The former Biltmore Hotel was opened as a 95-unit supportive housing facility in February of 2014

VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Six years after it opened as a temporary housing project, a member of the Biltmore Shelter Advisory Committee feels the situation in his Mount Pleasant neighbourhood is getting worse, not better.

The former Biltmore Hotel on Kingsway was opened as a 95-unit supportive housing facility in February of 2014. The six-year lease involves a partnership between BC Housing and RainCity Housing.

Don Gardner has sat on the committee since the opening and feels for the first two years, he had little to complain about.

“When the building first opened, there was a lot of scrutiny. The manager was excellent. There was a lot of attention paid to who was in the building and what was happening around it,” he says.

Because things were going so well, he believes, the committee stopped meeting regularly and as he puts it “people lost interest.”

But he feels when oversight of the building’s operations eased, that’s when the mix of tenants changed.

The facility has always been billed as low-barrier, meaning tenants are not required to abstain from drugs or alcohol. At the time of opening, 50 per cent of the tenants were living on the streets, 20 per cent were at risk of homelessness, and 30 per cent were from single room occupancy hotels.

Gardner says he has learned from a manager that more and more tenants fall into the low-barrier category, which he feels is not a good mix.

“You got 30 people who want to get better, and you got three who are disruptive and want to prevent them from getting better. Why the hell should we be bending over backwards for those three?” he asks. “The actual people we put in these places, they have an opportunity to get better and move on. A lot of that ain’t happening.”

He says from what he sees and hears from neighbours is that the amount of drug dealing and the number of syringes found has been on an upswing. Even crime, he says, is on the increase. (Monthly statistics collected from Vancouver police pertaining to Mount Pleasant shows a doubling of thefts from January to July of this year, but a decrease in August. Thefts from auto have been fluctuating during the same period).

He says the situation has deteriorated to the point he has called an advisory committee meeting to discuss the problems.

He hopes to share his concerns with police, the city and BC Housing during the October 15th gathering.

BC Housing says it is hoping it can renew its operating agreement with RainCity Housing, which expires at the end of November. BC Housing’s lease to occupy the building expires in another 13 years.

Details of the leasing agreement between RainCity Housing and BC Housing have been added since the story was originally published.