Maple Ridge council is asking the province again for its ear before the 55 temporary modular homes are built on Royal Crescent.
Tuesday, a majority of council supported Coun. Corisa Bell’s idea to send a letter to B.C. Housing and the province, asking for public consultation on the project.
B.C. Housing plans on building the shelter on three lots in the 22500-block of Royal Crescent this summer to provide housing for the residents of Anita Place Tent City.
Bell, though, wants the public to have a say before the project is advanced.
Couns. Gordy Robson, Tyler Shymkiw and Bob Masse supported the idea, with Mayor Nicole Read and Couns. Craig Speirs and Kiersten Duncan opposed.
“I feel it’s really important for council to urge the provincial government and B.C. Housing to fulfill what we originally asked them to do,” Bell said. “To this point, we haven’t had an active response to that request.
“People are looking for consultation and conversation,” added Bell.
Council has previously, unanimously requested the same thing – asking the province to consult Maple Ridge residents on the type of shelter it plans to operate before it decides on a location.
Robson said later that people want to know how the shelter will operate, adding that B.C. Housing didn’t spell out how it would operate the facility at two previous meetings.
“People want to know what it’s going to look like and how it’s going to operate.”
He said couldn’t say if he’d support modular housing on Royal Crescent for that reason.
But Robson wants any shelter to follow most of the conditions set out a year ago by the citizen’s advisory committee report. Former Liberal MLAs Doug Bing and Marc Dalton created the committee in an attempt to find a location for a shelter.
Some of the conditions set out by the committee are that it not be a low-barrier facility and that anyone committing crime to support addiction would be evicted. According to the B.C. umbrella group Here to Help, low-barrier housing means residents aren’t expected to stop using drugs or booze as long they don’t do so in common areas of the housing complex.
Other conditions set out by the committee are that a shelter not be in the downtown or located on Lougheed Highway or Dewdney Trunk Road.
The conditions set out by the committee also include a curfew, and no in-and-out privileges. A medical office should be set up on site to provide health care services, and there should be an agreement in place spelling out consequences to residents for breaking that agreement, as well as limits of stay.
Residents should be part of a restorative justice program, while the operator of the shelter should provide monthly progress reports to the advisory community.
Robson, though, concedes that both shelters are in the downtown and that an operator has already been selected for the modular housing on Royal Crescent.
As well, the committee wanted operating conditions to become part of the rezoning process and that the number of beds should also be proportional to the city’s population and that a shelter shouldn’t be near residences.
“If they adopted all the rules and said, ‘This is how we’re going to run it,’ I think the resistance will go down dramatically,” Robson said.
“The reason the public is so afraid of this thing is because they don’t know what it looks like. And B.C. Housing just refuses to discuss that with anybody.”
About 7,000 people have signed the petition against the modular home project and the 80-bed supportive housing and shelter complex proposed for Burnett Street, he added.
Masse didn’t see consultation as a stalling tactic or a way of defeating the project.
“I believe one of the biggest problems we have is fear,” Masse said.
He wasn’t yet sure if he supported the modular home facility and wanted to see details about how it will operate, how people are chosen to get into the facility, and wanted to know if a vulnerability assessment tool would be used to determine who gets placed into the homes.
“There’s a lot of information that needs to be available to the community.”
But he’s glad that Coast Mental Health will be the operator, after touring that agency’s operations at Riverview in Coquitlam.
One frustration, though, is the lack of clear numbers, Masse said.
“The numbers are all over the place … and we’re asked to make decisions with no kinds of numbers that we can use and that’s not good.”
B.C. Housing has said the temporary modular homes, self-contained suites, with 24/7 staff supervision and support, won’t go through a municipal zoning process because of the urgent need to house people in tent city.
In addition to 24/7 staffing, Coast Mental Health will provide daily meal services, access to mental health and addictions treatment and life-skills programming, B.C. Housing said previously.
A 24/7 contact line to respond to neighbourhood concerns will be provided and there will be a community advisory committee, including nearby residents, to address concerns.
B.C. Housing, however, is seeking city rezoning approval for the 80-unit supportive housing and shelter complex on Burnett Street, to be operated by the Salvation Army Ridge Meadows Ministries.
B.C. Housing held an open house at Thomas Haney secondary on March 8, as well as a public information session on plans for proposed supportive and emergency housing, as well as affordable rental housing and addictions support on Jan. 29 at Haney Presbyterian Church.
B.C. Housing announced last week that Coast Mental Health would operate the building. Coast Mental Health also operates Alouette Heights secondary housing complex on Brown Avenue.
Duncan opposed asking for consultation and said modular homes should have been built years earlier. Council has asked the province to take responsibilty, she added.
“It’s a shame that this is going on today. This shouldn’t be happening and it’s an embarrassment to our council. We’re an embarassment to the Lower Mainland,” Duncan said.
“We’re leaving these folks out on the street and it’s done on purpose,” added Speirs.
Read said people are worried about the possible impacts of such facilities on their neighbourhoods and whether such shelters or social housing actually do any good.
“Until we solve that issue, every location will be a problem.”
She added the public isn’t consulted when a health facility is built.
And the more the city gets involved, Read said, the more difficult it could be to get an injunction to clear the tent city, if it doesn’t disperse, once modular housing is opened.
Read said she won’t sign the letter that will ask the province to consult with the public and added that she hopes the provincial government will proceed and get the modular homes built. “And I don’t think there’s any ideal place to put them.”
