No Room at the Friendship Lodge

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 03:59 AM

Prince George, B.C.- The Friendship Lodge has not yet had its grand opening, but all 30 suites are occupied.

The Friendship Lodge on Queensway at 17^th Avenue, was built on the site that used to be home to the Backpacker motel.

The 30 unit facility is occupied by those who were homeless, or at risk of being homeless. Residents are expected to pay at least a portion of the monthly rent for their one bedroom suites.

In addition to providing housing, Friendship Lodge provides a variety of services to its tenants:

Life skill development
Employment readiness development
Case management and therapeutic group work
Links to the continuum of health, mental health and addiction services
Group activities
Referrals to other community services when required
On going property risk management
On-site 24 hour caretaker and
Residential support workers

Friendship Lodge will also assist individuals with mental illnesses and/or physical disabilities and those with drug and alcohol addictions will get the help they need to transition to self reliance and independence.

The professional mental health services will be provided in collaboration with Northern Health. Northern Health is committed to providing half a million dollars a year towards support staff for the facility.

Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Wednesday, July 29, 2009 03:59 AM in News by 250 News

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: acrider54 on July 29 2009 4:31 AM

Build another one next door

Posted by: Denaljo on July 29 2009 6:07 AM

At $250,000/unit build lots of them. Somebody will get rich!

Posted by: Outwest on July 29 2009 7:09 AM

Northern Health is committed, yes I would like to have them committed for spending our Taxes like there is no tomorrow .

Posted by: bigdog on July 29 2009 7:35 AM

It would be interesting to keep track of the people who pass through the Friendship Lodge to see if anyone actually gets long term improvement of life by using the services offered.

Posted by: amdica on July 29 2009 8:56 AM

I agree build another one they are needed!

Posted by: onemansthoughts on July 29 2009 11:07 AM

Yup spend millions to loose millions.
A good example of lack of experience in businesse. Of course the place would be full. Most are healthy young people that could be working. Whoever wrote this article is acting like there is such a need for this. I dont buy it......sorry.

Posted by: Born in BC on July 29 2009 12:46 PM

Northern Health is like any quasi-government organization.

In these situations the best people are on the ground (nurses, physios, etc) and the management is weak. If they were any good they would be in private industry.

Dont expect them to make good decisions. Succesful management types will avoid the government like the plague. Successful people are efficient people. Inefficiency drives them crazy. Northern Health is inefficient. End of story.

Posted by: metalman on July 29 2009 1:34 PM

You got it, Born in BC.
The NHA is top heavy and bloated at the midriff.
metalman.

Posted by: caranmacil on July 29 2009 2:21 PM

I would like to see some continuous monitoring of the effectiveness of this whole program. Is it too much to ask that the money have some significant beneftis? That is to say, over and above the provision of free housing (i dont buy the crap about residents being expected to pay at least 'some' rent. "hey, its the first of the month, go get me a car stereo or something")? I am sure we could house folks for less that the cost of the friendship lodge (who the heck came up with that name anyway? are the folks inside all expected to be pals?) plus the huge cost of running the thing. Just what is the cost going to be anyway? It seems the 1/2 mil from NH is just a start....

Posted by: caranmacil on July 29 2009 2:22 PM

Sorry, that was a bit of a rant. Its the 1/4 mil per suite thing that gets me riled up.

Posted by: supertech on July 29 2009 3:23 PM

That riles everyone. I could have built a hellofa lot more spaces with 8 million bucks. I live close and do go past there quite often and have seen only young ladies going in or out so far.

Posted by: NMG on July 29 2009 4:49 PM

"Dont expect them to make good decisions. Succesful management types will avoid the government like the plague. Successful people are efficient people. Inefficiency drives them crazy"

If we want things to change, shouldn't we be encouraging some of these "succesful management types" to start working for government? Wouldn't these be the people that could actually make things better? Wouldn't these people want a challenge? Is it possible that they leave government because they are ineffective in actually accomplishing anything in such an environment? Maybe they aren't as sucessful as they think they are?

Posted by: Harbinger on July 29 2009 6:59 PM

Seems to me 604 has Translink to suck millions of taxpayer dollars out of the economy and 250 has potholes and Northern Health. Same mentality? You tell me.

Posted by: mythoughts on July 30 2009 11:26 AM

I guess until it affects you personally, all of you would feel this way. I have a 51 year old brother who lives in this same type of housing in Vancouver. He receives a monthly disability cheque of around $800 and all but $90 goes to the residence. Since he was 17, he lived on the streets, group homes, shelters, etc. doing drugs, alcohol and did what ever it took to fund those habits. Since he's been in the residence, going on 3 years now, he's off the drugs and booze. He has schizophrenia and will require some medications & supervision for the rest of his life. They provided him with the counselling, supervision, and training he needed to get his life back. He now has a part-time job and I have my brother back after all these years. I would pay any amount of taxes for these people to get them off the streets and into a safe, warm environment where they can get the same help.