Shelters not meant to be long-term housing

Re: “Shelters face a growing dilemma,” Oct. 22.

The problems of shelters are quite separate from those of supportive housing.

What everyone needs first and foremost is a home, with support as and when needed. A shelter can never be a home. It was designed to be a short-term Band-Aid while permanent housing is sought.

Since the 1960s, in our city, and the beginning of Riverview deinstitutionalization, many initiatives have provided actual housing. Those apartment blocks are still there, in many cases still with the original tenants from the 1970s and 1980s. Many have never been re-hospitalized because they had permanent, subsidized housing, affordable even under the distressingly low public-assistance rental allowance.

In the 1990s, under the guidance of city councillor Helen Hughes and Denise LeBlonde, a gifted housing planner and developer, we met monthly at city hall as a housing committee. A brochure was developed for those who might wish to develop a rental-housing project for tenants with various disabilities. I was not surprised to see the concerns from the Burnside Gorge area, as almost all the guidelines provided in this brochure have been ignored in the race to build more shelters. Hardly anyone can “graduate” from shelter life to renting in a “regular” apartment block.

We were specific in the brochure that no neighbourhood should be asked to take on more than a fair share of “labelled” facilities. The brochure should be reviewed for possible inclusion in city policies.

We need to review the past to avoid making more mistakes that cause hardship for those least able, at this time in their lives, to manage their distress.

G.E. Simpson Retired mental health worker Victoria