HOMES FOR RECOVERING ADDICTS RECOMMENDED FOR ABBOTSFORD

Abbotsford city council's bridge house committee says six bridge houses are
needed in the city right now to accommodate 48 men trying to heal from
addiction. The best place for them, the committee has determined, would be
in residential areas. A public meeting Tuesday drew only about a dozen
residents.

Coun. Mark Warawa, the committee chairman, said that their findings came
from input from the Salvation Army and the committee's own research of
comparable communities.

The committee was struck last fall after the Salvation Army's request to
open a bridge house on Cyril Street was repeatedly delayed. A bridge house,
also known as second stage housing, provides inexpensive lodging for
recovering addicts and counselling support while they are reintegrating
into the community. Some begin jobs while others attend training or school.

The committee's task was to find suitable places for bridge homes and to
set criteria for those operating them.

Among the recommendations unanimously supported by the diverse committee
members was that bridge houses be in residential neighbourhoods, not in
commercial or industrial zones, Warawa said. "If we're going to have people
going back to a normal lifestyle, the commercial, industrial areas would
not be the best place to transition people," he said.

The committee members recognized their controversial plan may not be well
accepted by some in the community, so they aimed to create guidelines that
would give the public peace of mind, Warawa said. The criteria would be
such that bridge house operators would not have to seek neighbourhood
approval each time, but that consultation issue will have to decided by
city council.

"Wherever it's going to be it will be controversial, so we want to make
completely sure the public is safe and feels safe. It will be a
satisfaction guarantee that the bridge house will be a positive member of
the neighbourhood, not a negative one," Warawa said.

Bridge house operators would be allowed a maximum of eight residents,
provide 24-hour supervision and be at least 200 metres away from schools.

Warawa said that as the city would be breaking new ground with the bridge
houses and the public might be nervous, the committee included the school
proximity limit.

"Is there a concern for safety? No, not at all," he said.

Residents would also be required to have had three months of treatment,
although the minimum requirement may be changed to seven weeks to dovetail
with treatment centres such as Kinghaven, which runs a seven-week program.
Recovering addicts with violent or sexual offence histories would not be
allowed in the bridge house programs. Warawa added there were five or six
transition-type homes in Abbotsford, but they would not meet the proposed
bridge house requirements.

"These would not be grandfathered. The operators would have to apply and if
they don't comply they would be quickly shut down," he said.

Second stage housing should not cost the city as each facility would pay a
fee for monitoring costs, said Warawa.

"We're talking about just six houses, not dozens. It would actually be a
savings to the city because right now the city has to deal with complaints
about those facilities that are not operating properly, but we have no
practical way of recovering police time and bylaw enforcement costs," he said.

Warawa hopes to hold another public meeting by the end of November.