Vancouver's Patricia Hotel to be converted into housing for homeless

[lenny]

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/patricia-hotel-403-east-hastings-street-vancouver-supportive-housing

"VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — The Patricia Hotel on the Downtown Eastside has been purchased by the province and will be converted to housing for people experiencing homelessness, including those encamped at Strathcona Park.

The historic hotel on Hastings Street is one of three buildings bought in order to provide a total of 249 units of housing.

One hundred units will become available at the Patricia Hotel by the end of April, with the other 95 opening up once existing tenants have found other places to live. The other two buildings on Main Street will provide a combined 54 units.

“The building will be managed by an experienced non-profit housing operator who will be on site 24/7 to manage the building and provide support services to the residents. Daily meals, access to life-skills training, employment assistance and counselling, physical and mental health resources, and access to addiction recovery services, will be available to residents,” says a statement from BC Housing.

https://www.citynews1130.com/2021/04/01/vancouver-patricia-hotel-housing/

 

[masterpoonhunter]

Well that most likely means the end of one of the last iconic jazz places in the city. How many here (pre pandemic) enjoyed the $10 beer and burger on a Saturday afternoon with some local jazz being served to you all in an authentic, brick wall, supporting posts in the way, beer smelling and sometimes steamy, bar. Oh well ... for a good and humanitarian cause.

 

[nwtl]

Several run down candidate buildings and infested hotels that the city can purchase, rebuild specifically to use for this purpose. It would elevate the neighbourhood, upgrade and reduce risk in said buildings, and be built exactly based on needs to be most efficient and suitable for this purpose. But instead we convert the longstanding historic Patricia hotel into a homeless shelter?

 

[angry anderson]

In the link, a few comments which I agree with. Not favorable to the idea.

 

[wetnose]

Does the city have a plan? What's the end game?

Or is it just going to be a blackhole sucking up tax dollars?

 

[blakealridge]

you guys know that housing the houseless actually saves tax dollars right? having people living on the street costs way more than housing them. I mean there's also the whole thing where we should fucking care about other people but if you're all about dollars, it's been proven.

I'm glad people will have homes. I'm not a monster. house people. we all deserve a place to live.

 

[licks2nite]

Letter: Closing Riverview psychiatric hospital was a mistake — it’s time to reopen it
'Now is the time to abandon rhetoric and search for solutions: clearly COVID-19 teaches us that mental illness can be everywhere and affect everyone'

Feb 4, 2021 3:27 PM By: Letter to the Editor
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Riverview hospital
Riverview psychiatric hospital in CoquitlamFile photo/Tri-City News
The Editor:

So many people are talking about mental health needs these days it has become almost fashionable. Those who abide by COVID-19 protocols may suffer from isolation and anxiety, if not depression, while anti-maskers might be considered by the rest of us as truly crazy, if not stupid. Now more than ever we should revisit the idea of establishing a new mental health hospital at the Riverview site. As someone who has worked with schizophrenics locally, I am convinced that closing Riverview was a mistake.



Deinstitutionalization was a global phenomenon gone too far, guided by ideology, cost-cutting, advances in medication, and in B.C.’s case, it has led to a hospital vacated. Those who advocated for downsizing, if not closure, included Bob Hunter, co-founder of Greenpeace, and former Premier Dave Barrett, a Coquitlam MLA who had degrees in social work. Other principal actors were: former Premier Bill Vander Zalm, who introduced the first plan to replace it in 1987; and, Gordon Campbell who continued with the logic of Glen Clark’s policy of decentralization despite the former having learned — in adulthood — of his physician father’s death by suicide. In the end, Riverview shut its doors a little more than a year after Christy Clark came into office.

Patient self-determination was considered key; after all, the late 1960’s and early 1970’s were a time of “liberation”. The Vancouver experience with the Mental Patients’ Association (better known as the MPA), a first in Canada, was spearheaded in 1971 by Lanny Beckman and the late Dave Beamish. Their approach shaped the B.C. branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, which argued in 2013, the year after Riverview closed, that: “Our Government has made the right decision.” The Riverview model, wrote the CMHA in the Vancouver Sun, lacked “compassionate care.”


Looking at the B.C. Legislature Hansard for Dec. 1, 1987, we even find agreement between the Socreds and the CMHA: both parties wanted the downsizing of Riverview to continue. This is despite the objections of John Cashore, Coquitlam NDP MLA (and a Pastor), to the Minister of Health Peter Dueck: “The minister knows full well that there have been comments from street workers, community workers and health workers about the number of ex-mental patients who have fallen between the cracks and ended up on the streets of Vancouver and other locations.”

This abysmal and longstanding failure to deal with the here and now of those in despair reflects poorly on all people of British Columbia. Let’s begin with a new reimagining of Riverview. Now is the time to abandon rhetoric and search for solutions: clearly COVID-19 teaches us that mental illness can be everywhere and affect everyone.

Joerge Dyrkton, Anmore

https://www.tricitynews.com/opinion...l-was-a-mistake-its-time-to-reopen-it-3355077

 

[angry anderson]

you guys know that housing the houseless actually saves tax dollars right? having people living on the street costs way more than housing them. I mean there's also the whole thing where we should fucking care about other people but if you're all about dollars, it's been proven.

I'm glad people will have homes. I'm not a monster. house people. we all deserve a place to live.

you guys know that housing the houseless actually saves tax dollars right? having people living on the street costs way more than housing them. I mean there's also the whole thing where we should fucking care about other people but if you're all about dollars, it's been proven.

I'm glad people will have homes. I'm not a monster. house people. we all deserve a place to live.

No I didn't know that. Any data to prove it?

 

[blakealridge]

No I didn't know that. Any data to prove it?

https://www.homelesshub.ca/about-homelessness/homelessness-101/cost-analysis-homelessness
First Google hit. I’m sure there are many more from other reputable sources.

 

[angry anderson]

Looks like a bargain.

 

[johnnydepth]

A few of us were just having this discussion about the Hudson Bay building in Winnipeg. The government has put $25mil in a trust for someone that wants to develop that property. Why not take the $25mil and develop it into a homeless shelter?