'This Place Saved My Life': Inside the Rainier Hotel

[romp]

The first time Paula Armstrong visited The Rainier Hotel, a renovated heritage building in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, she could barely climb the stairs to the second floor. A decade spent living on the streets, wracked by addiction and poverty, had left Armstrong close to death. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease had cut her lung function to

Comments

[homasse]

I love how they don't kick people out for falling off the bandwagon, but instead put them back into detox. That's the way to go, not automatically sending them back out into the streets because the relapse. This place sounds excellent.

[romp]

When our local shelter and housing was being designed, the outreach worker told me he was hoping for a "wet room" so people would have a place to drink. I'd never heard of the concept but it makes sense. Someone else there compared it to her alcoholic grandparents: because of privilege, they were able to get drunk in their living room every night. The people at the shelter are just needing a living room.

[homasse]

Y'know, I started to side-eye the idea of a "wet room," but then I remembered the single most depressing line I have ever had to translate, from a "mental health care" pamphlet for people displaced by the earthquake and tsunami:

"Please try to abstain from drinking at the evacuation shelter."

And...yeah. Sometimes, you DO just need a quiet place to have a drink.

[romp]

Wow, the things you wouldn't expect to have to write down.

The wet room can just be a practical call, keeping people out of the elements and off the streets. It makes sense that these people have other issues--abuse, brain damage, mental illness--that may need to be dealt with before dealing with self-medicating. But you're right that our Puritan tradition says you don't put up with that!

[gloraelin]

cryin' happy tears rn y'all. That is so amazing. I wish that this attitude were so much more prevalent than it is.

[brewsternorth]

God, this. Imagine what good could be done with a crop of places like these in NYC.

[advancedcookie]

Oh man, don't even get me started on Toronto municipal government right now, else I will cut-a-bitch.

This city is going to the dogs.

[nicosian]

Yeah, I don't know who voted for Mammoliti but he's gone square off the rails lately. Lots of good in Toronto, few of them on city council.

Not that vancouver was sunshine and puppies. I used to live in Gastown, and I thought INSITE and the Rainier, and portland did great things. Alas, people would like to see INSITE go, see DERA and harborlight go, and the SRO's are being converted off at rapid pace.

It really IS a matter of using our resources wisely. Institutionalizing doesn't work. Giving people the supports back to society DOES but a lot of people see that as "condoning bad life choices." When I used to walk my dog in the DTES, they'd stop to pet dog and we'd chat. the stories weren't "when I grew up I wanted to be a junkie" it was "i hit bad times, bad things happened."

[maclyn]

Shit like this plus the British System would make a massive difference where I live, but god forbid you should propose sensible policy around drugs and mental health.

[romp]

The federal gov't has tried to shut down harm reduction work despite studies showing it works.
an article

I wish these gov'ts would show themselves to be practical and more concerned with people than punishment.