Neighbours express concern about new transition house

A new transition house is opening soon in Sechelt, and the lack of public input before it opens has some neighbours upset.

Noel Silver wrote to Coast Reporter saying he was one of only four people who showed up to an information meeting held on June 6 by Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) that talked about using an existing home on Porpoise Bay Road as a transition house.

VCH said the home is meant to house up to four people from the Sunshine Coast who are recovering from addiction for up to three months at a time.

“Only about 10 houses immediately surrounding were invited to this ‘by invitation only’ meeting,” Silver said, noting the small invitation list was a way for VCH to keep the home “as private as possible.”

He raised concerns at the meeting about the location of the new transition house, saying it has a “high rate of crime and addiction,” and “is not the best choice to place a support home.”

“Drugs are sold in the laneway 100 feet away. My home has been broken into four times in 13 years,” he said.

Another nearby resident, Sharon Russell, also voiced her concern to Coast Reporter, saying she thought the transition house plan was “half baked” and that the poorly attended information session VCH put on was not “adequately publicized.”

The proposed transition house is in an area zoned R2 and District of Sechelt staff said VCH was under no obligation to hold a public meeting at all, as the zoning already allows for a transition house.

“We’ve got a couple of other ones in the community that operate quietly. We don’t really have to inform anybody,” said Anna Marie D’Angelo, senior media relations officer with VCH.

“It’s not like a rezoning process, but we do have meetings with the neighbours and we have informed the district, and then we had feedback from the neighbours and we’re going to have another meeting with them post-opening.”

She said the reason VCH wants to open a new transition house on the Coast is to fill a need for service identified by local doctors, and that the specific home was chosen for its central location.

“What happens is people who detox and are ready for further programing have to come to Vancouver, and so sometimes they can’t get in right away, so this is sort of to fill that gap,” D’Angelo said.

“So people will stay at the transition house for up to three months before they go on to further programing. They are people who are committed to their recovery and abstinence.”

She noted the people who would use the transition house are “people who live in the community right now,” and that they would be supervised by a VCH worker daily, be made to follow house rules and be subject to random drug testing. Anyone who fails a random drug test would be asked to leave immediately.

“It’s going to be run very tightly,” D’Angelo said.

She expects the house to be open sometime this summer, after staff is recruited, and she hopes the neighbours will become more comfortable with the idea in the weeks ahead.

“These people are in abstinence and all they need is some support with their daily lives. They will go to their sessions and meetings and have a daily schedule,” D’Angelo said.

“These transition houses – there’s a couple more in the [Sechelt] community there and they’re all over Vancouver. Once they’re set up, they operate very quietly and become part of the neighbourhood.”