Article content continued

But staff at a restaurant across the street from the modular units on Cambie Street — near Stadium SkyTrain station — said they’ve seen more problems since the modular housing was completed in November.

Bhel Ubongen, a manager of Fat Burger for eight years, said she has seen more drug use in the restaurant’s washroom and has had to deal with needles in the bathroom.

“We’re lucky for one day if we don’t have problems,” she said.

‘FIGHTING FOR MY KIDS’

Location is one of many factors in the city’s placement of new modular housing addresses, said Gray. The list also includes cost of land, appropriate tenant supports and amenities, and access to transit and zoning.

“The geographical location does matter. But also the other thing that you have to realize is that all real estate is opportunistic. So you have to find sites that will be available,” he said.

For McCallum, trying to recover from her addictions surrounded by the Downtown Eastside scene weighed on her.

“I was stuck in shelters for like three or four months. First time in my life I was living downtown struggling from watching everybody use. And you want to use, but you know you can’t,” she said. “It was hard.”

She’s come a long way since waking up in the hospital a year ago, when she was told she would never walk again and had lost custody of her children. She’s recently applied to go back to school with hopes of becoming an addictions counsellor.

“I’m fighting for my kids right now,” she said. “They’re not going to tell me I’ve got to sit in this chair the rest of my life. I got two boys I’ve got to chase.”

Patrick Penner, Rena Medow, and Kathryn Tindale are the 2019 recipients of the Langara College Read-Mercer Journalism Fellowship. This feature was produced through the fellowship.