City hall has had over a year to figure out why neighbourhood apartments for dual diagnosed addicts are a good idea. They have produced a series of reports stuffed with misleading irrelevancies. A copy of these reports can be found on our website here or on City Hall's website.
These large "supportive" apartment blocks are reminiscent of the infamous government housing projects of the fifties that destroyed neighbourhoods and were ultimately blown up by the government in the seventies. They created a culture of crime and addiction and were universally condemned. What was then called "urban renewal" is now called "supportive housing" but it's all the same. Unlike love, failure is not better the second time around.
- Under the proposed supportive housing what percentage of the addicts who reside in the "abstinent-based" apartment blocks will remain abstinent? (Learn more »)
- Will the addict supportive housing present a danger to the community? (Learn more »)
The report is intellectually dishonest, factually inadequate and specious. For example it says that the "preponderance of evidence" is that "these programs can function well and be perceived as an asset to their communities and neighbourhoods."1 None of this withstands analysis.
- It suppresses relevant data. (Learn more »)
- Dubious claims are made ensuring community safety. (Learn more »)
- It draws illogical conclusions from inappropriate comparisons. (Learn more »)
- It relies on old unreliable data while selectively ignoring current data that happens not to support what City Hall wants. (Learn more »)
It is hard to read this stuff without giving in to despair. Knowing the urgency of dealing with the dual problems of mental illness and addiction we had a right to expect an intelligent analysis. City Hall and their consultants had almost one year to prove that adding up to 50 addicts to Dunbar and other neighbourhoods would do some good for the addicts and that any trade off for community safety would be worth the price. Hopefully they would demonstrate that addicts would mostly remain abstinent, and citizens would be safe. It was not to be.
It should not be news to anyone that addiction is a physiological problem. Most addicts in supportive housing will not remain abstinent. They need their drugs and will do anything to get them. The science is clear that most addicts will go back to using drugs in the proposed "abstinent-contingent" supportive housing model.
A careful reading of the report leads to the conclusion that drug addict supportive housing will pose an immediate threat to the safety and security of the neighborhood. It will do nothing for most addicts.
Published February 25, 2007.