Study to assess housing needs of the mentally ill

The Canadian Mental Health Association has received $13,674 in provincial funding to study the need for mental health housing in Revelstoke, says Dawn Dunlop-Pugh, executive director of the organization’s Salmon Arm and district branch.

“What prompted this is our concern that people who need specialized care in Revelstoke have to leave their community,” she said in an interview last Wednesday.

Dunlop-Pugh said the study will begin in the New Year and will take about three or four months to complete. It will be conducted by Alice Sundberg, former executive director of the British Columbia Non-Profit Housing Association. Sundberg has been involved in social housing advocacy, education and development since 1981.

Dunlop-Pugh said that she has no statistics on the number of Revelstokians who have been forced to relocate to Salmon Arm, Vernon or other centres where suitable housing exists. However, she and other mental health workers believe the issue is a significant one.

Housing is already a significant issue in Revelstoke and it has very deep impacts on the mentally ill, she said said.

“People move to other cities all the time — that’s not the issue,” Dunlop-Pugh said. “For most people that’s a matter of choice.”

However, choice is not involved if you’re forced to leave your home behind because of an illness, she said.

CMHA provides a wide range of specialized mental health program and services in 135 communities across Canada.

In other housing related news, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation released its twice-yearly survey of vacancy rates.

As of October the national vacancy rate was calculated to be 2.6 per cent.

British Columbia, however, was just one per cent — the lowest in the country. And according to a Affordable Housing Committee report to Council on Nov. 26 the local vacancy rate here was 5.3 per cent.

DAVID F. ROONEY

Times Review