Dr. George Galster (PhD), is an Urban Planning Professor at Wayne State University and one of the preeminent researchers on the impact of supportive housing on neighbourhoods. (You can Google up his name to see how prominent he is.) He has written a letter 1 to Vancouver City Council about the policy of large supportive housing spreading throughout Vancouver's residential neighbourhoods.
"Nevertheless, it is my expert opinion that these planned developments in Vancouver [12 sites including 7th and Fir, 16th and Dunbar, 1050 Expo Boulevard] are well above a threshold where neighborhood harm is likely to occur." 2
Here are more highlights of Dr. Galster's letter to Vancouver City Council.
"I am often asked to provide testimony for groups seeking to develop assisted housing, so I am in the unusual position here of arguing against such a development [12 sites including 7th and Fir, 16th and Dunbar, 1050 Expo Boulevard]." 3
"... my Denver study did investigate several projects that ranged in scale from 53 to 164 units, and found for them a statistically significant increase in criminal nuisance police reports after they opened. Although we cannot be certain as to why crime increased or who was committing crimes, I think it is disingenuous to ignore these results, since this large scale of development appears to be what you [City of Vancouver] are proposing." 4
"Indeed, in an earlier study that I did in an Ohio town, even a small-scale supportive housing development was shown to have deleterious property value impacts because it was poorly sited, in a highly visible location where it could be easily stigmatized." 5
"It is true that these studies [small scale sites. i.e. group homes] almost without exception find no adverse impact on crime or [property] values, however it is completely unjustified for you [City of Vancouver] to generalize these results to developments of the much larger scale being proposed in the 12 Sites [7th and Fir, 16th and Dunbar, 1050 Expo Boulevard] Initiative." 6
"A much more sensible, conservative, scientifically proven approach would be to keep each site at 12 units or less." 7
The current City of Vancouver policy of expansion and dispersion of large supportive housing (30 to 100 plus apartments) into residential neighbourhoods for the mentally ill drug addicts and drug addicts means that neighbourhood harm is likely to occur in host neighbourhoods.
Even small supportive housing projects, inappropriately sited can deleteriously affect property values, what about large supportive housing projects? How is the City of Vancouver planning to compensate homeowners and businesses nearby these large supportive housing projects?
Note: In previous years, NIABY.com has written extensively about Supportive Housing and Crime including our analysis of Galster's paper, "The Impact of Supportive Housing On Neighbourhood Crime Rates", Journal of Urban Affairs, Vol 24 No 3 2002.
Safety Yours and Mine - March 2007
NIABY's Analysis of City of Vancouver's supportive housing and property values - May 2007
Crime and Safety Concerns - October 2007
Published January 7, 2009.