A community meeting to discuss a controversial facility in Victoria’s North Park neighbourhood designed to help the homeless find housing and treatment services has been postponed.
The City of Victoria confirmed the meeting, originally scheduled for Sept. 11 at the Victoria Curling Club, has been postponed until Sept. 24 to give residents more notice.
It will also give the city more time to find a venue, since concerns had been raised about the accessibility of the curling club.
The new venue is expected to be in the North Park neighbourhood.
Members of the community have been vocal in opposing the project planned for 2155 Dowler Pl., just north of Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre, saying they have been given little detail about how the facility will operate and what effect it might have on the neighbourhood.
Neighbours have raised concerns about open drug use, and the potential for increased crime in the area, and expressed frustration that they were not consulted before the City of Victoria helped to make the project a reality.
The city has taken the brunt of the neighbourhood’s anger, as it provided $300,000 to help SOLID Outreach Society buy the property.
The city is also contributing up to $1.8 million in operating funding for one year to SOLID, which will own and run the facility.
Staff will help connect people to B.C. Housing options and market rental subsidies, as well as drug-treatment programs, and will accompany people to health appointments.
The space, which will be open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m., will fit about 50 people at a time and food will be available.
Mayor Marianne Alto, who made a commitment in mid-August to hold a meeting with the community to discuss their concerns, is expected to be at the Sept. 24 meeting, which is scheduled to start at 7 p.m.
The Dowler Place project led to a Victoria firefighter being suspended for a day.
North Park resident and firefighter Josh Montgomery, who had been part of a protest at Victoria City Hall over the facility, was suspended due to the opinions expressed in a letter he sent to the premier asking him to step in and stop the Dowler Place project.
In his letter, written in the aftermath of a first responder being attacked on Pandora Avenue, Montgomery said first responders like him are seeing an escalation of aggression from individuals using social services.
The Pandora incident saw a paramedic assaulted while attending to a patient. The assault led to police and other first responders being swarmed by about 60 people. In response, paramedics and firefighters announced they would no longer go to medical calls in the area without police.
