If Maple Ridge city council and B.C. Housing weren’t sure about how local residents felt when it comes to changing a motel into long-term housing for the homeless, they know now.
Three petitions or surveys are in the works to sound out how residents and business people feel about the idea.
B.C. Housing announced last week it will buy the Quality Inn on Lougheed Highway and 217th Street for conversion into a 61-unit long-term supportive housing facility.
The intent is to renovate the hotel, selling for about $5.5 million.
B.C. Housing would then move in the 40 people at the temporary homeless shelter who haven’t been able to find a place to live.
The temporary homeless shelter was only supposed to be open from October to March to allow the city to clear out the Cliff Avenue homeless camp. That now will stay open another three months, with B.C. Housing paying another $270,000 in costs to allow that to happen, and for Quality Inn the motel to be renovated.
The latest poll is an e-mail survey by the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Chamber of Commerce, asking both members and non-members if they favour the purchase and conversion of the Quality Inn for long-term housing, and if they want the chamber to speak up about the issue?
The survey was only out for a few days and already a third of the membership has responded, said chamber president Mike Morden.
The chamber executive decided to send the survey after hearing concerns from businesses.
People on the whole are upset and didn’t feel they’ve been consulted, said Morden who, individually, has also launched his own online petition against the project.
People are worried about the effect on business and that there won’t be enough support or services for the people who’ll be living there, said the former councillor and mayoral candidate
Already in the area, “there is quite a bit of crime.”
Morden also raised the question of putting such a facility on the main road into Maple Ridge.
“We’ve already had several people killed on Lougheed Highway.”
That danger could be heightened if people suffering from addictions live next to a busy and fast part of the road, he added.
As more responses come in, the chamber will consider the results, then prepare a response to Maple Ridge council.
So far, 803 people have signed Morden’s own Action Maple Ridge online petition, opposing the purchase of the motel for long-term housing.
“I cannot think of a worse location for a facility like this. On an extremely busy highway, across from a daycare, neighbouring successful family businesses, and backing on to a residential area. What are they thinking?” Morden said.
“I can’t believe our mayor and majority of councilors voted to support this B.C. Housing proposal,” writes Bruce McLaren on the Change.org petition page.
Morden, who ran for the mayor’s chair in the November 2014 civic elections, says his opposition to the shelter is not politically based and that he’s concerned about the community.
Most politicians don’t want to have to take sides on the issue, he added.
“My phone has not stopped ringing.”
He previously said the he wants council to get more input and reconsider the location, which is adjoined to a popular family restaurant.
Long-time server at The Pantry restaurant Heather Hopp says there are now 500 names on her petition opposing the project.
“It’s crazy. I’m proud of our community for supporting us. People are coming in off the street just to sign the petition.”
A rally against the housing project has been scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. outside the Quality Inn.
B.C. Housing is the agency that has selected the site.