Wooded Lot Site For Wet Housing
The wooded lot at the corner of Dufferin Cres. and Boundary Ave. (right across from Beaufort Centre) is the site of a future low barrier, wet housing project to house people dealing with drugs and other issues.
Originally the city and provincial government had planned to build two housing units on this lot with over 70 units occupying the location. A local group of area residents have organized and let the city know they are not happy with the project as it presently stands. The city since announced the site would only provide 30+ units which is still too dense to satisfy area residents.
The group (HANA) are reported in the local daily as saying they are considering hiring a lawyer, since the city is unwilling to meet with them to discuss the groups alternate plan for the site. The group is not trying to block the project entirely, they want the city to reduce the size to house no more than 12 people. There is some support in the community for the belief that smaller projects of this nature are much easier to manage.
It's not just this project, either. They may have reduced the number of units for the project on Dufferin, but there is another 4-storey low barrier buidling going in just around the corner on Bowen Road across from Quarterway Pub, also with 35 to 40 untils. Between the two sites, this is 70 to 80 persons with mental illness or drug issues (or both) and the "friends" who might want to visit them, being absorbed into a relatively small neighbourhood (with an elementary school sandwiched in the middle) that already has its share of sponsored housing. I think we would all feel a lot better if the city wasn't proposing putting so many potentially problematic people into this community. Surely drug-addicted people would stand a better chance of recovery if they weren't all housed together in one building? Spread them out into the community... let all neighbourhoods share the load. Let the city councillors find spaces in their own neighbourhoods to house these people. Let them put their property values where their mouths are. By the sound of it, the Dufferin site is a done deal, but city council will need to vote to change the zoning from single-family to higher density in order to put in the Bowen Road facility. And we WILL be watching to see how they vote. Elections are coming.
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