The catastrophic results of abstinent-contingent supportive housing are in the fine print. This makes City Hall even more culpable because they know the truth. In flogging their product these people resemble the tobacco industry.
- 70% failure rate: Ask City Hall why it buried the terrible statistics on recidivism on page 28, (the last page before the appendix), Milby et al (2005)1. This author shows that, despite wanting to stay abstinent, and wanting treatment, and being in a treatment program, and being in abstinent-contingent supportive housing, at 25 weeks 70% were back on drugs.
- Buried on page 28, 2nd to last sentence before the appendix the City Hall report says,"Furthermore the decay of abstinence is profound (as in Xie study2) by about 50% within 25 weeks". Why does City Hall hide these terrible results? Why did they say it was 50% that go back to using drugs when it was even worse? It was really 70%!
City Hall hid these terrible results in the back of the report. The overwhelming majority will be back on drugs in no time.
The main concern for people living near these supportive housing projects is their safety and security. "The fundamental concern will always be the safety for staff, residents and community." 3 The Report, however, leads to the opposite conclusion.
- The City Hall report omitted this: Among male schizophrenics with a known substance abuse problem 29.7% (almost one third) had a conviction for a violent offence. 4
- City Hall omitted this: [Schizophrenic addicts are] "therefore a risk factor for offending and in particular for violent offending.The rate of criminal offending among the subjects with schizophrenia is of both clinical and social significance and cannot be dismissed as having only trivial relevance to the amount of crime in the community." 5
- City Hall omitted that within 1 city block of these large supportive housing facilities (greater than 53) the total crime reports increased by about 30% and violent crime reports increased by 40% each year after opening. 6
- The City Hall report says the results support the development of housing with less than 53 residents. 7 That is not true. The data shows that group homes (none were for addicts) with 8 beds or less do not affect the crime rate.
- There is no crime or safety data for facilities or supportive housing projects between 9 and 53 beds. There are no housing projects in this study for drug addicts with a mental illness.
- City Hall is forced to admit, "...the crime analyses is not specific to abstinent-contingent housing and so the implication for the current initiative must be considered cautiously." 8
"... implication for the current initiative must be considered cautiously." This is the best evidence that City Hall and MLA Colin Hansen can present to prove that your family, home and neigbourhood will be safe and secure.
Absurd comparisons, false interpretation of data leading to false conclusions as to effectiveness. These are only 2 examples - there are countless others.
- The very first science paper (a Field Action Report) 9 presented as evidence of success is a description about groups homes of a small size (6 to 10 beds), which operate on a completely different model (self supported, not government funded) and a different management philosophy than the proposed large (30 to 50 units) supportive apartments. These absurd comparisons of using group homes for claims of safety and effectiveness for supportive housing run throughout the report.
- The City Hall "experts" reviewed a paper 10 and tell us that it is important and they say that the research conclude that housed addicts will reduce their drug alcohol consumption and improve their mental illness symptoms because of housing. 11 If you took the time to read the paper, this is what it said with regard to drug and alcohol use and psychiatric symptoms of mental illness: "... no significant differences were found on any measure as a function of impairment and type of program." 12
What the authors did conclude was that housed addicts were less likely to be homeless. City Hall infers positive conclusions about supportive housing when there was no data in the paper reporting positive outcomes except for housing.
The whole report is a sham. It is a feeble attempt to hide the real truth that most of the drug addicts in these supportive housing projects will relapse into drug use.
Of the approximately 170 abstracts presented, most are descriptive or editorial commentaries. There appears to be no concern for quality of the data presented.
- That Coastal Health has a very high opinion of itself is apparent by the extent to which it relies on its own editorial comments as though based on science. 13 Vancouver Community, Vancouver Coastal Health "A Mental Health & Addictions Supported Housing Frame Work" Most of these reports are not published or peer reviewed in reputable journals. Over 30% of the "evidence" is from their own government promotional spin.
- Even worse, City Hall Report: "In Review of Alcohol and Drug Free Housing for People in Recovery of Substance Abuse" is an opinion piece by Deborah Krause disguised as a report. The author references only herself, yet makes numerous unsubstantiated claims of effectiveness.
- Over 25% abstracts, papers, and reports are over 10 years old. Newer non-supportive data is conveniently ignored. An example: an inconvenient paper on property values 14 shows that property values were negatively affected by small group homes. This begs the question, how are property values affected by large giant apartment buildings for relapsing drug addicts?
This is what gives Bureacrats and Politicians their bad name.
Published February 25, 2007.