New social housing project to study mental illness

Dave, otherwise known as Mad Dog, says he’s no longer blowing all his disability benefits on cocaine.

He was one of the first 50 people to move into the Bosman Hotel Community on June 30, and since then, he’s stopped using every day and spends less on his habit. He reckons he now spends $100 a month on coke and collects bottles to foot some of the expense.

“I don’t have to spend all my money at one time,” said Dave, a balding 51-year-old with blue eyes, a moustache, prison tattoos and missing teeth. He would not give his last name. “Nobody’s going to rob me, whereas I’m on the street, I don’t know how long it’s going to last, I do it all,” he said.

The Mental Health Commission of Canada and the PHS Community Services Society officially opened the Bosman Hotel Community Aug. 23. It’s part of the mental health commission’s At Home/Chez Soi project to study mental illness and homelessness.

Dave first heard about At Home/Chez Soi at the clinic where he collects his medication. He was homeless and says he was lured by the $35 incentive to apply for the program. He wanted the money for drugs and food.

But Dave, who suffers periods of depression, said he’s pleased to have a secure home until at least March 2013, his own bathroom, and a comfortable place to hang out after spending 20 years on and off the street.

Dave is one of 67 people living at the Bosman at 1060 Howe St. Thirty-three more tenants will move in by March. The PHS Community Services Society has leased the renovated hotel and runs the building, which is staffed by nurses, mental health and social workers, will be served by a psychiatrist, and offers three meals a day, art classes, First Nations programs, yoga and acupuncture.

At Home/Chez Soi runs until March 2013 in five cities across the country, including Vancouver. It will involve 2,285 people who are mentally ill and homeless. The federal government has committed $110 million to the research and demonstration project.

In Vancouver, 500 people with mental illness who’ve been homeless in the last year are being recruited. One hundred of them will live at the Bosman, two hundred will receive rent subsidies to live in scattered sites primarily around Vancouver, where outreach teams will support them, and another two hundred people will carry on, business as usual and be monitored.

Jeff West, project manager of the Bosman Hotel Community, said the residents range in age from 25 to 74, with an average age of 40. Women make up 25 per cent of the tenants.

At Home runs with a housing first philosophy, so residents aren’t required to abstain from using drugs or to comply with their medications to keep their housing.

Catharine Hume, Vancouver site coordinator for the Mental Health Commission of Canada, said staff ask residents about their goals and what’s getting in their way of achieving them.

“It’s meeting people where they’re at, providing them with a space where they can actually breathe a little bit and actually consider options that maybe they haven’t considered for years,” she said.

B.C. Housing has committed to help relocate residents of the Bosman, once the project ends, and discussions about how to keep the subsidy for scattered sites going are underway.

crossi@vancourier.com