Parents at a downtown housing co-op are questioning the city’s decision to move up to 40 homeless people from the Oppenheimer Park tent city into a former restaurant and dozens more into a neighbourhood hotel set to close at the end of the month.
Five parents from Pacific Heights Housing Co-operative sent a letter Wednesday to Mayor Gregor Robertson and council outlining concerns about the clientele moving into the shelter at the former Kettle of Fish restaurant at 900 Pacific St. and the 157-unit Quality Inn at 1335 Howe St. that will serve as temporary housing.
“While we are both sympathetic and empathetic to the issues at stake here, the idea of displacing so many people with so many issues into a largely residential and family neighbourhood without any consultation with the residents impacted seems absolutely ludicrous,” the parents wrote in their letter, which they shared with the Courier. “We are not NIMBY [not in my backyard], we realize these people deserve a home somewhere, but we worry about just how well planned this idea is.”
Court documents filed as part of the Vancouver Park Board’s application to get an injunction to dismantle the tent city at Oppenheimer reveal a camp population of people suffering from drug and mental health issues, or both.
Police have answered calls for fights, drug activity, concerns about known sex offenders, sex trade workers, a man threatening to cut his head off or kill people, gang members and what appears to be a stolen bike ring.
It's those incidents that worry co-op parent Kirsten Holkestad, a part-time teacher who lives with her husband Ted and two young children in the complex across the intersection from the shelter. The hotel is a few blocks east of the shelter, which operates seven days per week from 8 p.m. to 10 a.m.
“The safety of our children is absolutely paramount and there is no way to guarantee that safety with an influx of people with a history of crime, drugs and violence from the Oppenheimer camp within a block of us,” Holkestad and the other parents said in their letter.
Neighbourhood consultation
Holkestad said by telephone that she nor any of the tenants in the 300-person co-op that she spoke to received notification from the city about the opening of the shelter or plans for the hotel. She pointed out co-op residents have received letters from the city regarding the closure of the Burrard Bridge for a marathon. She argued opening facilities for the homeless would constitute a more important reason to leaflet the neighbourhood.
"You have to put the homeless somewhere — they need to be housed," Holkestad said. "But you need to do it with consultation with the neighbourhood and you need to have supports in place for [the homeless]."
An example, she said, of support services for homeless people not being in place was recently reported in a Courier story that revealed the Marguerite Ford Apartments social housing project adjacent to the former Olympic Village saw police answer 729 calls in the building's first 16 months.
Business problems
Wim Vander Zalm, owner of the Art Knapp store on Hornby Street adjacent to the shelter, is equally concerned about his new neighbours. His concerns are related to loitering and the negative effect the shelter will have on customers wanting to frequent his business, which has been there for more than 30 years.
Still reeling from the city’s decision several years ago to turn Hornby Street into a one-way to accommodate a separated bike lane, Vander Zalm said the shelter “may be the nail in the coffin” of his Vancouver location of stores.
“It will be a huge impact, we're certain of it," said Vander Zalm, whose business also had to contend with public disorder issues when the former Kettle of Fish restaurant was used as a youth drop-in centre. "I'm really not even prepared to fight anymore because I see what fighting did last time which was absolutely nothing."
He said his sales are down and noted his other stores in the Lower Mainland have had financial growth.
Vander Zalm said the city should use industrial land to set up shelters and temporary housing. Putting people suffering from mental illness and addictions in residential neighbourhoods puts strain on residents, he said.
He pointed out the same neighbourhood will soon be home to the much celebrated Vancouver House residential tower designed by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels.
"And the city's going to say, 'Oh, by the way, there's going to be homeless shelters next to it.' The logic and the intelligence is dramatically lacking. If the city doesn't have any foresight to see that this doesn't make any sense whatsoever in developing a grand city, then that is a sad statement of our bureaucrats and politicians in Vancouver."
Shelters and street crime
According to the city’s communications branch, close to 1,400 letters explaining the opening of the shelter were sent to area residents and at least 10 businesses were visited by city staff. Security guards at the shelter continue to hand out information sheets on the shelter to pedestrians.
Vision Vancouver Coun. Geoff Meggs said he will check why co-op residents weren't notified. He said he understands why residents and business owners are concerned about the shelter and the temporary housing at the hotel. The city, he added, will provide information or meetings for people who want more details about the two facilities.
Meggs noted the majority of business owners and staff he spoke to during his visit to the neighbourhood did not complain about the facilities or identify any problems related to the previous youth drop-in centre set up in the former Kettle of Fish restaurant.
"One person was very frustrated by it," Meggs said. "There are some anxieties about it, absolutely."
Added Meggs: "But we know from experience that winter shelters and transition housing are crucial to reducing street crime and disorder. It's far better to have people housed and with supervision and support than it is to have them on the street."
Injunction hearing Monday
A city notice circulated in the neighbourhood said over the past six years approximately 500 people who were previously homeless moved from shelters to temporary housing. The city will manage the shelter on Pacific for two months before turning it over to a non-profit agency for the winter months. It will close no later than April 30, 2015.
Though the shelter opened Sept. 22 with 40 spaces, only 23 people registered and 16 stayed Tuesday night. The Quality Inn is scheduled to open as temporary housing in mid-November. The Vancouver Park Board goes to court Oct. 6 to seek its injunction to dismantle the three-month old tent city.
mhowell@vancourier.com
