VCH study confirms housing reduces hospital use

A new study whose executive summary has been released by VCH suggests that supportive housing significantly reduces hospital use by individuals who were previously homeless and have mental health issues. An excerpt is below:

OUTCOME EVALUATION UPDATE - HOSPITAL UTILIZATION

MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORTED HOUSING
VANCOUVER COASTAL HEALTH June, 2008

[. . .]

This report brings together information related to 402 individuals who entered Vancouver Coastal Health funded mental health supported housing in the years 2003, 2004 and 2005. This study compares their emergency room visits and hospital bed use in the year prior to entry to supported housing and the year after housing entry.

[. . .]

The study found that for the 402 individuals in the year after moving into supported housing:

- Hospital admissions reduced by 35% (from 209 admits pre to 126 post)

- Average length of stay reduced by 40% (from 21.6 days pre to 15 post)

- Hospital bed days reduced by 55% (from 4,522 days pre to 2,045 post)

- Psychiatric admissions reduced 54%( from 4,043 days pre to 1,845 post)

- Medical admissions reduced by 58%( from 479 days pre to 200 post)

Findings were less conclusive for impacts on emergency room visits. [. . . ]

The provision of supported housing to these 402 individuals resulted in 2,477 hospital bed days (6.6 beds) being made available for others in need of these acute services.

VPD Superintendant says no to Olympic sweep

Had the chance to speak with VPD's Superintendent Warren Lemcke today when he told me that the officers he's in charge of for the North end of the city, including the DTES, won't be involved in any Olympic sweep of the homeless.

"You can quote me on this," said Superintendent Lemcke. "None of our officers will be involved in moving any of the homeless for the Olympics, except if it's into safe and adequate shelter."

So quoted, and glad to hear it.

Pivot releases tenant rights card, with a warning

From Pivot Legal Society.

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Vancouver – Pivot Legal Society released 5,000 of its new Tenant Rights Card today, providing Downtown Eastside tenants with a wallet-sized list of legal rights to assist in interactions with landlords. Despite the empowering tone of the cards, the rights listed come with a strongly worded warning.

“Tenants may have rights on paper,” said David Eby of the Pivot Legal Society, “but we’ve been told many times that these rights are rarely meaningful for tenants. Sometimes even a lawyer can’t help.”

The card points out that the Vancouver Police Department policy to refuse to intervene in situations of illegal evictions may result in tenants who insist on their rights being kicked out and left without a remedy. It also says that the City of Vancouver’s policy is to condemn a building, rather than use its bylaw powers to force a landlord to do repairs.

“If you’re illegally evicted because you insist on your rights, you can’t call 911,” said Eby. “You’ve got to fill out multiple forms, wait for weeks, take time off work, and have a phone or bus fare so you can take your claim to the Residential Tenancy Branch.“

Pivot’s Tenant Rights Card is based on its extremely successful Police Rights Card. More than 75,000 copies of the Police Rights Card have been distributed by Pivot and its partner agencies across Canada.

The final text on the Tenant Rights cards was the result of feedback from the Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA), the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre (TRAC), First United Church, the Vancouver Associated Network of Drug Users (VANDU) and Downtown Eastside residents themselves in focus groups. The Rights Card project was sponsored by the Vancouver Foundation and the Central City Foundation.

To see the wording on the card, visit http://www.pivotlegal.org/pdfs/2008-07-03-tenantrightscard.pdf

Geoff Plant leads CEOs on tour of DTES

Yes, Geoff Plant, Civil City Commissioner for the City of Vancouver, lead a group of CEOs on a tour of the "grittier" side of Vancouver, apparently catching his jacket on some razor wire in the process.

Mr. Plant was reported as saying "It would have been nice to spend more time talking, but people need to see for themselves what it is really like here."

In the interests of helping those CEOs see what it is "really like" in the DTES, may I suggest some destinations that probably weren't on the tour.

First, I would hope Mr. Plant took the CEOs on the tour of the container at Carrall and Hastings where the VPD, enforcing City of Vancouver bylaws, by all appearances under Mr. Plant's direction, store the seized belongings of homeless people.

Second, I would hope the private guards in public spaces who "move along" the homeless that sleep on the street because the shelters are full (and were funded with city tax dollars as part of Mr. Plant's initiative) were also part of the tour.

Finally, a great closer on the tour would be Mr. Plant taking the CEOs past the quite plump stack of invoices to the City for his work "solving" Vancouver's homeless problem, which would hopefully be beside the stack of pay stubs he received as an MLA "causing" Vancouver's homeless problem through his government's cuts of the early 2000's.

BC Housing shuttering SRO spaces

BC Housing is now closing 3 of the SRO (residential hotel) buildings it purchased in its recent buying spree. The Park Hotel (56 rooms), Walton Hotel (50) and Savoy Hotel (28) will all be, or have already been, completely emptied.

During a meeting with BC Housing, reps from that organization told me that the buildings had to be closed because the renovations were far more extensive than expected. They assured me, and the other tenant advocate groups that were present, that they did not expect any further closures. (As a caveat, dear reader, you should know that they had provided that same assurance at our last meeting three months ago when they announced they were closing the Walton and Savoy.)

Combined with the closure of Marie Gomez Place, BC Housing has now been responsible for fully 35% of the 585 room closures (not counting Little Mountain) in the DTES since June of 2007.

Although the news seems super grim, it isn't quite as grim as it seems. The BC Housing reps said that they have been opening previously closed rooms in the Drake Hotel and at other SRO buildings, increasing the stock somewhat to replace the now 210 closed SRO rooms or equivalents. And, of course, the rooms will re-open once the renos are done, which I'm told will be sooner since workers can now do the whole building at the same time.

We'll see. I'm expecting some stats from BC Housing on the closures and re-openings soon, and will post them when they arrive.

Neighbourhood news

In neighbourhood news briefs, David Malmo-Levine's "Herb Museum" is moving out of the DTES and into North America's marijuana headquarters at Cambie and Hastings. Surely it wasn't the drugs that drove them out of the neighbourhood.

In other news, construction has started on the second half of the Carrall Street Greenway between Hastings and Pender Streets. No word yet on whether the VPD and City of Vancouver will move their container full of homeless belongings to facilitate construction once the project crosses Hastings.

COPE candidates step up

Tim Louis has announced that he'll be seeking a seat around the City Council table this coming election. Rumours are that Ellen Woodsworth will soon follow suit. Another candidate showed up in the Georgia Straight commenting on the carbon tax, and I can't find that feature on their website to share her name with you.

Here's one person wondering whether a deal with Vision is in the cards anymore.