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Letter: B.C. Housing moving too quickly on modular housing

More more citizen and council collaboration needed in Maple Ridge.
11624927_web1_170802-MRN-M-temporary-modular-homes-rendering-horizon-north
Artists’ concept of modular housing complex in Vancouver. (Contributed)

Editor, The News:

Do we call homelessness in Maple Ridge a housing or health crisis?

I’ve heard our Mayor Nicole Read on the radio describe Maple Ridge’s homelessness problem as a health crisis.

I’ve also listened to a veteran police officer comment that unless the problem of homelessness is properly named, money will be wasted on attempts to deal with the problem. Namely, he believed issues of longstanding homelessness primarily resulted from addiction and mental health difficulties for the persons involved.

I went to B.C. Housing’s website, which confirmed what the policeman said.

Its statistics showed 62 per cent of homeless in our community have addictions, 51 per cent have mental illnesses, and nine per cent have other medical conditions.

Clearly, a majority of homeless individuals in Maple Ridge are not only suffering from unavailability of safe housing, a difficulty for any of us to endure, but they also appear to need extensive medical attention or treatment.

As B.C. Housing statistics confirm Mayor Read’s description of local homelessness as a health crisis, it logically follows that a low-barrier facility currently being proposed by B.C. Housing would present tremendous risks to the residents and community, that is, if comprehensive medical assessment and resources for treatment and detox were not available to those assessed as being most in need.

B.C. Housing is moving ahead quickly, perhaps too quickly, with its planned 55-unit modular housing project in downtown Maple Ridge.

The B.C. government is to be applauded for making housing for all one of its priorities, and it is refreshing to see a government move forward in this area after so many years of neglect from both federal and provincial governments

However, having said that, I believe it is short-sighted of the government, including our local NDP MLA, to have not advocated for more citizen and council collaboration in the planned modular housing, or to have made funding to B.C. Housing contingent on at least some degree of resident input.

I believe by circumventing collaboration and not making provision for citizen input in the process by B.C. Housing, the eventual modular facility and the people it is designed for will suffer along with the community.

I don’t believe it is too late for citizen involvement in the modular project. The community has a fine tradition of town planning with resident input, as shown by the Silver Valley planning process.

At Silver Valley, community residents could attend four days of workshops, called “charrettes.” A couple of years later, there was the community SmartGrowth charrette for planning in the town core.

In my opinion, these collaborative processes were textbook examples of excellence in social planning.

Maple Ridge does need to address issues of homelessness and affordable housing. Yes, it is urgent. But no, let us not have a railroaded solution.

As Mayor Read has said, it is a health crisis more than a housing crisis. Let us aim for the best collaborative alternatives, not one unilaterally imposed on the community that, at this preliminary stage, appears designed to be housing without necessary detox and medical supports.

Roy Josephson

Maple Ridge