Residents concerned about social housing at former Biltmore
Posted January 11, 2014 12:52 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The City of Vancouver is weeks away from opening up another 95 units of supported housing, this time in Mount Pleasant.
The units will be in the former Biltmore Hotel on Kingsway and are being offered to the homeless, people who are in shelters, and people at risk of being homeless.
The Residents Association of Mount Pleasant is worried about potential problems with the tenants.
“Some people were saying in our meeting that it doesn’t make sense to have 95 people upstairs, two bars, and an offsite liquor access downstairs,” says the association’s Stephen Bohus.
He says neighbours also fear for tenants’ safety.
“If you throw people with addictions in there with people with special needs and mental health issues, we have a lot of concerns.”
And Bohus feels the city should have made their plans public a lot sooner. The building was leased to the city for six years. The arrangement with the building’s owners was made in February of last year. Public meetings began this past week.
