Michael,

Thanks for your chronology regarding the Wallace development. I too was more than a little surprised to read in today's Globe and Mail about how Councillor Giambrone had been in favour of the 184 Development. The article caused me to log into the Dig-in board for the first time in ages to make sure my recollection wasn't off base. Either the reporter has their facts wrong and a correction should be printed or we need clarification from our Councillor.

I am also somewhat concerned that a casual reader of this article would form the impression that all opposition to the Wallace development was somehow based on unwarranted fear of the mentally ill. I don't think that was the case...though this wasn't an issue I was particularly involved with.

I am definitely in favour of a supportive-housing approach. And I don't in any way support comments intended to stigmatize the mentally ill. However, the question of whether a given community is appropriate for such facilities (or for more facilities) is not a non-issue . In terms of how such facilities are able to help the people they serve, where these facilities are located can make a huge difference. To pretend otherwise is irresponsible towards both the people making use of these facilities and to the community at large.

At a meeting back in July/07, Patricia Mueller the Exec-Director of Savards (the shelter for women with mental health issues at Bloor and Lansdowne) said that many of the women who come to Savards arrive with mental health issues... and after being there for a certain length of time, may develop drug addiction issues as well as take their first steps towards prostitution. (Michael, you were at that meeting so I'm sure you heard the same comment.) In essence, she was saying that the shelter's proximity to the drug-dealing going on at Bloor and Lansdowne negatively affected the life- situation of the women who had to use the facility...the location was AGGRAVATING the life circumstances of these women.

People with mental health issues who need supportive housing or shelters are not being done any favours when these facilities are placed in areas rife with drug-dealing, with few community supports in place and with no libraries, recreation/leisure centres nearby. To do so is to put vulnerable people in harm's way.

Below is a Globe and Mail article about the human rights complaint against Tony Ruprecht over his letter to the Committee of Adjustment about supportive housing at 184 Wallace.

Please note this paragraph in the article:

"City Councillor Adam Giambrone (Ward 18, Davenport), who supported the development, said the remarks were "typical" for Mr. Ruprecht, who he said often tries to "whip up sentiments against these projects."

Adam Giambrone appeared at the first meeting we had about 184 Wallace and my memory of that meeting was that he was opposed to granting the developer the variance that allowed for 10 units.

On August 4 Bert Archer wrote an article for the Globe about the second meeting we had about 184 Wallace. At the end of the article, Archer predicted Fernando Matos would get his variance. I sent that article to the Dig In listserv and Adam (or someone in his office) took my message and posted it on his blog. On top of that message, Adam wrote:

"In case some of you weren't able to attend last Thursday's meeting regarding the development plans for 184 Wallace, read the article below, written by Bert Archer of the Globe and Mail and contact Pat in my office for more information. Let's prove Mr. Archer wrong!"

In other words, let's stop Matos from getting his variance.

On my own blog, I wrote that opposition to the variance was not necessarily opposition to all supportive housing at 184 Wallace. So it was possible for Adam to oppose the specific proposals Matos and AIS had in mind without being against all supportive housing at the site. However, I think Adam or Chris need to clarify exactly where Adam stood on the development at 184, because the Globe article doesn't say anything about Adam being against the variance. A reader unfamiliar with the issue could easily think Adam supported AIS' bid to put ten units at 184. That's not my memory and that's not what Adam's own blog said.

Michael Monastyrskyj

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080202.LANSDOWNE02/TPStory/TPNational/Ontario/

February 2, 2008 HUMAN RIGHTS MPP faces probe over 'crazed' remark JEFF GRAY Globe and Mail

Long-time west-end Liberal MPP Tony Ruprecht is facing a human-rights complaint over a strongly worded letter he wrote last year opposing a 10-unit housing project for the mentally ill in his riding, saying the neighbourhood was already plagued with "crazed individuals."

A group of activists with mental illnesses allege Mr. Ruprecht's remarks, made last August as a provincial election loomed, discriminated against the mentally ill.

Mr. Ruprecht, an MPP since 1981, was unavailable for comment yesterday.

But he issued a statement apologizing if his remarks offended anyone and saying he supports community-based housing for the mentally ill.

In a letter to the city's committee of adjustment, which approves minor changes to zoning, Mr. Ruprecht said the Bloor Street West and Lansdowne Avenue neighbourhood has too many shelters, mental health facilities and rooming houses and their "attendant problems."

Mr. Ruprecht's letter says the developer behind the project - which failed to secure government funding and never went ahead - knew the area suffers from "pimping" and drug dealing.

"He is not ignorant of the high number of seriously mentally ill patients and others roaming the streets," Mr. Ruprecht wrote.

"He is not ignorant of our children finding condoms and needles in the back lanes.

"He is not ignorant of our young women being accosted and solicited for sex. He is not ignorant of the daily struggles of shop owners trying to stop crazed individuals from stealing items outright and urinating in front of their shop doors."

The letter unfairly blames mentally ill people for the neighbourhood's problems, according to Linda Chamberlain, one of the activists who filed the complaint with help from the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, a legal aid clinic.

"We want to stop politicians, or anyone else, from using this language," she said, arguing that if Mr. Ruprecht had made the remarks about an ethnic group, they would have been widely condemned.

Ms. Chamberlain says she spent much of her life on the streets and in and out shelters, suffering from delusions and hearing voices.

But once she got into her east-end supportive housing apartment, where a social worker checks on tenants and helps them with their problems, she said she was able stay on her medication and turn her life around. She is now the volunteer co-ordinator at the patients' library at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

City Councillor Adam Giambrone (Ward 18, Davenport), who supported the development, said the remarks were "typical" for Mr. Ruprecht, who he said often tries to "whip up sentiments against these projects."

Police say the neighbourhood's problems are real, but they are due more to drugs and prostitution than to people with mental illness. "That's not the primary problem in that area," said Staff-Sergeant Dave Woodley of 14 Division.

This was in today's Star. Unless Tony Ruprecht wrote another letter to the Committee of Adjustment about another unsuccessful attempt to build a ten-unit supportive housing facility in our neighbouhood, the human rights complaint I mentioned yesterday concerns comments he made about 184 Wallace. Note, Ruprecht has already offered an apology of sorts: "If in the course of making my point in that letter I offended anyone, then I apologize."

Michael Monastyrskyj

http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/299486

MPP's `crazed' crack riles mentally ill Human rights complaint launched over remarks by Tony Ruprecht in fight over supportive housing February 01, 2008 Kerry Gillespie Queen's Park Bureau Toronto Star

A group of mentally ill Torontonians has launched a human rights case against a Liberal MPP who opposed a supportive housing development because his community had enough "crazed individuals" already.

Linda Chamberlain, and eight others suffering from mental illness, claim Davenport MPP Tony Ruprecht violated the Ontario Human Rights Code, which says everyone has a right to equal treatment to accommodation without discrimination because of disability.

"It's really devastating to hear people, especially a politician, discriminate against people with mental health issues," Chamberlain said yesterday after filing her papers with the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

"We have the same needs and wants as everyone else. We're not a disease," Chamberlain said.

Ruprecht has 30 days to file a response with the commission.

He did not return calls yesterday but, late in the day, his office faxed a statement saying he supports housing for the mentally ill and is sorry if his comments were offensive.

Last August, Ruprecht wrote to the city's committee of adjustment urging it to deny an application for 10 units of supportive housing in the Lansdowne Ave. and Dupont St. area. He said the community already had a "high number of seriously mentally-ill patients and other roaming the streets.

"(The developer) is not ignorant of our children finding condoms and needles in the back lanes. ... He is not ignorant of the daily struggles of shop owners trying to stop crazed individuals from stealing items outright and urinating in front of their shop doors."

The application was withdrawn by the non-profit developers when their funding wasn't approved.

Supportive housing refers to affordable homes provided for people who need extra support to help them live independently and connect with the community, and sometimes include on-site staff.

Chamberlain, 58, who suffers from schizophrenia and a bipolar disorder, knows what 10 homes would have meant to people like her. After 20 years of shuffling in and out of psychiatric institutes, years of living on the streets wrapped in a garbage bag, and still more years coping with terrible rooming house conditions, finally getting a one-bedroom in a supportive housing building was life-altering, she says.

She didn't unpack for a year.

"It was a beautiful place, I didn't think I deserved it," and might not get to keep it, said Chamberlain.

Now, more than 10 years later she has learned to read and write, and works at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, where she helps oversee the patient library and trains telephone support workers.

"It's amazing what I've accomplished and I couldn't have done that if I didn't have a place to live."

The way she sees it, Ruprecht's letter and his encouragement of others to follow his example, helped kill the proposed development and denied others suffering from mental illness the chance to get the stability of a real home.

Chamberlain and the others involved in this case are members of the Dream Team, a group of psychiatric survivors and family members who push to get more supportive housing units in Ontario. They suffer a range of mental illness from depression to schizophrenia.

To lawyer Mary Truemner, who is presenting the Dream Team members, the case is simple.

"When you insert African Canadian or Jew it becomes very obvious how horrific this letter is," Truemner said.

"If you said `he's not ignorant of the high number of African Canadians roaming our streets' ... we would be very offended on the basis of race ..."

The mentally ill aren't responsible for the drugs and street sex Ruprecht is fighting to control in his riding but they're an easy target, said Peter Lye, one of the claimants.

"They don't fight back, they might be medicated, for me, my mental illness came out as extreme withdrawal, so I wasn't about to fight back," Lye, 61, said. "For (Ruprecht) to believe that he can get away with this makes me very, very sad."

Ruprecht said in his statement that he was not saying mentally ill people shouldn't get housing.

"The point I was trying to make is that our community already supports many facilities for people with various challenges and that this responsibility must be shared by all communities," he said.

"If in the course of making my point in that letter I offended anyone, then I apologize."

Yesterday my blog got several visits from people with Queen's Park addresses looking for information about Tony Ruprecht and 184 Wallace. I'm guessing those visits to my blog are related to this press release:

http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2008/31/c5399.html

Psychiatric survivors charge MPP with human rights violations

TORONTO, Jan. 31 /CNW/ - Nine psychiatric survivors file against MPP Tony Ruprecht today at the Ontario Human Rights Commission at 11:00 a.m., 180 Dundas Street West, 8th Floor media room. The matter rests on Mr. Ruprecht's written remarks about a supportive housing development in his constituency.

In a letter to the City of Toronto's Committee of Adjustment, Ruprecht had written of "the daily struggles of shop owners trying to stop crazed individuals from stealing items outright and urinating in front of their shop doors."Mr. Ruprecht wrote that his constituents were "angry that Government agencies seem blind to the fact that they are creating a ghetto-like atmosphere" and he encouraged them to write to the Committee, inviting them to "quote any part of my letter."

I believe that Mr. Ruprecht's public condemnation of the proposed housing and his insulting letter created a poisoned environment for myself and other mentally disabled people," said Linda Chamberlain, one of nine people filing complaints of illegal discrimination.For further information: or to arrange interviews: Jennifer Ramsay, w:(416) 597-5855 x5168, cell: (416) 996-4662