UGM Development at Princess and Hastings

Hello, Strathcona residents. As promised at Wednesday night's SRA meeting, here is information on the Union Gospel Mission's proposal for Hastings and Princess and how you can respond to the City Planning Department. Those who were not able to attend the SRA meeting may be interested to learn that the approximately 40 residents present were almost unanimously opposed to the proposed development. Not only will many of those present be sending messages to the City opposing the development, some residents also volunteered to circulate a petition.

Below are some points you can raise in your letters. Please put these ideas into your own words because these particular words have already been sent to the City. (Thanks very much to those people who have already sent messages and whose words I am resending below.)

Send responses to Alison Higginson (alison.higginson@vancouver.ca), the Project Facilitator. Send copies to mayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca, Heather Hay of Vancouver Coastal Health (heather_hay@vrhb.bc.ca), Senior City Planner Nathan Edelson (nathan.edelson@vancouver.ca), to Mick Maloney, editor of the Vancouver Courier (mmaloney@vancourier.com), and to me, Rick Archambault (justanotherrick@shaw.ca). Please send in your response as soon as possible. We're running out of time.

Attached is the development permit application notification and UGM's description of its facility.


• UGM has not been a good neighbour at its current locations in the 600-block of Cordova Street and in the 600-block of Hastings. Once its facilities are closed for the day, the UGM seems to takes no responsibility for the fallout from its services. The area surrounding the UGM's properties becomes a market for drugs and prostitution, and a magnet for property crime and other anti-social activity. It is redolent with the urine, feces, vomit, and garbage left by UGM clients (and often cleaned up by residents and business owners).

• We have no confidence that UGM will perform better with its proposed new facility nor with good neighbour agreements, which have proven to have no effect on the operations of other facilties.

• Having only one set of entrance doors to the facility's dining room, as well as the proposed meal service model of "sittings" of up to 500 twice a day, will cause even larger line-ups and loitering on the sidewalk that will obstruct and discourage pedestrian traffic on that block of Hastings Street.

• The proposed facility is only one block from Strathcona Elementary School and just across Princess Street from the Waterside Daycare. Parents and children already have an unacceptable gauntlet to cross because of the situation described above. The proposal does nothing to alleviate this situation and will make it worse.

• Only five toilets are proposed to serve an average of 275 people (and a maximum of 500) per meal. There is already a serious lack of public toilet facilities in the DTES area, compelling people to urinate and defecate in lanes and streets. This will do nothing for the proper hygiene and livability of the larger community or for the self-respect of UGM clients.

• This service model will further segregate and dehumanize UGM's clients:
o feeding them in factory style "sittings" in an institutional building which returns nothing to the community at large,
o segregating men from women so there is little chance of normal human interaction,
o sending them back into the street to perform their eliminations.
This kind of treatment encourages negative behaviour.

• The facility's street-level design will not support an increase in the kind of vibrant, healthy, commercial and social activity which could assist with the revitalization of Hastings Street. The building will have blank, unattractive, institutional facades on both Hastings and Princess streets with no visual appeal or invitation to the wider community. The building gives nothing back to the street and will discourage any renewal of legitimate economic activity in the immediate area.

• This proposal is the latest in a series of isolated, piecemeal proposals for the stretch of Hastings between Gore and Clark. Our community needs a coherent plan for the redevelopment and revitalization of the Hastings Corridor

• UGM's proposal is a further manifestation of the city’s policy of containing Vancouver's social problems in the DTES. The SRC will continue to resist proposals that have further imbalancing effects on our community.

We believe the proposed expansion of this residential component (short term stay/transition Housing) is one of the least desirable housing options for both our community and for those in crisis. In this social service model the individual is only provided shelter temporarily or as a transition response and the expectation is that they move into more independent living situations. In the case of the inner city given costs of housing this has often meant being relocated into the SRO or hotel stock or other similar options that could be considered substandard. Short term emergency and transition housing model can be an initial response for those in crisis and facing homelessness, but it is an overused option in our community.

This is a prime DTES property. There were heritage buildings and existing businesses on the properties, but the UGM demolished them. The property would be much better suited for a commercial application. This is what the community needs. An influx of business would do wonders for here. It would bring life back into the community rather than more STW’s, drug users and dealers.

With another building already at Hastings and Heatley, the Mission will dominate the block. Almost all new development I have seen in other neighbourhoods generally consists of commercial retail at street level and residential above. On Hastings, however, there are already blocks of social buildings with nothing below, a dead zone that I walk through going home from work. Adding more of this to our street is an incredible double standard. There are absolutely no businesses there that cater to my needs or those of most of my neighbours.

If there were other developments in our area that somehow balanced the Mission's proposal and lessened this ghetto effect, I would generally be in support of it. If densification were taking place such that the proportion of addicted people within our local population was lessening to some degree, this would probably be ok. If there were developments similar to the Mission's proposal that were taking place throughout Vancouver, I might be able to live with it. None of this is happening.