said the
city will take the neighbourhood's concerns seriously.

The $3-million project was stalled in 2002 when the provincial
government put several social housing projects on hold.

However, it was resurrected under the government's new Independent
Living B.C. program and was granted a 60-year prepaid lease from the
city last summer.

The four-storey, 39-room recovery shelter would house people with
serious mental illness in the "last stages" of recovering from drug
addiction, said Mark Smith, executive director of Triage Emergency
Services.

The proposed complex is within blocks of two schools and has met
resistance from the neighbourhood.

"The community is rightfully concerned," said Smith, who will appear
at the open house.

He said the recovery house poses no safety risk because staff will be
in constant contact with its residents. "It will be the only
[facility] where we can guarantee they'll be clean and sober."

Ken Mason, chair of the Fraser Street Merchants Association, said
local residents and merchants feel they were not properly consulted on
the city's decision to allow the facility prior to the announcement of
October's meetings.

"Triage says they want to bring [the residents] to a drug-free
neighbourhood. Well it's far from it," said Mason, who noted the 300
merchants on Fraser Street, between 39th and 42nd avenues, are already
frustrated by the number of drug dealers, addicts and prostitutes on
the street.

Mason hopes the public consultation is not mere lip service for a
decision the city has already made. He said the demographics in the
neighbourhood are moving in a positive direction with more young
families buying homes there, and he believes the recovery home is a
step in the wrong direction.

"The city turned down a big box store on the West Side after the
citizens there fought it," Mason said. "Well this is a big-box, drug
rehab clinic and we don't want it here. We hope the city listens to
us."