Tempers about a proposal to house the homeless have run so high that the City of Coquitlam, B.C., has called in the police to supervise a public hearing Monday night.
The last time the proposal for a shelter at 3030 Gordon Ave. was discussed at a Nov. 2 council meeting, the debate became so heated that city staff called the RCMP to report a disturbance and ask for help.
"There were a couple of people in the audience who became boisterous and began yelling," city spokesman Dan McDonald told ctvbc.ca.
He said that by the time police arrived, the two people who caused the ruckus had already left.
"The mayor and some staff people eventually took control of the meeting."
McDonald added that since then, the city has reached out to community groups to ensure that future meetings -- including one scheduled for Monday -- are more peaceful.
"People attempting to take over the meeting are going to be told that's not going to happen," he said.
Still, the city has asked the Mounties to send officers to Monday's meeting to keep an eye on proceedings, although McDonald declined to say how many cops would be on hand.
"We're going to have uniformed officers on site tonight, but in a passive role," he said.
Const. Kristina Biro said that some officers will also attend the meeting as representatives of the city's homelessness task force.
The contentious proposal is to sub-divide the Gordon Avenue site for a shelter and future adjoining market. The 0.62-acre property would provide emergency and transitional housing for homeless people living along the Coquitlam River corridor.
The 38,000-square-foot, four-storey building would include 30 shelter beds and 30 studio units, as well as emergency cold weather housing.
The proposed site is surrounded by a number of homes, a railroad line, a medical centre, an auto shop and a telephone service building.
Some neighbours of the proposed shelter have been very vocal in their disapproval. An open house meeting in September generated 12 pages of comments, many from people strongly opposing the project.
"We think this is a horrible idea for our neighbourhood," one person wrote. "For our kids, this will bring drug addicts, drug dealers, prostitution, break our houses."
In an online forum set up by the city to discuss the proposal, residents wrote in to express similar worries for their children.
"Parents should not have to watch the mentally ill homeless people watch from their windows and in our back yards," one person wrote.
Many of those opposed to the shelter suggest that a better location would be the Riverview Hospital, where psychiatric facilities were largely shut down in the 1990s.
"Why don't we keep Riverview and house these people over there? Some of these people (who need drugs) could become very violent," someone suggested at the open house.
But there has been plenty of support for the proposal, too. At the September open house, some residents expressed their frustration with a process that has lasted nearly 10 years since the city formed its first homelessness task force.
"For God's sake get cracking," someone wrote.
Others simply asked their neighbours to show some compassion for the homeless: "We need to provide a place that allows people an opportunity to receive a bit of help to break the cycle -- to get something set aside to take the first (and maybe second) steps to climb out of the hole."
Between 160 and 210 homeless people are thought to live in the area served by the proposed shelter.
An operator for the proposed shelter has not yet been chosen, and McDonald says there are several steps before the facility becomes a reality.
"This is not a fait accompli by any stretch of the imagination," he said.
Monday's public hearing is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. in Coquitlam City Hall.
