B.C. government shows it’s serious about helping people who are mentally ill, but the details have to be worked out
Sun
Last November, Vancouver Sun reader Sandra Latreille wrote a letter to the editor in which she suggested redeveloping the Riverview psychiatric hospital as a homeless facility and treatment centre for drug addicts and the mentally ill.
It seems someone was listening.
B.C. Housing Minister Rich Coleman has proposed an ambitious redevelopment of the 98-hectare site of the century-old facility that would include housing for the poor, the disabled and the mentally ill as well as market units. Just how big the development will be is unclear, but Coleman rejected a plan put forward by his staff that called for 6,000 to 7,000 housing units because he said that wasn’t enough.
The announcement follows a number of provincial initiatives intended to deal with the persistent problem of homeless people, including the provincial government’s purchase of several Downtown Eastside single-room occupancy hotels and the acquisition and proposed redevelopment of the Little Mountain social housing project in Vancouver.
The Riverview project is notable for many reasons, especially the tacit recognition by government that shutting the hospital in the first place and releasing its patients into the mean streets of the city without adequate support was a monumental mistake. About 40 per cent of Vancouver‘s homeless population is estimated to suffer from mental illness. One can’t ignore the irony that the mentally ill may be returning from whence they came. But this time the facility will be a state-of-the-art housing and treatment complex, with assisted living units and institutional beds within an integrated community of residents from all socio-economic strata.
The project being contemplated puts homelessness, addiction and mental illness high on the political agenda, something the so-called “homelessness budget” last February failed to do. The government has now uncorked this genie and will not be able to put it back in the bottle.
However, these are early days and the project is still a vision, not a blueprint. An official request for proposals is still a long way off and the price tag is unknown. There’s no prospect that it will be completed before the Olympic Games in 2010. The best guess for an opening is 2012.
While the city of Vancouver has welcomed the project, Coquitlam is the municipality that will call the shots since that is where Riverview is located. Coleman indicated the government would not force the project on Coquitlam, but would consult with the community to build a consensus.
In announcing the Riverview project, the government has sent the message that it is serious about dealing with the issue. This is an opening gambit in a conversation — let’s call it a negotiation — about what will be built when and who pays how much.
We have finished talking about ideology, playing the blame game and wringing hands. There’s no debate now about what needs to be done, only about how to do it.
© The Vancouver Sun 2007