While people and organizations struggle with the definition of — and solutions for — affordable housing in District 69, single adult men often fall through the cracks.
A couple years ago Ken “Doc” Meuckon started Coombs Transitional Housing on his property on the Old Alberni Highway to help those in desperate need.
“There’s no references required and you don’t have to qualify for hydro or telephone or pay up front fees like a damage deposit. For $400 a month you get everything: cable TV, laundry, a kitchen to cook in. I can even provide a ride into town to visit the soup kitchen or for appointments,” Meuckon told The News when it was up and running in 2009.
He settled on the transitional housing idea when he saw the tough situations of some of the people who came to look at his regular rental units.
At the time there was no help for homeless people in area and he said the transitional housing “helped a lot of people who were living on the street, completely outside society.”
“It made my heart soar to help some of those guys get back into the world,” he said pointing out their varied stories.
“Separation and divorce are a huge issue and that’s where a lot of them are coming from,” he said. “I’m amazed at the variety. We have ages from 16 to 60 coming in. Many are people with skills and trades. There’s some real depth to them but with the high rents around here they’ve just fallen on hard times.”
Meuckon and his wife Lana offered a range of eight units from a suite in his house, to a triplex, motor homes and trailers scattered around the property.
He said their may have been some funds available to help provide the service, but he was never able to track them down and access them.
Things worked great for a year, he said, with an article in The News bringing in a lot of offers of food, blankets and help.
But eventually the Vancouver Island Health Authority began asking questions about water quality.
Meuckon said by that point there were a few people getting too comfortable with what was supposed to be temporary housing for a maximum 90 days.
“They weren’t getting better, they just started taking advantage of the situation,” he said, and by then it was summer, so rather than face steep fines from VIHA he closed the facility.
“There were too many roosters in the yard,” he said of the last couple guys who’d overstayed their welcome and were asked to leave and now Coombs Transitional Housing is set to become an emergency housing facility.
In the year since, water issues have taken much of his time and energy. He has installed a UV light filtration system that is up to VIHA’s standards but he now has to construct a septic tank large enough for all the units on the property.
He said he and his wife have adjusted their finances to survive without the rental income and they just want to offer emergency housing for people in urgent situations like after a house fire.
Ideally they will get their new emergency shelter up and running this season and be on the provincial 24 hour emergency call list available to house people after an emergency, with three days of funds automatically available.
Having been forced into a crash course on health and water issues around rentals he now stresses the importance of landlords making themselves aware of their responsibility to provide clean healthy water.
He is taking a distance education course to earn the accreditation to do his own monthly inspections, saving hundreds of dollars a year and he’s looking into passing those skills to other landlords.
The facility is not currently open to the public, but watch The News for more information when it does become available.
writer@pqbnews.com
