The Latest From the Vancouver Courier

Hello all.
On Friday, November 2, the Vancouver Courier posted the latest news regarding the Development Permit Board Meeting taking place on Monday (hope to see you all there!).

Opponents of East Side mental health facility welcome upcoming meeting

Cheryl Rossi, Vancouver Courier

Published: Friday, November 02, 2007

A development permit board meeting at city hall Nov. 5 is likely to be just as hot as the original one scheduled in July during the city strike.

More than 30 people have signed up to speak on a 45,000-square-foot mental health facility proposed for 2750 East Hastings. Development permit staff recommend approval...

You can read the article in its entirety by following the link here.

An Open Letter to Our Lady of Sorrows

This letter was written by one of our supporters after a conversation she had at a bus stop with a parishioner of Our Lady of Sorrows church who opposes the propsed development of mental health offices at 2750 E. Hastings.

I sat beside you on the bus the other night on the way home from downtown. I am glad you are now well, and am truly sorry for the injustices you experienced in the hospital.Your spirit of humanity was delightful; your willingness to listen and hear with an open heart was profoundly moving.

In a city where I see daily the lack of humanity I was moved by your recognition that people need help, that our homelessness issue is out of control, your offering of food to someone in need felt like hope.

There was much I wanted to tell you, but I found it too emotional to speak of in public.

You brought up the proposed mental health facility and the community division around it.

I tried my best without sharing my own story to relay to you, that the fear mongering by a group in our neighbourhood is without warrant and saddens me deeply. Coastal Health offices of this nature exist in other communities all over the lower mainland, and there is nothing to fear. They will not re create the downtown Main and Hastings issue in our neighbourhood.

The reason those situations exist is due to a lack of services in many areas, and the unsavoury characters who arrive alongside gambling facilities, pawn shops, liquor stores etc.

This mental health facility will serve people in our neighbourhood suffering from loss, grief, post partum depression, divorce, mental illness, dementia and illness. It will assist children who may have difficulty in school, or are handicapped, it will ease the loss ( due to gov't cutbacks) of what used to be in house counselling in our public school.

And it will serve us in our community, which is where we should feel the safest, and find unconditional support. Within our community there is the best possible chance for recovery from illness without the cold injustice you yourself felt alone in a hospital corridor.

_____, you talked of how you offer gifts to a child in need at Christmas, I had tears in my eyes, and it could have well been my own children who were gifted by kind people like yourself. I struggled as a single mother of two when my husband a long time parishioner of Our Lady of Sorrows became mentally ill.

He simply could no longer function and our relationship ended, at the time there was no help in our community for the treatment he needed. The stigma within his family meant that it was pushed forever into the closet. I cannot tell you what it means to know that someone eased my burden, wishing to gift my children, being incapable of doing that due to financial hardship, and finding a box on my door...with gifts on Christmas Eve.

That was twenty years ago.....

So I am going to ask you all to open your hearts and set aside your fear now.

That little boy that received your gift that Christmas, and lost the relationship with his father due to his mental illness grew up in our neighbourhood, he was not perfect and struggled in school, but his heart is huge.

When his sister came home from school crying because some kids teased her for doing too well on a test....I overheard him tell her how much he loved her, that in his eyes she was awesome, and no matter what she always had him, and to ignore those other people.

When he had a little sister join the family he simply adored her, he loved to cook and spent most Sunday mornings in the kitchen making the family waffles. On my birthday he would take extra care to make sure the kitchen was clean, he knew that for me this was how he could gift me.

When his sister in law showed up on our doorstep in tears due to a tragedy, he made her tea, and sat with her.

His sense of empathy and compassion were unwavering...to anyone in need

At age 15 that same little boy became ill with the same mental illness his father suffered from; he became slowly lost in delusion, paranoid and fearful of everyone and everything. I had no idea that these illnesses could be genetic and for me this was the cruellest and most difficult moment.

From that time our beloved son, brother and friend has spent most of the last six years in and out of hospital, he was too ill to live with us. It has been unbelievably hard to maintain that relationship. For me beneath the illness he still struggles with he would never want to find himself homeless or shunned by his community...and yet this is what has happened many times due to many factors.

We have lost many friends, who simply could not deal with their own fear around mental illness. Others have remained steadfast and compassionate.

This year, I ask you to consider reaching out to those on the streets...

When paranoia and fear overtake the brain, there is no safe place. That little boy has, since being diagnosed found himself homeless more than once, released into the night by uncaring hospital staff without regard for family- I guess when mental illness is the reason they simply assume no family is still involved- in his paranoia over food, he felt it safer to randomly eat out of a garbage can, than take the risk of being poisoned by food offered. (how many times have you seen someone looking like a frightened rabbit trying to find food in a garbage can on Hastings St.?)

This may sound difficult to understand...but I will explain it like this...

My son, experiences extreme irrational fear, and from that fear comes physical symptoms that overtake his body. His mind tries to explain the fear by logically reasoning the surroundings and people in front of him, so if he is now feeling very ill, and the nurse just gave him pudding, then his mind tells him there must have been something in the pudding...this progresses until at one point my son was near to starving...he was simply terrified by his own mind. In that place there is nothing a parent can do except stand in that, demand treatment and pray that medication will ease this suffering.

For my son, they have finally found a medication that works, however he has lost most of his memory, he suffers now from physical ailments, headaches, and joint pain, and sometimes he does not know why he just went to the store...

This year I ask that you open your hearts and minds to understanding those on our streets.

I ask that you educate yourselves, but most of all to give compassionately in your daily life, and to not allow fear to destroy community.

I have a dream that we as a community welcome anyone with mental illness, and reach out to those families who are struggling with this, just as we reach out to someone who needed surgery for another form of illness. When mental illness strikes a family, no one shows up with flowers, or casseroles, no one calls, in fact the entire family feels depressed as the loss of community.

....when you walk away today.....I ask that you consider this deeply- how have I responded to a family member who is mentally ill, depressed, or no longer able to function in society? Did I respond to my community without bias...or has my own fear isolated me from understanding.

No one asks to be mentally ill.

My son is doing well now...he lives in this neighbourhood, and by all outward appearances you might describe him as a hoodlum, gang member or street person, depending on how well he is doing. Mentally ill dress in bizarre manners to protect themselves-they are mostly terrified...

So I ask you all to set aside your assumptions and to consider that "sometimes scary looking" young man on Hastings St. with as much regard as you did twenty years ago at Christmas when we struggled to make ends meet. His heart has not changed.

Compassion is Fearless, and from that place all is possible.

with Loving kindness,

Kara Ardan & Family

Stand Up For Mental Health Class of '07

Click Image to enlarge.

Activists' Update

Update for activists

Development Permit Board meeting

This is it! The meeting is set for 3 pm Monday, Nov. 5 in city council chambers at city hall. (Ignore the ad in Friday’s Sun which said it was Committee Room #1. That’s wrong.) Use the following link to get background on how the Development Permit Board works. http://www.vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/dpboard/2007/Agendas/nov5.htm

You can also use this link to sign up to speak. We urge you to sign up to express your own point of view on this development. Even if you are not interested in speaking, we need you to attend to increase our numbers in the public gallery so the Development Permit Board sees that we represent a broad cross-section of community opinion.

And, bring a friend.

For the past two months we have been organizing for this day, and I am very happy with the support we have received and the way things have unfolded. Some important notes:

1. There will be upwards of 40 speakers. At 5 minutes each, that’s over three hours, probably more. The betting at city hall is that the hearing will be continued on Tuesday in order to accommodate all the people who want to address the board.

2. Parking can be an issue, particularly because COPE has scheduled a rally regarding the proposed Canadian Tire development for 5:30 pm Monday at City Hall. So, get there early, and tell Security inside City Hall that you will be there a while.

3. We have organized 15 of our group to address specific aspects of this proposal. Those speakers will be among the first to speak, beginning with me as Speaker #3. In this way, we will present the board with a coherent series of arguments in favour of this development, to help them in their decision-making. We then have a long list of people who will tell their story, give their point of view on why this is an important development for our community. I believe we will present ourselves as the rational point of view in the community, with a well-though-out and clearly presented case in support.

4. Understand that the opponents of this plan will be speaking in between the speakers for our side, and theirs will likely be highly emotional, highly exaggerated half-truths, mis-truths and fabrications, designed to instill fear into people. It’s important that we counter these points, but not detract from our central messages.

5. Bring a snack to tide you over the supper hour, or plan to go out to a nearby restaurant during the meeting. I’m told there will be a room nearby where we can go to relax, chat, have a snack, etc.


Keep reading for more interesting information

News release announcing our organization

News Release
For Immediate Release
Friday, Sept. 7, 2007


Residents’ community group formed to support
mental health services facility on East Hastings

A group of citizens concerned about mental health services in East Vancouver has formed an organization to support establishment of offices for mental health workers in their community.

Neighbours for Mental Health was established in August by residents of Hastings-Sunrise to counter the activities of another community group which is opposed to building the office building at 2750 East Hastings Street in Vancouver.

“Up to now they have been the only organized voice speaking about this issue,” said John Lynn, who chairs the new organization. “They’re a NIMBY group which wants the facility located somewhere well out of the Hastings-Sunrise area.

”A group of my neighbours felt the need for an organization to express the will of those in the community who wholeheartedly support this development so Neighbours for Mental health was formed for that single purpose.

“In essence, Vancouver Coastal Health is proposing to build an office building to accommodate its mental health team serving this area. They are currently housed in inadequate facilities at Victoria Drive and Broadway, and need to move to more modern facilities. We support this move because we believe it will benefit children, adults and seniors in our community who have a need for the services of mental health workers,” said Lynn.

“This is an office building. It is not a treatment centre or a clinic, as the NIMBY group claims. It will not be a drug injection site, or a detox centre or a needle exchange site as they suggest. It is an office for social workers and other mental health workers who work hard every day to help people in our community who have a variety of mental health problems. Vancouver Coastal Health has said they picked this location because it is within walking distance of 40 per cent of the people they serve. That seems reasonable to us.”

The issue is before the city’s Development Permit Board, who has to hold public hearings before they approve the development. We don’t anticipate they’ll hold the public hearing on this issue until some time after the civic strike is resolved.

Lynn said his group is organizing members of the community to present reasoned and thoughtful arguments to the DPB in favour of the facility. He said most key community agencies – including the Hastings Business Improvement Association, the Hastings Community Police Centre and nearby Kiwassa Neighbourhood House and many others -- are solidly behind the development proposal.

“Our group came together after we saw the scare tactics being employed by the NIMBY group. “They’re spreading fear among the most vulnerable and fearful in our community, including our elder citizens, recent immigrants and others.”

We will be asking all community organizations and institutions and health care professionals to come forward in support, and make their support known to the Development Permit Board.

At this point Neighbours for Mental Health has a core group of 12 volunteer coordinators organized into task groups, and has developed a list of more than 200 supporters who are willing to work on building community support. An event is planned in the community for Friday, Sept. 14 to help inform community residents and seek their support.

The organization has also established a blog to provide information to supporters. The blog is at http://2750hastings.blogspot.com/

- 30 –


Editors: for more information view the blog at http://2750hastings.blogspot.com/
or contact John Lynn at 604-258-9084

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Courier Article

Neighbours weigh in on side of Hastings St. mental health centre
Cheryl Rossi, Vancouver Courier
Published: Wednesday, August 22, 2007
When John Lynn went to a development permit board meeting July 30 for a proposed mental health facility at 2750 East Hastings, he was shocked by what he saw.
There were people on the sidewalk outside the Plaza 500 Hotel near city hall protesting the location of the mental health facility. They had come in buses and were armed with placards.

Click here for balance of article.

Georgia Straight article

Straight Talk
Mental health fight intensifies
Straight Talk By Matthew Burrows
Publish Date: August 23, 2007
An East Vancouver neighbourhood group has formed to throw its support behind a planned mental-health facility on East Hastings Street.

Neighbours for Mental Health on East Hastings Street already has over 60 members, according to Wall Street resident John Lynn.

Click here for balance of article.

Vancouver Coastal Health information

A New Health Office in Hastings Sunrise

What is being planned?

Vancouver Coastal Health is planning to lease space in a new three-storey building to be constructed by D. Bosa Land Corporation at 2750 East Hastings Street in Vancouver. Shoppers Drug Mart would occupy the ground floor, while Vancouver Coastal Health would occupy the second and third floors. The Hastings Sunrise Community Police Centre has also expressed an interest in leasing space on the ground floor.

Vancouver Coastal Health has been looking for space to lease in the Hastings Sunrise area for a long time. The proposed location, which meets all of Vancouver Coastal Health’s site selection criteria, would provide a single location for a number of health professionals and services currently located outside of the Hastings Sunrise neighbourhood, including:
• Northeast Mental Health Team
• Mental Health Housing Services
• Early Psychosis Intervention
• Child & Youth Mental Health Programs
• Geriatric Rehab Program

These programs provide counseling and outreach services for people who live in the Northeast area of Vancouver and are challenged by mental health issues. The building will have two levels of underground parking, with access from the lane.

Who will use the new health offices?

Mental illness affects people of all ages and backgrounds. Mental illness can affect children and youth, and adults and older adults. It affects people from all cultures and all income levels. Forty percent of the clients who will use the mental health counseling services currently live within a few blocks of the proposed location. The remainder of clients will come from the Northeast Service Area and outreach workers will provide service to people residing in this area. People living in the Downtown Eastside will not use these offices, as they currently receive service from offices located at 330 Heatley Avenue.

About one in 10 mental health clients who will use these offices also have a chemical dependency.

What client needs would be served?

Vancouver Coastal Health’s Northeast Mental Health Team is currently located at 2610 Victoria Drive in a building that is in poor condition and needs to be demolished. Other mental health outreach staff and counselors are located in offices throughout the neighbourhood.

The proposed location at 2750 East Hastings offers a central location for the Northeast Service Area, which includes Hastings Sunrise, Renfrew-Collingwood and Kensington-Cedar Cottage. This provides clients who live in the area with a single location for all of their mental health care needs, improving access for many clients. It also allows staff to work closely together, which improves client care.

What services would be offered?

The programs that would be located at 2750 East Hastings are outpatient counseling and outreach services for people who live in the neighbourhood. The offices would be open during regular business hours, and occasionally in the early evening to accommodate group meetings.

About 90 staff would work out of this office, including nurses, doctors, social workers, occupational and recreational therapists, and other mental health professionals. Outreach staff would use the office as a base, checking in each morning and returning again at the end of the day. About 60 to 80 clients would visit each day to receive counseling services.

How will the new building impact the neighbourhood?

The Hastings Sunrise Community Police Centre supports the building being located at 2750 East Hastings and architects have followed “Crime Prevention through Environmental Design” guidelines.

Traffic will not increase significantly, and secure underground parking will be provided. Shoppers Drug Mart on the ground level will offer residents new and accessible retail services.

How has the neighbourhood been involved?

The owner of the property, D. Bosa Land Corporation, together with Vancouver Coastal Health, has worked with the local community to inform them of this project. Input has been collected from the Vancouver Police Department and the City’s Hastings Sunrise City Plan Committee, as well as through community-wide meetings that explained the services to be provided.

What is the future plan for this location?

At this time, Vancouver Coastal Health foresees providing mental health services only. However, the Health Authority is constantly reviewing the way it provides services to its clients to ensure services are as effective as possible and meet all of the client’s needs. In some health offices in other neighbourhoods for example, both mental health and addiction services are provided.

Program Description for 2750 East Hastings Street

Vancouver Coastal Health currently offers a number of mental health services in the Northeast Service area. To be more effective, we would like to bring these services together into one location, making it easier for clients to receive the services they need, and for staff to work with one another. We are proposing to have the following programs and services at the new health office.

NORTHEAST MENTAL HEALTH TEAM
• Works with clients, including to improve their mental health
• Works with children, youth, families, adults and older adults
• Works closely with other community service providers to support clients to live healthier lives and meet their basic living needs
• Assists clients and their families develop their strengths and live productive and meaningful lives
• Committed to working with many cultures and provides services in a variety of languages
• Assists with securing housing, accessing community services, receiving appropriate treatment for a client’s physical and mental health needs, developing and maintaining social and living skills, and returning to or finding new educational and employment opportunities

MENTAL HEALTH HOUSING SERVICES
• Arranges placements in mental health residential facilities or supportive living options
• Facilitates access to home support and adult day centres for individuals with a mental illness.

EARLY PSYCHOSIS INTERVENTION (for children and youth)
• Provides service to individuals 13-30 years old
• Facilitates early identification and comprehensive treatment
• Works to increase community awareness and helps to decrease the stigma
• Enables families to cope with a family member affected by mental illness
• Provides information and education about mental illness
• Minimizes the impact of mental illness on clients' lives
• Provides education and support to families

CHILD AND YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMS
The Family Development Unit and Youth Residential Consultation Unit:
• Reduces the risk of children developing a mental illness by delivering early intervention programs for school-aged children
• Builds community and family capacity by providing psycho educational activities

GERIATRIC REHABILITATION (mental health services for older adults)
• Enables seniors with a mental illness to participate in life as fully and independently as possible
• Offers a Day Program and Peer Support Program
• Works mainly in groups
• Works closely with other social service agencies that provide care and resources so older adults with mental health issues can continue to access and be an active part of their community
• Works to improve individuals’ lives and decrease the isolation that can result from mental illness.