1. Is 16th & Dunbar being considered for drug addict supportive housing?
The City of Vancouver continues to officially say,
"The site at 16th and Dunbar has been bought for Social Housing but there has been no decision made about what kind of social housing is going to be on that site, so it could be social housing for seniors, it could be social housing for families, it could be social housing for people with mental illnesses and addictions and that decision won’t be made until this strategy is completed and there is actually some funding available." 1
However there are now two City Hall reports which recommend Dunbar and 16th for supportive apartments for mentally ill drug addicts:
2. If drug addict supportive housing is built, will my family, my home and my community be safe?
The City has admitted that it has no safety data whatsoever to reassure residents that building large "abstinence-based" supportive apartments for mentally ill drug addicts will not impact the safety and security of the community.
Here's what Linda Thomas, Chief Housing Bureaucrat from Vancouver Coastal Health had to say at a recent public meeting when asked how safe will their family and homes be when an apartment building for mentally ill drug addicts is built in their neighbourhood.
"We [Vancouver Coastal Health and City Hall] are in a dilemma because we do not have any safety data for the size of the facility [30 to 50 units] proposed and the population [drug addicts with a mental illness]." 8
Despite promises and reassurances from bureaucrats and politicians that you and your family will be safe, City Hall doesn't have any safety data anywhere to reasonably justify building a large project like the one proposed for 16th & Dunbar or anywhere else in Vancouver. Let's be absolutely clear here: There is no safety or crime data regarding mentally ill drug addicts in large supportive housing apartment buildings. There is no community treatment data to justify the risk to communities in a payoff of successful treatment for the drug addicts with a mental illness.
There is current peer reviewed science which shows that this population cannot maintain a sustained abstinence from drugs and alcohol in a community setting. This population also has high rates of both violent and other crimes. A complete lack of safety data on the specific size of the building for this patient population does not guarantee safety, as City experts claim, instead it should warn City planners and politicians that this policy has high risk for increased rates of violent and other crimes in host neighbourhoods.
3. Didn't MLA Colin Hansen and NPA Councillor Suzanne Anton promise local residents to protect the safety of the community?
Yes, at the Dunbar Residents' Association Annual Meeting, November 2006 in front of an audience of at least 300 residents, MLA Colin Hansen - speaking on behalf of himself and City Councillor Suzanne Anton - publicly promised that "we will not allow…anything that is not safe" to "residents or their property" to be built at the 16th and Dunbar site.
4. What evidence does Council have to assure us this supportive housing for mentally ill drug addicts will work?
Council's own Supportive Housing Strategy report cites supportive evidence that dual diagnosed addicts are among the most difficult to treat, have one of the highest rates of returning to further drug use 9, and have high levels of property crime and crime with violence." 10
"There is substantial evidence for substance misuse (alcohol and drug abuse) being a major risk factor for violence and aggression in patients with major mental disorder, especially schizophrenia." 11
City Hall admits, "... the crime analyses is not specific to abstinent-contingent housing and so the implication for the current initiative must be considered cautiously." 12
5. So, what happens if your Mayor and Council decide to go ahead anyway without any proof of/or concern for your neighbourhood's safety and something goes wrong?
Each drug addict apartment block will have an operational management plan. Within the operational management plan there will be a "policy" in place for dealing with problems or when a neighbour makes a complaint.
On Fraser Street, here are the steps for getting action to resolve the problem:
6. You often hear from City bureaucrats about their experience with supportive housing, in their experience there is no crime ...
Linda Thomas, Housing Bureaucrat Vancouver Coastal Health speaking to the public at a City of Vancouver public consultation meeting on City's supportive housing strategy said and we quote:
"Fraser St is our first clearly concurrent disorder [mentally ill drug addicts] site so it's our very first site that will be specialized of people with mental illness who are in recovery from addiction ..." 14Yet, here's Jill Davidson, a City Hall bureaucrat leading the "public consultation" meetings on Supportive Housing Strategy:
"I know that there have been concerns expressed when people hear about supportive housing building going up in their neighbourhood but we believe that these buildings can be integrated well into communities without problems. I know people have had concerns about crime or property values and really the evidence in our experience doesn’t support those concerns once buildings are actually up and operating". 15
Fraser St. is not yet up and operating. They have NO experience running this type of facility [for those with concurrent disorders]. Why are City staff allowed by the Mayor and City Council to claim experience about something they have no experience about?
7. What will the City public consultation process be like for 16th & Dunbar?
Here's a description of the public consultation process, when it comes to 16th and Dunbar ... let's let Jill Davidson, the City Hall Senior Social Planner responsible for Supportive Housing describe the public consultation process planned for 16th & Dunbar in her own words at a recent public meeting. (Councillor Suzanne Anton was listening in the audience):
From audience question: "A lot of grief about 16th & Dunbar about the fact that's it's likely to be placed at 16th & Dunbar and you're [City Hall] is going to have a public process. Is that process going to be about how it's implemented rather about how's it's implemented rather than whether it's going to be implemented?" 16
Jill Davidson: "Well ...um ...Yes! ha ha ha (laughs from audience and Jill Davidson). However the City is a very open decision making body. So that when you have meetings and they talk about they have on their minds and people are free to express whatever their opinion is…In terms of actually making decisions about the project really as I said it's the zoning about apartments and so once the building fits that basic criteria really what people can talk about or at least what the development permit board can actually make decisions about are really things like the massing, the height, whether the parking is adequate." 17
"... about people's worrie[s] and that really how kind of you get through these [public meetings] cause when there is an opportunity to ... kind of talk back and forth and say I'm worried about crime and why you are locating it [drug addict supportive housing] near a school and we [City Hall] can say, "well... yeah... there's no safety issue with kids." 18
Yes, you read that correctly - she actually glibly said, "well... yeah... there's no safety issue with kids."
Jill Davidson: "So what I'm saying is we'll have discussion about these issues but the decision will actually be about the building." 19
In other words, you've just been told by a City Hall bureaucrat, with a City Councillor in the room, that the only decision you will be consulted about when 30 to 50 mentally ill drug addicts come to your neighbourhood is the architectural style of the building!
Published May, 2007.