Pubdate: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC) Copyright: 2004 Vancouver Courier Contact: http://www.vancourier.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474 Author: Scott Deveau Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) RESIDENTS WILL GET SAY ON REHAB CENTRE Residents living near a proposed drug addiction recovery house at Fraser and 39th Avenue worried the city had ignored their objections to the project being built in their neighbourhood will get their say next month. Martin Richardson, a resident living near the proposed location of the centre, which would feature an abstinence-based drug recovery program for the mentally ill, said rumours have been circulating a public forum was "blacked out by the city." This week, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, the city and Triage Emergency Services-which would run the facility-announced an open house is tentatively set for Oct. 4 at John Oliver secondary school. The meeting will be followed by another public session Oct. 18 at MacKenzie elementary school. Doug Robinson, project manager for the city, said he expects public consultations will continue until the end of the year. He said the city will take the neighbourhood's concerns seriously. The $3-million project was stalled in 2002 when the provincial government put several social housing projects on hold. However, it was resurrected under the government's new Independent Living B.C. program and was granted a 60-year prepaid lease from the city last summer. The four-storey, 39-room recovery shelter would house people with serious mental illness in the "last stages" of recovering from drug addiction, said Mark Smith, executive director of Triage Emergency Services. The proposed complex is within blocks of two schools and has met resistance from the neighbourhood. "The community is rightfully concerned," said Smith, who will appear at the open house. He said the recovery house poses no safety risk because staff will be in constant contact with its residents. "It will be the only [facility] where we can guarantee they'll be clean and sober." Ken Mason, chair of the Fraser Street Merchants Association, said local residents and merchants feel they were not properly consulted on the city's decision to allow the facility prior to the announcement of October's meetings. "Triage says they want to bring [the residents] to a drug-free neighbourhood. Well it's far from it," said Mason, who noted the 300 merchants on Fraser Street, between 39th and 42nd avenues, are already frustrated by the number of drug dealers, addicts and prostitutes on the street. Mason hopes the public consultation is not mere lip service for a decision the city has already made. He said the demographics in the neighbourhood are moving in a positive direction with more young families buying homes there, and he believes the recovery home is a step in the wrong direction. "The city turned down a big box store on the West Side after the citizens there fought it," Mason said. "Well this is a big-box, drug rehab clinic and we don't want it here. We hope the city listens to us." - --- MAP posted-by: Derek