Pubdate: Fri, 17 Mar 2006
Source: Kelowna Capital News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006, West Partners Publishing Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.kelownacapnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1294
Author: Jennifer Smith
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

IHA FIRES BACK AT CRITICS

The Interior Health Authority have no plans to let the controversial 
St. Paul's Street transitional housing complex turn into a lawless 
drug-house, say IHA top brass.

Wednesday morning the health authority called a press conference 
responding to allegations levied at a community meeting held by the 
St. Paul's Business Committee, which attracted more than 250 
residents and business people the night before.

"The current site is selected blocks away from known downtown drug 
areas or better known by the judicial process as the red zone and I 
don't want the red zone to grow," said business frontman Jim Carta in 
a speech in which he accused the IHA and city of everything from poor 
fiscal planning to creating a haven for addicts from across the country.

In the weeks leading up to the Tuesday meeting, the IHA has 
continually been questioned on the impact the project will have on 
the neighbouring businesses, in particular whether the apartments 
will draw a crowd of addicts (and dealers) similar to the Gospel Mission.

"This initiative is an apartment building," Ira Roness, IHA manager 
of alcohol and drug services, clarified Wednesday. "It's not the 
Gospel Mission. We're talking about serving a different population."

The facility in question is a 30-unit apartment block where homeless 
and mentally ill Kelowna residents struggling with addiction can 
begin reducing or eliminating their abusive habits by making 
connections with counsellors and community services.

Residents will not be required to make the cold-turkey leap to an 
abstinent lifestyle, but must attend counselling services aimed at 
improving their health.

"We're going to gear services to people who really want to engage in 
services, who want to see their counsellor, who want to improve their 
health," said Roness.

Although he stopped short of calling information provided the 
previous evening misleading, Roness said many of the harm 
reduction-style addiction projects drawn to the public's attention 
over the last three months have nothing to do with Kelowna's apartments.

"We want to make it very clear what we are doing and what we're not 
doing. Part of the issue is that there has been information presented 
to the community that talks about certain initiatives that we're not 
incorporating within this model " Roness said.

"This is not a drop-in centre, it's not a place where people will 
come and access services who are not living there.

"Those services are needed but this is not what this is.

"We're not encouraging free drug use. We're not encouraging drug use. 
We're not giving out free alcohol.

"These are all things that have been raised by people in our 
community and the record needs to be set straight that that is not 
what we're doing."

St. Paul's business community stakeholders formed an ad hoc group 
shortly after the project was announced, led by Carta, whose 
financial planning firm Peak Investment Services lies blocks from the 
proposed site, and developers Mel and Dina Kotler who are planning a 
high-end condominium one block from the St. Paul's location.

They are questioning the site selected, whether the project can be 
controlled and the harm reduction philosophy of allowing the addicts 
participating to use drugs or alcohol without being evicted.

"It has always been my belief that no matter how difficult it is to 
get off addictions, that the ultimate goal is to become drug free," 
said Carta, in his opening speech at Tuesday's public meeting.

"That was not the principle focus in designing this particular 
program, so it leads me to believe (and the fact that we have CMHC 
(Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.) involved in this project as a 
silent partner on the federal side that this is very much a housing 
project--a place where people will come and access services--a 
project that's aimed at getting people off the street, but not 
necessarily rehabilitated."

Pointing out that 75 per cent of Kelowna's homeless are also mentally 
ill, Roness, director of mental health services Dr. Don Duncan and 
senior medical health officer Dr. Paul Hasselback told reporters that 
providing housing will provide the first step in efforts to curtail 
addictive behaviour.

Their comments were a rebuttal to the Tuesday meeting's featured 
speaker Dr. Colin Mangham, whose anti-harm reduction speech focused 
on saving family values and preventing addiction in youth. "Harm 
reduction has ceased to be a tool and has become a way of thinking," 
Mangham told the crowd.

"We have a false belief that all values are equal and I just would 
say that the very key to a civilization's survival is transmission of 
healthy values from generation to generation that support personal 
responsibility, respect for one's self and others The (harm reduction 
way of) thinking is pervasive, seductive and I would encourage you to 
be watchful of it."

The Kelowna project is open to those 19 and above, although the 
predominant age of homeless and addicted clients likely to use the 
facility is roughly 40 years old.

Tuesday evening the St. Paul group called on members of a 
Christian-based abstinence program to provide testimony as to 
alternative approaches to dealing with addiction rehabilitation.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom